When I first came here, I would pace back and forth around my tiny cell. Three steps from my thin pallet to the hole in the floor that is my toilet. Turn right and two steps brings me to the rusty sink that spits out metallic-tasting water. Three more steps, and I reach the barred door. Turn right, four steps, turn right a final time, and in four steps I reach my pallet once more. Back then hope of a quick rescue fueled my restless energy . When my captors pushed a tray of bland rations through the slot at the bottom of my door I would jump for it, aware that I needed to keep up my strength. I drank from the trickle of water my sink provided and plotted what I would do to the first person to get within in easy reach of my skin. When I wasn’t plotting my escape or hoping for rescue, I berated myself for the stupidity of allowing my capture.

I thought I was a goner at that point, when the Sentinels had my small hiding place surrounded. Then from behind I heard a hiss followed by a sharp pain in my neck. When I woke up in my cell, I knew that I had been hit with a tranquilizer. I began pacing right away, the voices in my head uncomfortable in the claustrophobic cell.
I ate twenty meals and slept four times before they rushed into my cell wearing black hazmat suits. I had no opportunity to absorb one of them, and although I fought as best I could, as I had been taught for years, they overwhelmed me, strapped me to a gurney brought in by a final figure and shot me up with something that burned through my veins. I lost consciousness shortly after as they wheeled me through a dimly-lit hall.

When I woke up I was lying on my pallet once more, curled up on one side. A dozen new voices crowded into my skull, overwhelming me. My throat felt raw, my lips cracked as if I had bitten off all the skin. I tried to suppress the voices, the memories, just as Professor Xavier taught me. There were so many that after a few tries I passed out from the effort. Once I regained consciousness, I began again. Three meals appeared under my door before I managed to find enough peace in my own head to pace again.

My time passed like that. I ate, I slept, they came, I fought, and I woke up with still more voices in my head pressing out what should be “me”. Eventually I ate less, the pain and exhaustion from subduing the new voices and personalities too much strain for my body to handle. The struggle to overcome the voices became longer even as the number added became fewer with each trip. At first I wondered why they were doing this.

“Why” doesn’t matter to me anymore. I just want them to end this torment. When I woke up moments ago, there was only one new voice. However, its strength tells me something new. They have used me to kill. I have become their executioner.

Food is pushed through the usual slot moments after I open my eyes, but I can only lie on my pallet, tears pouring down my cheeks as she screams in my mind. I no longer feel the urge to pace. My hope has fled, destroyed by their callous disregard of the effect my mutation would have on me.

I hear shouts outside my door. This happens every once in a while, when they bring in someone new. The sound is mostly drowned out while the new voice rants at me. Her name is Carol, and she sure is pissed. It’s starting to get to me. I’m becoming just as angry. For her, for me, for this whole crappy situation where someone thinks they have the right to do this to us.

The outside shouts are getting louder. I feel I should recognize them, but right now all I can do is squeeze my eyes shut against my own inner turmoil. The voices outside disappear once more under the waves of pain buffeting my mind.

I am only distantly aware of my door opening. It must be time again, or maybe they’re here to kill me at last. I haven’t even had a chance to eat my meal, but perhaps that’s for the best. I leave my eyes closed, praying they are finally here to kill me. Carol whispers that I deserve death since it’s all I can mete out. I keep my breathing even, shallow, as I fight against the pain and find enough hope left inside to wonder if it will be quick, maybe another needle prick and then oblivion.

“Get up, kid.” The voice is gruff. At first I think it’s only in my head, the small remnant of him I’ve never been able to force myself to let go of urging me not to accept death without a fight. Then I realize I heard him with my ears, too. It is the first voice to actually speak to me in so long that I am able to crack my eyes open slightly.

“Can’t,” I croak out, somehow managing to force the word past my cracked, dry lips. “Hurts.” I hate how weak I sound, and around him no less. It has been years since I have allowed him to see me as weak.

