Rogue’s POV:
After getting the cure, I returned home, back to the mansion. Only it wasn’t really home any more. Everything had changed. Professor Xavier, Jean, and Scott were dead, Ororo was attempting to cope with her new responsibilities, and Logan was in grieving for the woman he loved. I had hoped that at least things with Bobby would work out better. We could touch now, and when I got back we made out for half an hour. It was so wonderful that I cried. Not that I had any frame of reference to know if it was good or not, but simply the fact that I could kiss someone was overwhelming to me. Apparently, Bobby didn’t feel the same. The next morning at breakfast, I kept catching him and Kitty making googly eyes at each other. Being able to touch him didn’t solve our relationship problems, it probably just gave us some sort of perverse closure.
Bobby and I officially broke up a week after I returned. People looked at me twice as weird after that. Most of the residents of the mansion thought I was a traitor for giving up my powers. Now I wasn’t just the pathetic girl who gave up her gift to touch, but I was the girl who gave it all up for a boy who didn’t want her. I got the strangest mix of pity and hatred from them. But they didn’t understand, they didn’t have their gift take the form of a curse. And now there was no one to talk to about it, they were all dead or busy with their own problems. I didn’t want to add to anyone’s problems, and I couldn’t live in a place where I was a pariah. If I had wanted that, I’d have stayed in Mississippi. So I decided to pack up and leave.
It was a month after Alcatraz, and things were returning back to normal around the mansion. Well, as normal as a mansion full of mutants and millions of dollars worth of military equipment ever is. Logan was off on a recon trip, thankfully. He would have noticed me leaving, even if no one else did. I put a single white rose the graves of Jean, Scott and the Professor, silently thanking them for all they had done for me. I left two letters in my room, one for Ororo, one for Logan, then I walked away from the institute forever.
I ended up in South Carolina. It was far away from the two places that I had once called home, but it was still Southern enough that people were no longer making exasperating comments about my accent. Seriously, I wasn’t the one with an accent, they were! I had stashed enough money away in my years at Xavier’s so that I could afford a tiny apartment and I managed to find a retail job pretty quickly. Not sure how I managed that one. My resume was pretty empty. I could hardly list ‘junior member of the X-Men’ under job experience or ‘sucking people’s souls out through my skin’ under special skills.
I called the Institute a couple of times. The first time Kitty answered, “Hello?” she answered in that giggly voice of hers whenever she was around a boy she liked. All I could think about is how she and Bobby had hurt me, and I couldn’t say a word. Then, in the background I heard “Kitty, baby, who is it?” Speak of the Devil. I hung up and cried.
I tried again about a month later. This time Jubilee answered, and I thanked my lucky stars. She was about the only one not to judge me for taking the cure, and she sure as hell wasn’t about to say something that would break my heart. “Hello, Xavier Institute.”
“Hey girl.”
“Rogue! Oh my god, how are you doing, chica? Where are you? What have you been up to? Have you– ”
“Crap, Jubilee calm down. You’re talking so fast I can barely understand you.”
“Sorry. I’m just so glad to hear you. We all wondered what happened to you.”
“I left a note. Two, in fact.”
“Yeah, yeah. Stormy gave us the gist of what you said. But we still didn’t know where you went off to. Why did you call earlier? Even a friggin’ post card . . .”
“Sorry, Jubes. I’ve been so busy since I left.” A lie. I spent my days at work, and then went home to eat in front of the television every night. I had co-workers, but no friends. Nothing that interested me outside of work. Thought about going to community college, but I couldn’t find a major that I would really want to pursue. My life was empty and repetitive, but admitting that to Jubilee meant admitting that I was wrong about everything – getting the cure, leaving the mansion, cutting ties with my old life. I didn’t have much, but I did have my dignity.
“We’ve missed you. Why don’t you come home?”
“Xavier’s ain’t my home anymore. ‘Sides, I doubt that many people other than you have missed me that much. And you an’ I know that the only reason you want me around is so that you’ll have an accomplice in your little schemes.” I attempted to sound upbeat, but I was sure that I was failing miserably. Thankfully, Jubilee is pretty oblivious to subtle ques.
“Awww, don’t be like that Roguey-poguey. Of course we miss ya. You know that Logan misses you.”
I would be surprised if he even noticed I was gone. But if was nice of her to say it.
“I gotta get goin’ soon, Jubes, so here’s the short version. I’m working retail, got myself a nice little apartment all to myself, and I’ve gone on a few dates, but nothing serious.” More half-truths, but ones that would make both her and I feel better. “I don’t think I’ll tell you where I am right now, but once my life has settled down I will.”
“Really? That’s all I get? Where do you work? How many guys are you seeing? When—”
“Jubilee, I have to go. Just give my love to everyone who you think deserves it, and tell them I’m fine. And take care, okay girl?”
“Yeah,” she responded with uncharacteristic sadness. Had she seen through my false veneer of contentment or was she just upset that she wasn’t getting to hear more gossip? Probably the latter. “I’ll tell them you said ‘Hi.’ Call back soon, got it?”
“I will. Bye Jubes.”
“Bye Rogue.”
I didn’t call again. I had no new lies to tell and my real life gave me little to brag about.
Every day seemed the same. The biggest difference from one day to the next was what time my alarm clock went off and what kind of Lean Cuisine I would eat at night. I could barely remember my life before my mutation, but I was pretty sure that this wasn’t how a normal life should be. Shouldn’t I have had things to look forward to, things that I enjoyed, people that I liked talking to? But I didn’t. I had a routine, I had a place to stay, I had a job, I had all the things that normal people had. Right? So why didn’t I feel normal? Why didn’t I feel anything?
A month after he started working there, the new boy, Josh, heart-throb extraordinaire, asked me out. A couple of my female co-workers were within earshot, and I could feel their jealous glares upon me. He hadn’t been the first guy to ask me out since I had moved to South Carolina, but he was the first one who asked me at a point when I couldn’t come up with a decent excuse to blow him off. I knew that if I had given him a flimsy excuse the other girls would never let me hear the end of it. So I said yes.
We went dancing. He bought me plenty of drinks. I got drunk and he took me home. He fucked me. I didn’t feel anything. He left. He didn’t call back and he avoided me at work. Which was fine by me. I’d had my experience, and it had been like every other experience since I’d chosen to become normal. It left me more hollow than ever.
I kept waiting for a change that never came. My life didn’t magically take on some whole new meaning, it just kept going on and on. Till one day I didn’t want it to. I had lived my life, but I had thrown it away in an attempt to be happy, be normal. But all I had done was alienate the only people who had made me feel remotely happy. And it was too late to get them back, to get that life back.
No note. The only things I needed to say were already written in the two letters I left in my old room when I left the mansion.
Popped in ‘Harold and Maude’ – I used to love that movie. I lie down on the threadbare couch, blanket draped over me. I feel tired, feel numb. “Well, if you want to sing out, sing out, and if you want to be free, be free, 'cause there's a million things to be, you know that there are . . .” That song used to make me cry, but I can’t seem to cry. Can’t keep my eyes open. Manage to feel a single tear dripping slowly down my cheek. I don’t feel it as it fell from my face to the floor.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
This story takes place after X-3. Personally, I hated they way they portrayed Rogue in that film, and this is what I would predict as the outcome of her actions in that film.