Suddenly,
there was sunlight.
Sunlight searing
its way across the tail end of a dreamless sleep whose beginning he could not
remember.
Remy opened his
eyes and tasted it like a man lost at sea.
Flinching, uncertain, and with the tentative curiosity of a
newborn. An expanse of ceilinged
whiteness encompassed his world, greeting him with clinical and objective
impassivity. He had no reference for
this. No reference with which to place
himself here, lying in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar room, his head
pounding with an ache that should have been recognisable but was not.
He stared up at the
ceiling and squinted.
There was a crack
in the whiteness; a haphazard, zigzagging crack that meandered its way across
the periphery of his vision in a solitary pattern that he felt as though he had
seen before. He blinked and followed it
slowly, searching for a link, searching for a connection to bridge the gaping
void, finding nothing. Finding only the
dull ache in his head, behind his eyes, replaying itself like a memory begging
to be retraced, with all the intensity of an impatient lover.
That was when it
came back. Lying in the snow with a
knife in his hand and her beneath
him… and then the pain in his head, exploding out of nowhere before he'd
tumbled gracelessly into blackness…
Rogue.
Remy touched his
forehead gingerly. His fingers found and
explored the memory of an old wound, an uneven tract of scar tissue that
unfurled and blossomed into a tight crescendo of pain. Wincing, he raised a hand to the sunlight and
stared at his fingers, expecting to see blood staining the tips - but there was
nothing.
He dropped his hand
again, closing his eyes, feeling the scar she'd left him throb with a dull,
consuming ache. The irony was not lost on him. Rogue had been willing to die at his hand in
order to save Rachel. And he… he had
been willing to do anything in his power to keep Rogue alive. Simple math.
It hadn't needed a genius and a degree in rocket science to figure out
where his priorities lay.
Yet somehow she'd
still figured that he'd been willing to off her out of some twisted obligation
he held to an egotistical maniac.
And the knowledge
of that stung.
Remy sat up against
the pillows, wincing as his head jarred painfully, and looked around. Walls of cracked plaster, dingy and
cobwebbed, enclosing a room that was empty but for the bed he lay on, a low
table and medical supplies. A window
opposite, masked only by threadbare curtains of a faded floral design that did
little to contain the light. He squinted
in the unfamiliar brightness. Okay, so
this wasn’t any of his apartments. It
wasn’t anywhere he knew, and even though he'd been in a lot of bedrooms he
would've remembered this one. He opened
his mouth slowly as if testing an unknown invention; when his voice came out it
was unrecognisable, hoarse and cracked.
“Where de fuck…?”
“Brotherhood headquarters,” an icy voice
to his left promptly replied. “The latest one, anyhow.”
Nice, he
thought vaguely, tiredly, and even his own thoughts seemed to be tinged with a
strangely bitter taste. Question answered before y’ even have de time to
spit it out. ‘S shapin’ up to be a good
mornin’. Or whatever de hell time it is. He turned as much as his aching bones would
allow, and wasn’t surprised when he saw Raven Darkholme standing in the
doorway.
“Water.” He pieced
the syllables together with an effort. “M' thirsty.”
Raven didn’t break
a smile. He hadn't expected her to. Instead she crossed over to the low table,
picked up a jug of water standing there, and poured it into a dirty cup
standing nearby. When she handed it to
him, he drank it. It rolled down his
throat with the flavour of copper and chlorine, but he couldn’t remember the
last time anything had tasted so sweet.
“Didn’t t'ink you
could be so generous,” he thanked her begrudgingly; his voice didn’t hurt so
much anymore. He handed her back the
mug; she laid it on the table and stared at him coldly.
“You have my
daughter to thank for that,” she returned frostily. She paused and stared at him a little more
intently, reminding him briefly of a mantis. “She loves you, LeBeau,” she
finally stated, unable to hide the contempt from her voice. “That makes her a
fool, but I suppose it makes her a noble one.”
He said nothing,
but his face said everything. A corner
of her mouth curled.
“But then, I don’t
suppose you'd know much about nobility, would you thief?”
“And you would?”
“You ruined my
daughter.”
“So did you.”
Quiet. Mystique's face convulsed, then crumpled in
on itself. She turned and faced the
sunlight - her silence told him he'd won.
“Are you gonna
throw me out now?” he asked her disdainfully.
She almost looked
back over her shoulder at him.
“Much as I'd love
to throw you back to Sinister, if you're going to leave this place, it's going
to be of your own volition, LeBeau.”
“And is that choice
something I owe Rogue too?”
Again, Raven
remained silent. And he was getting
frustrated.
“Where is she?” he
asked.
“She's next
door. Recovering.” Before he could make
any comment on that she'd turned to him. “You don’t know how much that girl was
willing to sacrifice for the both of you, do you? And I don’t suppose you'll be grateful for it
either.”