“I know, kid, but we gotta get out of here quick before they send in the Sentinels. We were lucky the ones stationed here were off on some kind of raid when we arrived.” His voice is grim, the way it always is these days, but his mention of the Sentinels causes my hand to shoot out almost of its own accord. His gloved hand grabs mine, and he hauls me to my feet. I stagger against him as pain blinds me for a moment. To my surprise, he crashes hard into the wall beside my door. I stare at him in horror, but he shakes it off with a growl, grabs my arm, and drags me behind him out the door.

“New passenger, darlin’?”

“You could say that,” I pant out as I try to keep up with him on trembling legs.

Up ahead I see bodies in white lab coats or black armor, all covered in rows of bright red along every visible surface. I can’t tell if they are alive or dead, and I don’t care. We turn a corner, and to my relief Professor Xavier and Magneto are waiting for us. Tears gather in my eyes as Charles slides an arm around my waist. We travel even faster down the next hallway as Magneto moves bodies away from us by the bits of metal they still wear. I can feel my rescuers’ urgency increasing even as our pace follows suit, and then we are standing in front of a gaping hole in a wall that must be ten stories above the ground.

Logan wraps his arms around me, and I tuck my head under his chin to minimize the chance of skin-to-skin contact. We are airborne less than a second later, headed towards the Blackbird hovering just above us. This is familiar to me after the last few years of running and fighting. Magneto and the Professor follow us into the open sky, the latter thanks to the jetpack he wears. The welcome, battered outline of the jet draws nearer, and we sail into the open hatch that snaps shut behind us.

I don’t let myself feel hope that we will make it until I plant my feet on the deck of the aircraft. Logan sets me in a seat and helps me buckle the harness when my hands shake too much to do it myself. I stare up at him, then at the Professor, Magneto, and finally Storm in the pilot seat. I can feel the shock of the situation setting in and close my eyes.

Carol takes the opportunity to begin screaming in my mind again, upsetting my delicate mental state even further.
A hand rests on my hair, and then Carol and I are no longer along in my mind. The Professor’s voice echoes between the two of us.

“Enough!” His command is strong enough to quiet even Carol, let along the chorus egging her on from inside my head. “My dear, you must cease your quest for vengeance against Rogue. It is not her fault that your captors used her mutation against you, damaging her as well. Instead, you should focus your energy on defeating your mutual enemy so that Rogue may also. Together, you have the strength to quiet the other voices in her mind and allow her to concentrate on the task at hand.”

Carol whimpers but remains blessedly quiet. Behind my closed eyes I can see her cowering form, straggly blond hair and bloodshot green eyes staring up at me. I imagine myself holding out my hand to her.

“Please,” I plead, not entirely sure what I am asking. When Carol’s fingers brush mine once, twice, before latching on, I feel as if I can finally breathe again. Carol’s presence fades to the back of my mind, a controllable seething darkness that swallows all the other voices begging for attention.

I open my eyes once more and meet the Professor’s compassionate gaze as he removes his hand from my head. “Thank you.” My words are raspy but free of the constant pain I have lived with for what seems like ages.

“You are very welcome. We are extremely relieved to have you back with us.” He squeezes my hand with his own, a careful press of fingers that nonetheless warms me. “Now, let’s see about getting you some food. It looks as if they were barely keeping you alive.”

Logan doesn’t need the look the Professor shoots him to propel himself forward. He holds out a small flask. “It’s a protein shake. I don’t know how much your stomach is up to.”

“I’ve been hungry enough to eat a horse for…days? Weeks?”

I distract myself from my lack of awareness about my situation by raising the flask to my lips with shaking hands. A quick gulp reveals that the shake is supposed to be chocolate, although it bears little in common with my fading memories of that taste. “They fed me, or tried to. Lately I’ve been in too much pain to move, let alone eat. I think they gave me an IV when they were experimenting, until this last time.” The bitterness echoes in my tone.

“The other occupants of the plane are silent. Not even the engines purr in the background since Magneto took control as usual once he was onboard. The only sound that meets my ears are our breathing and my gulps as I finish the shake. Once I hand the flask back to Logan, I manage to meet their eyes once more.

“So, how long did they have me?”

