. III .
“Rogue? Rogue, darlin’? You ‘wake?”
She groaned, barely able to get her eyes open. Her head was throbbing with a dull ache, radiating from the bridge between her eyes to the back of her skull. She shifted onto her back, brushing a lock of hair away from her face. Remy was beside her, the warmth radiating from his naked body, bringing back deliciously tortured memories of the night before.
“Am now,” she mumbled, feeling disorientated. She tried opening her eyes just a crack. It wasn’t even particularly light in the room, but when she did so her head began to reel again. She squeezed her eyes shut again, rolling over and burying her face into what she presumed was Remy’s shoulder. Not a migraine. Not now.
“Rogue? You okay?” he asked, his arms going about her. She snuggled into the embrace, nestling her forehead into his broad shoulder. He still smelled of last night. So good…and yet she hardly remembered any of it.
“Ah feel like Ah’ve got the worst hangover,” she croaked in reply.
He chuckled softly; it was something of a comfort for her to hear him laugh. “Hangover? Didn’t do much drinkin’ last night, chere. We left de restaurant before I could get you suitably drunk.”
“Not that you needed to,” she bantered back softly, opening her eyes a little. She was getting used to the relative light.
“True,” he mused, kissing her hair lightly. “Although I ain’t complainin’.”
“Hmm.” His words barely registered. Not only was her head pounding, but she had a nebulous sense of dislocation, almost as if she’d fallen asleep in one place and woken up in another. But of course it was all nonsense. She was exactly where she was supposed to be…
“Chere,” his tone was softer now. “You sure you okay?”
“Maybe if Ah just lie in a while…” she muttered.
“Heh. We’ve already lain in half de day. We got that meetin’ wit’ Xavier dis afternoon, remember? De big one t’ do wit’ de Diaries. Everyone’s been talkin’ about it de past week or so. Don’t tell me you forgot.”
“Oh no…” she groaned, breaking away from him and attempting to sit up.
He eased her back down, stroking her bare arm, a little disconcerted at her reaction. “Hey, relax, mon amour. We still got half an hour or so, no need t’ go rushin’ about.” He paused, perusing her face intently. “Hm. Now dat you mention it, you do look a little peaky. You didn’t eat nothin’ funny last night, did you?” He brushed a hand across her cheek affectionately, his fingers lingering to push a few strands of white hair back behind her ear.
“Ah think Ah’ll give the meetin’ a miss today, Remy,” she replied after a moment. She was confused. She was certain it wasn’t anything she ate; after all it was only her head that ached and nothing else. And he was looking down right into her face, but he seemed so far away – a world away, in fact. Why the hell was she feeling so strange? “Ah really don’t feel too good,” she continued. “Maybe Ah’m gettin’ the flu or somethin’.”
This time there was real concern on his face as he reached out and placed the back of his palm across her forehead.
“Hm. You a little warm, chere, but you ain’t burnin’ up. Maybe you should stay in bed though, jus’ in case. Trust our luck t’ get caught in the rain.”
“Rain…” she murmured, closing her eyes. Everything felt so familiar, so wrong… No. Everything was right. Everything was as it should be. And his hand felt so blissfully cool on her forehead… Before she knew it, she had fallen back into sleep.
She woke up later, not knowing how long she had been sleeping. Remy was still out of the room, but he had left her a glass of water and some painkillers lying on the bedside table. Rogue sat up, passing a hand over her brow and brushing the hair away from her eyes. The sleep seemed to have done her some good; her head felt inexplicably clearer. That morning seemed nothing more than a peculiar interlude in an otherwise ordinary day. She could barely even remember it anymore.
“Guess Ah was overreactin’,” she mumbled to herself. Nevertheless she drained the glass of water, finding that Remy had left a note beneath it. On the slip of paper, written entirely in lowercase in his elegant sprawl, were two words – ‘love you’. She smiled briefly to herself before taking a glance at the alarm clock on the tableside. 13:43, it read. Well, in that case, she can’t have been asleep for that long, seeing as the Professor’s meeting had been scheduled for one O’clock. Another fifteen minutes or so and Remy would be back. She looked at the note again, smiled. For the first time in weeks something was going right between the two of them.