He ignored her
jibing.
“You mean… she
didn’t…?”
“Carry through with
the mission? No.” Raven's eyes were blazing again. “She screwed the whole
goddamn thing up! Years of careful
planning, years of quiet machination, years of striving towards the one end purpose, and she threw it all
away! For you!” She spat out the word with a revulsion she could barely
contain, and there was a light, a madness, a despair in her eyes…
He swallowed.
Merde, Rogue…
“What did she…?”
“She couldn’t break
Rachel's brainwashing alone,” Raven interrupted before he could ask the
question. “So she did the next best thing - she absorbed her herself. She was going to use Rachel and her powers
for entirely selfish purposes. She was
going to chronoskim the two of you out of here - to God knows where. Anywhere, I suppose, that wasn’t here.” She finished, her chest visibly
heaving with rage, but after a moment she held it down, closed her eyes and
inhaled a deep breath. “She could have lost her life, but I don’t expect she
would've cared about that either,” she continued in a bitter undertone.
“Luckily we came just in time to despatch of the guards - even a couple of
Hounds - grab the two of you, and make a quick exit - thanks to Forge. I thought I was going to lose her all over
again.” She opened her eyes and he was surprised to see real tears in them.
“I've already lost one child, goddammit, and I'm not going to lose Rogue, not
even if there's hell to pay!”
She glanced away,
her jaw tightening, and for the first time he realised that, deranged as
Mystique was, she really did love Rogue.
“Is she okay?” he
asked at last, uncertainly.
“She's still
unconscious,” Raven murmured. “But she'll be fine. As for this world, as for this timeline… who
knows?”
She turned away
again, paced the room in a disconnected, agitated air while he sat and mulled
over everything she had told him. Ever
since he'd walked into the Brotherhood's operations room and seen Rogue sitting
there, he'd been banking on one thing.
That the Brotherhood was going to make it. He had had no intention of bringing Rachel
back to Sinister, not now that he knew exactly why Sinister needed the Hounds in the first place. He knew
Sinister now. He had him figured. His demented scheming revolved around one
thing - Jean Grey and Scott Summers. The
quest to find the ultimate super being, the highest pinnacle of evolution, the
ultimate mutant – Rachel. And Remy
wanted out. He wanted out, he wanted to
be free, he wanted to be responsible only for himself. He was done with working for Sinister. He was done with small steps. He was done with Sentinels and Hounds and
anti-mutant governments. He was going to
walk away from it all.
Give Sinister the
finger, hand Rachel over to the enemy and saunter off.
And if the
Brotherhood was right, maybe Rachel could
have fixed the world. Maybe she could have made it better. Maybe his renegade plan would've been worth
something. If Rogue hadn't gone and
fucked it all up, for some pipe dream that so nearly could've come true.
For a better them.
Remy sat up and
pulled the comforter aside. His legs
were weak but they were still there. He
sat on the edge of the bed and gathered his strength. Mystique stopped pacing and stared at him.
“Where are you
going?” she demanded. There was a
harshness in her voice, but also a fear.
A fear of what?
“To have a smoke,”
he answered wearily, defiantly. “M' dyin' for a smoke.”
He stepped into his
boots, got up and pulled on his trench coat, which had been hanging on the
door. He was only wearing his boxers
underneath, but he didn’t care how ridiculous he looked. He patted his pockets, feeling his cigarette
packet and lighter.
Well whaddya know? We're back in business.
He reached out and
put his hand on the doorknob just as Raven asked him irately; “That's it?! You're just gonna walk out of here?”
“Mystique, you an'
I both know you're dyin' t' boot me outta dis place for good, even though it
ain't your call. Figured I'd do us both
a favour and get outta your hair.”
“We're not finished
yet, LeBeau,” she seethed behind him.
“Yes, we are. I'm here under sufferance until you convince
Rogue to kick me to de kerb. Seems
pretty clear-cut t' me.”
He swivelled the
doorknob, ready to go.
“Tell me if you
love her,” Raven suddenly spat out behind him.
He paused.
“I don’t trust you,
LeBeau, and I don’t believe for one second that you could ever make her happy,”
she continued, and this time there was an eagerness, a desperation in her voice
that surprised him. “But if you tell me you love her, we can forget our
differences and you can stay. If you
don’t and if this is all just a game…If she's
just a game to you… then you can walk out of this house whenever the hell you
want - the sooner the better.”
He opened the door.
“Do you love her?!”
Mystique's high-pitched voice demanded, but he didn’t answer, he walked over
the threshold and slammed the door shut firmly behind him.
* * * * *
It was snowing
again. Thick clumps sailing across the
window without a care in the world.