“Two weeks, four days, and seven hours.” As I expected, Logan is the only one willing to answer me. He of all people appreciates what it is like for someone to hold you against your will and experiment on you.

“Have they managed to integrate my DNA into the Sentinels yet?” We always knew this might happen. The thought of Sentinels able to drain and use other mutants’ powers has haunted us for years. It is the reason the other mutants have been willing to protect me for so long, even those not part of my original “family.”

“We do not believe they have perfected it yet, but there have been prototypes spotted. They were all based out of the facility you were being held in, which is how we found you once we realized you had been captured instead of killed in that last attack.” The Professor sounds apologetic, as if he thinks he could have stopped what happened. I reach over and cover his gloved hand in my own.

“It wasn’t your fault, Charles,” I tell him, using his first name as I rarely do. “They overwhelmed us. I was just glad that they didn’t get the rest of you.” This is the truth. Knowing my closest friends, what is left of my family, had been captured alongside me would have caused a complete loss of hope.

To my surprise, Logan wraps his arms around my shoulders, pulling me as far forward into a hug as the harness will allow. After a moment of frozen shock I lift my arms to wrap around him in return, once again mindful of my new strength. This feels right, feels wonderful, as his hugs always do even though they are few and far between and have never led to more the way I sometimes wish they would. I’ve always been too much of a coward to try for more, afraid to lose my best friend, and Logan has never given any indication that he wants more.

This hug is different than any he has given me before. His arms cradle me against his chest, as if he’s afraid I will disappear once he lets go. “We thought you were dead,” he whispers into my hair, and then I understand. So many people in Logan’s life have died, especially in the last five to ten years, but few were as close to him as I am. We have developed a deep bond over the years, and the pang of despair I feel at the mere thought of his death is enough to clue me in on how he must be feeling.

“I’m alive, and I’m here with you all again.” I don’t try to lie and tell him everything will be fine. We all know how precarious our future existence is.

Storm clears her throat, causing Logan to pull away. She throws me an apologetic look. “We need to get somewhere safe. I received word just as the rescue started that a group of former X-Men have found sanctuary in a temple in China. Kitty Pride is with them.”

Kitty. One of my best friends when I was a student, we went our separate ways when she ran off with my boyfriend just after my mutation reappeared. That was also just months before the Sentinels descended to destroy everything we had worked for. They started their own little branch of the X-Men in Asia. More power to them, not that I’m all that bitter anymore. I admitted to myself a long time ago that it was only a matter of time, the way those two acted around each other.

“What does Kitty have to do with anything?” While our two groups had interacted before, I am not aware of any pressing reasons to go to them besides the need to save our own skins from the Sentinels once more.

Magneto clears his throat and then gives a short chuckle. “Charles believes that Miss Pryde’s emerging abilities in manipulating time as well as space hold the key to going into the past in order to change our future.”

My eyebrows fly up to meet my hairline. This has been the Professor’s pet project for at least a year. I find it a little difficult to believe that the answer lies with my former friend, but I’m willing to go along with whatever the plan is. After all, it isn’t as if I have anything better to do, and getting rid of this clusterfuck of a future can’t be a bad thing.

“We realized that if the Sentinels have access to your DNA, whether you were alive or not, then it is time to investigate my theory further,” the Professor continues for Magneto, obviously eager to explain this latest development. “You may have a piece to play in this as well, Rogue,” he tells me.

I feel Carol stirring at the back of my mind with interest at the thought of taking down this evil present.

I have a bad feeling that my involvement will include touching Kitty to use her power, but I only nod my head. As little as I want to take in Kitty’s psyche, it will be worth it if the Professor’s plan works. I’ll just take this one step at a time, starting with settling back into my seat while the others prepare for the flight to China.

Logan sits next to me, not a surprise considering the many flights we’ve spent playing card games or just talking about “what ifs”. He cradles my left hand in his right as if he is afraid I’ll disappear if he lets go. We don’t speak during the trip, and I manage to slip into a light doze, the first peaceful sleep I’ve had since the experiments began.