No limits, no boundaries…
Rogue slid out of bed, idly scanning the room about her. This was the place that her and Remy now called their own, albeit temporarily. Her plan was to move out of the mansion altogether with him – the question was a matter of when. Remy wasn’t usually a procrastinator, unless of course it had anything to do with commitment, Rogue thought wryly. She hadn’t pressed him about things, naturally – although now she was allowing herself to hope that maybe there could be something more for them. She smiled wryly to herself, shook her head. It was only one night, gal, she told herself sternly. We’ve still got a long way t’ go.
Still, there was more to go on than there had been a day ago…
She slipped into the shower and swivelled on the hot water taps, studying herself absently in the mirror. There was a small mark on her shoulder where Remy had bitten her the night before – she smiled at the memory of that, tracing a finger lightly over it. What was it he had said? A dream, of her kissing him, absorbing him…the most wonderful thing he had ever felt…
Rogue
frowned. There was something so
familiar about this dream, as if she herself had once dreamt it. As if
she herself had leaned into him, her hair brushing his face, her lips pressing
against his, taking him into her, further than he’d ever been before, to a
place where he would be hers forever…
She blanched, her expression obscured by the steam on the mirror – an awful truth was beginning to dawn upon her, a truth too awful for her to acknowledge; she turned away from her blurred reflection, put her hands to her face, shuddered, desperately trying to hold back what she knew to be true.
“Oh no,” she moaned. “Oh, momma, it ain’t true, it can’t be true…” She clutched at the shower curtain, feeling the tide flowing and ebbing inside her, throwing itself against the barriers she had built around herself, her only protection… The rain, the rain, a vision from the future, breaking, erupting… And the lights, the lights, spinning free, engulfing her, casting her away…
Touch them.
Rogue blinked away hot tears, recognising at last the voice that had plagued her subconscious so many of her waking hours.
“Irene…” she whispered.
Touch them.
There’s only one left, my dear.
It was coming. She felt it. It was all becoming real, coming to the forefront of her mind, and she knew it, she could feel it. She was going to lose control, and she would not be able to stop it. Vainly she tried to reinforce the barriers, using every mental trick Sage had taught her. “No,” she stammered. “No, Ah can’t, Ah won’t. None of this is true. It ain’t real!”
More real than what you suppose.
“No!” she screamed. “Ah’m Rogue, an’ ah’m in control of mah destiny!”
Rogue isn’t real. Rogue is a fallacy. She isn’t you. You made her up. You are destiny. Destiny is you. You are one and the same.
“No! It ain’t true!” And yet she knew it to be true. She’d always known it to be true, from the very first moment she had imprinted Irene all those long years ago. And yet she had forgotten – Destiny had made her forget. Destiny had not been strong enough – she had never been strong enough until Sage had taught her to control her powers, until the Carol Danvers psyche had been suppressed. And now she realised – she had been tricked, deceived, used; the prescient visions that haunted her every step were the key to a future that Destiny had been planning from the very moment she had grasped onto Rogue’s hand and forced her to make that one last, fatal imprint.
Rogue slumped, the truth swimming all about her.
“You used meh…” she whimpered, she pleaded, she wept. “Ah was a kid an’ you used meh…”
No more fighting, no more hiding. She knew what she was, what she lived for. She was what she always had been – a puppet, the puppet of the women she had once both called ‘momma’.
Touch them.
There was only one person left. One more left to touch, and then Rogue could hide away, Rogue could drown, Rogue could fade away into the background, Rogue could lay down to rest, Rogue could cease to exist and need never want or hurt or love again.
Except for a future where she would bear witness to countless other futures; a place where everything was as it should be…
This is what I made you for Rogue, for us to
be one, to all the Seven to be one in you, in me, in all of this we call
‘destiny’.
Now, wake up.
Remy LeBeau was a thousand miles away. At least, that was what it seemed like to Scott Summers, who was sitting across from him and glaring in his direction with a marked consistency, but in actuality, he was a lot closer to home and lost in the comfort of a certain woman’s arms.
Meetings had never been Remy’s thing. He was always liable to switch off during them whether he wanted to or not. This meeting, he knew, was going to prove to be no different – the bigger the meeting, the more boring and confusing it got. Gathered about in the War Room were the various X-teams – a huge amount of people by all accounts, even when it didn’t include the younger members of Cable’s Generation Next and the various far-flung members of X-Corporation. They had all come to listen to Sage’s latest reports on the status of Destiny’s Diaries, which inevitably made it more tedious to Remy. But today his thoughts weren’t simply focused on tedium. Rather, they were focused Rogue.
