She was bored, that's what started it all, boredom, and looking back on all that had happened since that fateful day, she wouldn't change a thing.
*
She'd been abandoned by her friends while they went off to do things she couldn't - on this occasion, parading around in bikini's on a crowded public beach - so again, she was left to her own devices in the sprawling mansion she now lived in; it wasn't a bad step up for a teenage runaway.
The last time she'd been left behind she'd explored the library, top to bottom, and found what appeared to be blueprints for the entire building. One set looked like originals, old, worn, faded, and fragile, the second set was also old, but a more recent copy. She had been going to hand them over to the Professor - they didn't look like something that should be in the library - until she had looked closer and seen the network of hidden passages marked around the mansion.
She got curious, she knew from history class that really old houses were built with hidden passages, and in some cases entire wings, for servants, some were utilised in the underground railroad too. So, she kept the copy of the blueprints, handing in the originals, and decided next time she was bored she would explore the hidden history of the building she lived in.
And that was what led to her standing where she was right now, in the dark, narrow, dusty, unused hallway somewhere in the mansion. It had taken her fifteen minutes to figure out how to open the panelling on the student hallway to access the hidden passage. When she'd finally figured it out, she felt like such an idiot, it had been surprisingly obvious once she knew what she was looking for. She had a torch with her but so far hadn't needed to use it, enough light was filtering through the passages through vents, and a surprisingly elaborate series of mirrors that reflected sunlight around.
She'd been exploring for over an hour before she'd worked her way up to the attic level and finally found what she'd been looking for. A hallway, lined with doors of what must have, long ago, been servants’ quarters. With a newfound excitement she began exploring the rooms, she was hoping to find out more about the people who had long ago lived here, hopefully they'd left something behind. She tried to ignore the bitter thought that she felt like she had more of a connection with people who had probably been dead for a hundred years, than the living breathing people she lived with.
Over the next few hours she went through each of the dusty, long abandoned rooms, Each room had two doors, one into the bare secret hallway she'd entered from and a second onto a fancier hallway, that looked like the rest of the main areas of the mansion, she decided to explore that next and see what part of the house it emerged to. The rooms had dusty threadbare rugs on the floor, an old saggy bed with a collapsed, moth-eaten mattress, a small, free-standing wardrobe, and a table and washbasin.
As she went through each room, she stockpiled the things she found - a hairbrush, a dairy, a shawl, some silver candlesticks that had been stuffed in the back of a wardrobe wrapped in an apron. In the fourth room she found a chest, full of clothes, mostly worn workwear, both men’s and women’s, with a few nicer, fancier dresses carefully rolled and wrapped in the bottom.
But it was the fifth room where she made the most surprising discovery.
The door initially wouldn't open, it took all of her strength, to get the door to budge, when it finally scraped inward, she discovered why it had been so difficult. A large, heavy, dresser was pushed up against the door, the door of a room that had been occupied a lot more recently than the previous rooms.
This room was bigger than the others, it looked like it may have once been two rooms. It had a large modern bed, a dark wood bedroom set, with bedside tables, the door barring lowboy, there was also a tallboy across the room beside the second door, a desk, and a couch. There was a third doorway in this room, leading through to a modern bathroom, with a toilet, shower, and vanity.
As she explored this room more, she realised this room was not abandoned, someone was still living here even if they weren't in the room right now. She froze as she considered what she should do, she was distracted when her brain kept going back to trying to deduce who must live in this room, it was a man, judging by the personal effects but for the life of her she couldn't think of anyone who lived or worked here that it might be.
It was during this period of distraction that she suddenly heard footsteps outside the door to the fancy hall. She panicked and bolted out the door she'd come in, slamming it behind her just as the second door opened. She didn't stop running until she burst out of the panel door into the dorm hallway, slamming that behind her too she ran down the hall and into her room locking the door behind her. She was leaning against the door trying to catch her breath when she heard the same footsteps approaching her door now, whoever it was stopped outside her door. After a minute of silence, the footsteps retreated.
