* What Goes Around *

 . Prologue .

            The dream was always the same.

            It was a dream, and yet always so much more.  Not a nightmare.  Not a memory, nor even a recollection of one of the many psyches she had imprinted.

            It was the future.

            She would dream of the future, and the world itself would tumble down around her.  There was always a vague, dim awareness that she was somewhere she shouldn’t be.  Fear and isolation would grip her.  She was locked somewhere in the darkness.  Nothing was right.  She would grope her way through the slick stickiness like wading through thick, black oil.  Every movement was hindered by a dense swimming sensation; she would end up crawling on all fours, knees caked in mire and filth, struggling, blind.  And then an incredible pain would come over her, greater than any other pain she had ever felt.  She would collapse onto her stomach, writhing, screaming, begging for the pain to stop.  The agony would zigzag through her, rending every molecule of her body, tearing her apart from the inside out.  The world shifted.  The world too was breaking, atom by atom.  And then, after the fabric of the world had come undone, the same would happen to time itself.  It unravelled before her, and she lay prostrate before it all, horrified, hearing each separate skein of the future snap with an audible dissonance.  Each snap would feel like her own bones breaking.

            The pain she felt was not her own.

            It belonged to the death of Time.

            And just when she thought she would pass out, she was awoken.  Suddenly all was silence, and she sat up, and there was an odd, pale light.  Others were there beside her, too bright to see.  There were seven of them.  At the other end of that spectrum of light stood another seven.  And in their midst was the greatest light of all.

            She would be oddly aware of moving towards that pulsating glow, walking slowly, every last functioning particle of her body thrumming with nausea and fear and repulsion.  Yet she could not stop.  She would not stop.

            When she reached the light she knew that this was the only way to stop the slaying of Time.

            She would lift her hand.

            She would touch the light.

            And then the death dance would consume her.

*

            Rogue screamed, jolting her body into wakefulness, only to be greeted by the darkness of the night.  For a moment she had no idea whether this was darkness of her dream or the real world.  Everything seemed so vague and insubstantial.  Only the dream seemed real.  Only the nightmare seemed tangible.  Sitting up, sweating profusely and drawing her knees to her chest, she clutched at the cotton duvet desperately, seeking some connection to the waking world, some release from the images that had haunted her for so long now.  Two months now.  Two months and she’d dreamt this same dream so often, over and over, more and more, and it wasn’t stopping.  Now she was dreaming it at least two or three times a week.  Why wouldn’t the damn thing stop?

Weeping with mingled terror and relief, Rogue dropped her head into the palms of her hands, allowing the sobs to rack her entire body.  Now the dreams were getting worse.  Even when she woke up, she’d still believe she was in the dream.  She would believe it so badly that even during moments like this, when freshly woken and assured that she truly was awake, the images would still play on her mind, clawing at her, clamouring for attention.  She could no longer fight them.  She was so weak.  So tired.  Every night had turned into a struggle.

“Rogue?”

Joseph had only just awakened beside her.  His voice was still thick with sleep, but the concern was self-evident in his tone.

“Joe?” Her voice shook like an autumn leaf blown on the wind. “Joe…Is that you?  Tell me it’s you.”

The tears in her voice caused him to sit up quickly.  In a trice he had laid a hand comfortingly upon her shoulder.

“Rogue?  Are you all right?”

She wanted to assure him.  She wanted to reach out and hold him to her, and say it was all just a bad dream.  But for some reason she couldn't.  Something dark and impulsive welled up from deep within her, so that she suddenly turned on him, slapping his hands away from her.

“No!  Don’t touch me!  You’re one of them!  You’re one of them!”

At the ferocity and horror in her tone he backed off, astonished, confused, bewildered.

“One of whom?” he asked.  She began to weep again, and he reached out for her, only to be pushed away once more.

“One of those lights,” she replied, voice muffled. “One of those other lights.”

Lights.  The word was not unfamiliar to Joseph.  The past month Rogue had been waking up talking about lights and darkness and the end of the world.  At first he had just presumed she was having some bad nightmares and thought no more about it.  But now this same dream was occurring more and more often; for the past three nights now she had woken up, crying, refusing to talk to him about it.  There was no doubt that these dreams were scaring her.  God knew they were scaring him more than just a little.  He’d never seen Rogue looking so terrified.