In recent weeks Rogue had been a source of consternation to him, rather than a comfort; but last night he had had the first decent sleep in weeks, no dreams, no nightmares, no insomnia, no waking up in the dead of night. In her arms, in her body, he had found a sweet consolation, a reassurance that whatever he faced he would not face it alone – that she was there, that she would always stand with him to face it together. He felt lighter, unburdened in sharing what he had with her, and somewhat foolish for not having confided in her sooner. He had held her in his arms and watched her sleep, watched her dreaming face intently, wanting her to awaken as he knew she so often did, sobbing quietly. He wanted her to see him still there beside her, ready to embrace her, to comfort her as she had done him. But she had fallen into a deep sleep and soon afterwards, he had followed her into his own untroubled slumber.
One night, and for once the both of them had been left untouched by dreams.
And yet
now, in the War Room, with everyone about him, her non-appearance had seemed
strange and troubling. He had left her
in bed after she had fallen back to sleep, thinking it best that she sleep off
her sickness. But something about it
bothered him. While Sage was plodding
through various descriptions of several passages she had managed to decipher,
Remy was running through the morning’s conversation in his head. Worst
hangover…Gettin’ the flu…Headache?
Headache. It wasn’t a good omen. For some reason he was reminded of that episode in New Orleans when Rogue’s personality had been taken over by Carol Danvers. The re-emergence of Rogue’s psyche had been marked by headaches. And what if the same thing was happening now? No, no way, he thought to himself sternly. De girl can control her powers now, she don’t have to fear losin’ control to another personality ever again.
So why was he still feeling like this?
Remy fiddled with one of his playing cards in sudden agitation rolling it expertly between his fingertips. Things had been going a little too weird recently, what with the conversation he and Rogue had had the previous night, and those tarot cards being delivered to him yesterday morning. And now he just couldn’t shake the feeling that Rogue was in trouble.
Just at that moment Scott glared at him, and Remy stopped playing with the card, laying it down face up on the table instead. Queen of Diamonds. He grimaced. His foil; the woman who always ghosted his every step, who awaited him on every corner.
Heh. Story of his life.
It didn’t bode well.
Stifling a yawn he glanced at the clock on the opposite wall. Ten to two. He hoped Rogue was all right. He hoped he was overreacting. He’d probably get back into the room and she’d still be asleep. It would be tempting just to slip back into bed beside her…
At the end of the table Professor Charles Xavier was in much the same state. Agitated, without really being sure why. Something was twitching insistently at the side of his skull, like someone poking him on the shoulder and trying to get his attention. He frowned, unable to pinpoint the source of the annoying sensation. It was tugging him telepathically. A warning…? He glanced across at Jean. One look at her expression told him she felt it too. But Psylocke, Sage, Cable and Emma showed no outward evidence of having been affected at all. Then what was it?
No longer listening to what was being said, Xavier attempted to isolate the source of the psychic prodding, but, quite inexplicably, it remained elusive and always just out of reach. That was something he certainly wasn’t used to. Perturbed, he tried again, this time with renewed vigour. The twitching had increased. It was louder, heavier, more persistent.
Opposite him, Jean’s face contorted.
Scott immediately turned to her in concern.
Bishop was almost on his feet.
Remy’s face blanched.
It was in that split second that Xavier finally pinned down the source of that relentless, painful twitching.
“It’s Rogue!” he cried.
The doors to the War Room slid open, and just as he had said, there was Rogue, dreadful purpose inside her blue eyes. For one simple stroke of a second Xavier thought, it is Carol, Carol is here again, but the next moment he knew it was not. In one shattering sweep, Rogue had sent out a psychic blast so powerful that it had floored the Professor, Jean, Emma, Betsy, Cable and Sage in one obliterating blow. No one even thought to question where she had obtained such power from. Duty had already overridden any sense of fealty in Scott’s mind, and he was aiming an optic blast straight at Rogue’s head. Rogue merely passed him a glint of a smile. With a flick of her hand she had contained most of the rooms occupants in a huge TK field, leaving only seven of them in the room.
Seven.
Even with the pain still humming through his skull, Xavier suddenly knew her intent.
“Rogue, stop,” he spoke feebly, but she didn’t hear him. Bishop was already responding with the honed reactions of the military man that he was, instinctively letting loose a beam of raw energy into Rogue. To the amazement of all gathered she withstood the attack without flinching – more than that, she absorbed the shot and sent it right back without so much as batting an eyelid. Bishop was sent reeling to the back of the room at the unexpected counter-attack, unconscious.