She took a moment to build up her courage before unlocking the door and swinging it open to see who it was who had followed her.
The hallway was empty.
--
It took her a week to work up the courage to go back to the attic. She'd spent that week trying to identify who it was who lived up there but she was no closer to figuring it out from the goings on in the common areas.
She decided to go back, not because she wanted to see who lived up there, but because she wanted to retrieve her treasure, particularly the diary. This time, she waited until dark. She had to borrow Kitty's emergency torch after realising, she had dropped hers at some point in her mad dash back to her room the week before.
She paused at the entrance to the hallway, listening carefully, not wanting to disturb the halls lone resident. Only silence met her ears. Flicking the torch back on she slipped down the hallway into the fourth bedroom where she'd been stockpiling her findings.
"Shit!" she muttered, as the torchlight illuminated the bed. It was empty, everything she'd found was gone. She turned to the fifth room; he must have found it when he followed her. She approached the door, considering whether she should suck up her nerves, knock, and ask for it, when she realised the fifth door stood before her, already open.
"Hello?" she called out softly, once she'd plucked up her courage, "Is anyone in there? I just want the stuff I found, do you have it?" She pushed against the door, opening it enough for her to see in, trying not to shudder as the door creaked ominously as it opened to reveal the dark void of the empty room. Taking a step inside as the moon came out from behind a cloud and illuminated the room through the skylight.
The room looked empty, turning her torch into the room she scanned it again, it was indeed empty, she took another step into the room scanning more of the room when her torch passed over the desk.
"Bingo!" she murmured, hesitation forgotten as she skipped into the room and headed for the pile of odds and ends on the desk.
She'd just reached the desk when she again heard footsteps quickly approaching the other door, before she could dart out of the room again the hallway door flew open, the disturbance causing the secret door to slam shut at the same time, and she was trapped.
The tall man who stalked in didn't seem to notice her initially but that didn't last long when in her fright she dropped the torch. A harsh crack preceded the light going out, leaving the room bathed in the dull silvery glow of moonlight. His head instantly snapped up in her direction, she couldn't make out his face but she had the distinct feeling he was staring directly at her.
He shut the door behind him before slowly and deliberately stalking towards her. She gulped nervously as she backed away from him, her retreat halted when she hit the desk. As he got closer to her, she couldn't help the feeling that overwhelmed her, he was a good foot taller than her, and looked like he was built of solid muscle. His stare, even though she couldn't see his eyes, was drilling into her, as if he was daring her to try and run.
He stopped, leaning forward and resting his palms on the desk either side of her, cutting off her escape routes. His face was so close to hers she could finally see his eyes, glittering dangerously, his lip curled in what might have been a grin but in the muted light looked more like a snarl. She didn't realise she was holding her breath until he moved, tilting his head and appearing to sniff her.
"Well, what do we have here," he finally rumbled, in a deep growling voice that vibrated right through her turning her insides to mush.
She stood there frozen, not knowing what to do, gasping in shock when he suddenly reached for her, one hand closing on her hip, pulling her closer to him as his other hand slid around the back of her head, burying his fingers in her hair as he tilted her head back. She realised what he was about to do as his face closed in on hers, she barely had time to blurt 'my skin', before his lips were on hers.
She wasn't sure what surprised her more, that this guy she didn't know was kissing her, or that nothing was happening. There was no pulling, no flood of energy, no flashes of thoughts and memories that weren't hers, and no collapsing, twitching, and seizing. She was so surprised she didn't even think to try and stop him.
The Wolverine & Rogue Fanfiction Archive
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Story Notes:
This is a long one, it is finished on my hard-drive but it's 28 chapters long!
If you want to wait to read the whole thing in one go wait until all 28 chapters are up, otherwise I'll drip feed it, hopefully with an upload a day, for people who enjoy the suspense ;)
If you want to wait to read the whole thing in one go wait until all 28 chapters are up, otherwise I'll drip feed it, hopefully with an upload a day, for people who enjoy the suspense ;)