“You’ve been dreaming again,” he stated softly, reaching out and rubbing her back soothingly.  This time she did not repel him.

“No,” she murmured plaintively. “Not dreamin’…Can’t you see, Joe, they’re real.  They’re more real than you or me or anyone.  Can’t you feel it?  You’re there too, Joe.  You ought to know…” She trailed off, shuddering as her tears lessened.  Joseph remained silent, a cold fear growing over him.  The more she dreamed this dream the less sense she seemed to make.  It frightened him.

“Rouge, listen to me,” he began gently, hoping that his words were ones she would find reassuring. “They’re just dreams.  You know what the Professor said.  That ever since your powers were disabled by Phantazia and the rest of the Savants, you’ve been having difficulty coping with all those imprinted psyches in your head.  They’re probably just memories, not even yours.  They’re not real, Rogue.”

“But ah saw you!” she cried, turning and almost pleading with him. “Ah saw you, Joe!  You were there…An’ so was the Professor, an’ Bishop, an’ Remy, an’… an’…” She paused, her voice suddenly quiet with horror. “An’ mah momma…Both mah mommas!”

“Rogue!” He caught her by the shoulders before the tears could begin again. “Stop it!  Stop torturing yourself like this!  They’re not real, Rogue.  They’re just dreams.  I’m here with you, you know I am.  I’m not some ‘light’.  There’s nothing to be afraid of.  Nothing.  Whatever happens, I’ll protect you.  You know I will.”

He pulled her to him as he said the words, rocking her gently, soothing her hair until her shaking had stopped and her breathing grew calmer.

“You’re right,” she said at last, her voice small. “It’s just a dream.  Just some awful dream.” 

She pulled away from him, suddenly swivelling and climbing out of the bed, almost as if she could not bear to be with him any longer.

“Where are you going?” he asked, the concern filtering back into his voice.

“Ah need a drink of water,” she answered absently, going to the door and pulling it open a jar.  Pale yellow light flooded the room and she squinted, shivering involuntarily. “You go back t’ sleep, Joe.  Ah won’t be long.”

She left, closing the door quietly behind her.  Joseph sighed.  No matter what he did, no matter what he said, he could not comfort her.  No one could, and yet he loved her.  It was not the dreams that worried him, so much as the fact that the space that lay between the two of them had gone cold.

*

Rogue flicked on the kitchen lights, flinching as they buzzed and flickered into life.  Her eyes smarted.  It both puzzled and troubled her, that she should have this sudden phobia of all artificial lights.  Stupid, she thought.  Damn, fuckin’ stupid, girl.  Those dreams, they’re just like Joe said they were.  Dreams.  They can’t be real.  They must be symbolic.  They haveta be.

            Symbolic meant that they still were, on some level, real.  Rogue avoided the assumption.  She still couldn’t shake the feeling that everything in those nightmares was somehow connected to the real world. 

Going to the sink she poured herself a glass of water and her hand shook as she reached for the medicine cabinet that held the small bottle of aspirin.  It wasn’t enough that she had to be having these crazy dreams most nights.  To make matters even worse, she had been inflicted with these skull-spitting headaches.  That was one sure-fire way to tell that her powers were making a resurgence; all Hank and Sage’s tests had showed, however, that her X-gene was still dormant.  Could it have been the dreams alone that were causing the headaches?  Rogue did not know.

            Two aspirins weren’t going to be enough.  Recent experience had told her that one more probably wasn’t going to cut it either, but she downed three of the white capsules anyway, just to be sure.  Having drained the glass of water, she set it down thoughtfully.  It didn’t matter how much Joe or anyone else tried to convince her that the dreams weren’t real.  Rogue had one, awful reason to believe that they were real, and that reason was her most shameful secret.

She had, in part, been responsible for Destiny’s death.

            There were only two people at the Institute that she had ever told.  One was the Professor.  The other was Remy, who was now currently out of her life and probably off in greener pastures.  Sage too, was party to her secret, at the will of the Professor, and out of necessity with regards to her work on the Diaries.  But Rogue had never told anyone else, not even Joseph.  It filled her with too much guilt, too much shame, too much sorrow.  All those who knew had been kind and understanding about it.  It still didn’t stop it from being so damn painful.