Only Havok and Remy were left standing.
“She’s got Bishop’s absorption powers!” Scott roared from behind the TK field. “You can't hit her with energy blasts, either of you!”
Neither made a reply. Havok’s face was bewildered. Remy’s was simply white. The Queen of Diamonds trembled in his hand.
“Rogue…” he half whispered. He knew she wasn’t there. No one wanted to ask the question. No one wanted to ask how she had obtained the powers of the Professor, Jean and Bishop combined. Only Remy knew. A memory of a woman dressed in white stole into his mind like poison. And suddenly he knew he had to stop her.
With a cry he sent the card in his hand skimming towards her, fully charged. She turned, looking at the card impassively. Her eyes flashed. The next moment the Queen of Diamonds had fizzled out in mid-air. All that was left was ash flittering miserably in the center of the room.
“You did,” Remy muttered as the remnants of the card fluttered across the space between them. “It wasn’t all just a dream.”
“Silly boy,” she returned contemptuously. With a single glare she had hurled a psychic bolt at both him and Havok, ignoring them as they both crumpled onto the floor. With silent precision she turned. Rogue’s face was now scanning Cable’s inert form with narrowed eyes.
“I have to touch you,” she said softly, in a voice like song. “You’re the only one left.”
Silently she stepped towards him, kneeling beside him, bare hands glinting like ivory in the light.
“Destiny!”
Rogue froze, her bare hand suddenly held stationary over Cable’s face. Behind her Professor Xavier was slowly coming to.
“Still there Xavier?” she mused coldly. “Even after me sending one of your own psychic blasts right through you? But of course I should have known it would take a lot more to bring you down, Professor.”
“And I should have known that you would use Rogue to imprint the Seven,” he retorted, sitting up again with painful effort. Sweat beaded on his forehead as he fought with every iota of his will to keep Rogue’s hand in place. “And all right under my nose; even I was imprinted without my knowledge,” he added wryly. “You are to be congratulated.”
“You bore me, Charles,” Destiny’s voice replied coolly. “You cannot stop me from doing this. I am far too strong for you. This body, this mind – both give me absolute strength. You cannot hold back from the will of Fate, Xavier. I myself have learnt this through bitter experience.”
Remy was stirring. At the corner of his eye Xavier noted it, but forced himself to concentrate totally on Rogue’s hand.
“And what will you do when you have imprinted the powers of the Seven?” he began again, hoping against hope to distract her.
“I will kill you all,” she replied simply. “There is no further use for any of you. All that you are, your essence, your soul, they shall all become a part of Destiny. And then I will have won. There will be no need to fight anymore. I will become whole once more. And then I will be able to see again.”
“See?” Xavier repeated. His voice quivered unintentionally with the exertion of his already depleted strength. “What do you mean?”
“Everything,” Destiny replied almost dreamily. “Everything that I have lost.”
Her blue eyes were now moist. There was an audible snap – Xavier’s influence on her was broken like a twig in a gale. The long, delicate fingers reached out for Cable’s face…
“Destiny, stop!”
The voice that screamed those two awful words were achingly familiar. For a split second confusion and wonder crossed Rogue’s face. Whirling round she saw Joseph standing in the doorway, Joseph who had walked out of the mansion so many months ago.
“Don’t do it,” he spoke breathlessly. “Don’t use Rogue like this. This isn’t the way you intended to use her. You think it is, but it isn’t. You can’t remember, Destiny. You can’t remember the truth any more than you can remember yourself.”
Something shifted in those blue eyes, and for a moment Xavier thought she would relent. Remy lay quite still, watching the face of the woman he loved, so beautiful, so strange. Ma mignonne…he pleaded, watching as her eyes grew hard again.
“No,” she returned in resignation. “This is what Fate has written.”
She reached out again, reached out to commune with the thing that had been promised her since the first day of her existence. Joseph stepped forwards, arm outstretched.
“NO!”
Destiny felt it – the imperceptible movement of a million cells of iron forming an impenetrable barrier in her blood. Tighter, tauter, they pressed against the walls of her veins, and the blood clamoured, gathered, throbbed, boiled…
For one wild moment green eyes stared back helplessly into Joseph’s, before Rogue fell, unconscious against Cable’s body.
But it was too late.
Even from where she lay, the sight of her hand against Cable’s cheek was clear for all to see.