            She could remember it like it was yesterday.  She had been eighteen years old, at a time when she was still a foe of the X-Men, and a member of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.  Mystique and Destiny had been her surrogate mothers, caring for her and loving her as her real parents had never seen fit to do so.  But there had always been an undercurrent in their household, an unspoken fear that Rogue had never been able to pinpoint.  What it had been, she was not sure, except that it had emitted from Irene, and that her and Mystique had argued about it often, during the nights, when they had both thought Rogue asleep.  In truth, Rogue had lain awake, trembling and not knowing why, listening to all that she dared to.

            “I won’t do it!” she would hear Raven say. “And you won’t do it either!”

            It had pained and terrified her to know that Raven had been crying.

            The following days Irene would be cloaked in sadness; and more than that, a helplessness that even Rogue could not penetrate.  No matter how hard she tried to make her mother open up to her, she could not.  Irene simply grew quieter and quieter.  It was then that Rogue had been able to feel it.  Irene’s life, ebbing from her, as surely as sand leaking from a punctured sack.  She had had no idea why.  But Rogue had had her own personal demons to fight – the invasive psyche of Carol Danvers; her own growing doubts about the motives of the Brotherhood.  Maybe, if she had paid more attention, she would have followed her gut instinct and protected Irene.  Maybe none of what followed would have happened.  Maybe.  It was hard to tell whether what had been intended to thwart fate was nothing more than the fruit of fate itself.

            If there was ever a day that had changed Rogue’s life so utterly and so cruelly it had been that one.  She had flown home from the Brotherhood’s most recent mission ahead of the others, apprehension twisting in her gut like a knife.  It was a feeling she had not been able to shake the entire day.  Returning to the house it had been quiet, too quiet.  She had called out Irene’s name on a wavering voice, knowing, disbelieving; but knowing nevertheless.

            Irene had been lying on the bed, silent, ever so silent.  There was a lot of blood.  But even so Irene was still awake.  Of all the terror, horror, denial and absolute powerlessness that Rogue could have displayed in that moment, she showed none.  Why, she later could not decide.  Maybe that too, was the way things were supposed to have been.  Desperation and despair gnawed at her, but outwardly she was calm as she went to sit beside Irene, to look into those old, blue, loving eyes and let the tears slide out and onto her cheeks.

            “Why?” was all she could whisper.

            “One day you will understand,” Irene said.

            Then the oddest thing happened.  It was a kind of impulsion, as well as it might have been a desperation; to reach out for the one she loved, to hold her, to let her know that love was what she felt for her, despite knowing that she could not touch.  And she had reached out for Irene, so surely, so slowly, that it had seemed like a dream.  And even as she would have touched that dear old face she suddenly realized that her gloves were in the hallway, where she had ripped them off upon entering the house.  She would have hesitated and drawn her hand away at that moment; but something happened – either she moved, or Irene moved – ever after she could not tell.

            And they had touched.

            And Irene had smiled, and even when Rogue had lifted her hand away in horror at the terrible act, Irene had taken her wrist and held on fast, like some ravenous, starving beast.  But the death cry that should have rattled through Irene’s lips passed from Rogue’s; and it was Rogue that was dragged down into the depths of the black whirlpool.  Caught forever in Irene’s last, sighing breath, Rogue swooned as the death dance had consumed her.

            And when she had awoken, she found that she had imprinted Irene as she had imprinted Carol Danvers before.  She had imprinted a dead woman, leaving behind her only lasting legacy.  A legacy of Raven’s hate, of further madness, of an unwanted power suppressed at great pains by the Professor and Jean Grey.

            A legacy of dreams that may or may not hold the future foretold in Destiny’s Diaries.

            A legacy worth nothing, when Irene had turned into the thing she had so feared, and damned this world just as she had damned Rogue herself.

            There was a thud; the glass dropped and rolled across the kitchen, knocking a table leg and slowly rocking to a standstill.

            Rogue slid to the floor and wept.

She now had Destiny’s powers.  And what if those dreams foretold the very future that Irene herself had been running from?

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