Rogue stared at the dancing flakes and tried a smile. Her heart was heavier these days, and yet
more unburdened than it had ever been - she dreamed a lot of Time, of the
indescribable feel of it, of the ability to master it and subjugate it to her
every whim. Each snowflake fluttering
past her window seemed to represent another world to her, unknown, untouchable,
inexplicably beautiful in itself.
Another Rogue who had walked a happier path was out there,
somewhere. She was near, she was close
enough to touch and yet she was too far away to see. But then, she supposed, it was enough that
she was out there, and that there was a happy Rogue at all. It gave her hope that within her own future,
all was not lost.
“Ah need to get
outta this bed,” she spoke up decidedly. “Bein' an invalid makes me think too
darn much. Ah'm startin' t' get the
feelin' that Raven's prolongin' mah stay here because she likes nursin' me.”
Sitting beside her,
Remy laughed, charming and easy as always.
He lightened the monotony of the days for her, but nevertheless
something had changed between them and she couldn’t tell what it was.
“She jes' likes
playin' de over-protective mother, chere,” he drawled. “Can't fault her for
dat.”
“Pfft,” Rogue
grunted. “Her attempt at over-protective mother comes across more like a
chainsaw-wieldin' maniac.”
“And I ain't gonna
disagree wit' you on dat one. Your mom's
one scary lady, Rogue.”
She raised an
eyebrow.
“You only just
noticed?”
“Hmph. T'ink I noticed de time she tried t' kill de
X-Men back on de Golden Gate Bridge eight years ago. You remember dat?”
She laughed.
“You kiddin'? How could Ah ever forget the first time you
asked me out to dinner?”
“No better time
than a life-threatenin' situation to get a girl to say yes to you,” he remarked
suavely. She pouted at him.
“Ah was the one who
saved your ass that day, remember?”
She sighed and stared out of the window again. “Seems a lifetime ago…”
“It was a lifetime
ago, chere,” he pointed out. She didn’t
reply. Sometimes she had the sense that,
severe as her injuries had been, none was as grave as the one that had been
dealt to her heart. It was for this
reason that she often fell into deep silences.
He had become accustomed to them.
Quietly he leaned over, toyed with the butterfly pendant at her
breast. It was the one thing that still
lay unbroken between them.
“You’re gonna go,
aren’t you,” she stated softly, still watching the snowfall. He gazed at her profile for a long moment,
then nodded.
“When de wanderin'
mood sets in, yeah, I guess so.” He stared at the butterfly between his fingers
thoughtfully. “Much as your hospitality is appreciated, dis house gives me de
heebie-jeebies… or maybe it's just Raven…”
“Or maybe you just
don’t wanna get bored,” she finished for him.
“Maybe.” His mouth
twisted wryly.
“It's okay,” she
assured him. “Ah don’t want yah t' stay.
Domesticated Gambit don’t do much for me.”
It was meant as a
joke, but he didn’t laugh.
“Rogue… dere's some
stuff I gotta sort out on de road…”
“Like Sinister?”
she asked. He looked up at her sharply.
“How did you know?”
“Nothin’,” she returned
evasively. “Just a hunch.” She paused and looked up into his eyes. “You ain't
stayin' here to hide from Sinister, are you?
Because you don’t really believe he's gonna kill you, do you?”
He stared at her a
long while, his mouth set in a straight line; then he shook his head.
“No. I don’t t'ink he will. For some reason, Rogue, he needs me. For what, I dunno. But I mean somethin' to him, and I don’t like
dat fact. It leaves too many questions
unanswered - about myself.”
“You said he
rescued you from the mansion that day,” she probed gently.
“Oui. I was meant to be infiltratin' de X-Men for
him… wasn’t doin' a very good job of it by all accounts… thought he'd be
pissed. But then he managed to get wind
of de military's attack and pulled me out de mornin' it happened… It was stupid
of me, but I never questioned it at de time… was too fuckin' grateful, I guess.”
She nodded. He averted his gaze from hers, looking once
more to the butterfly between his fingers.
“If I'd'a known
what was goin' down dat day, I wouldn't have high-tailed it like I did. Would've warned you all, if Sinny had given
me a chance to… But by de time I found out, it was too late… I wanted to go
back and find you, but I figured you were dead… Maybe it was easier to t'ink
dat…”
She touched his
hand gently.
“It's okay,” she
murmured. “Ah guess things worked out kind of okay in the end anyhow.” She
paused, added tentatively: “Ah know how you feel about me, Remy.”
He smiled then, wry
as ever, let go of the butterfly and settled back in his chair.
“Subtlety's never
been one of my finer points,” he remarked dryly.
She smiled.
“You told me. Ah believed you.”
“Still doesn’t make
sense why you'd crack me over de head wit' a rock after I said it,” he
half-joked.
“Think about
it. Ah'd set myself up to make a big
sacrifice for the future generations, and you give me a reason to go on
livin'. What was Ah s'pposed to do?”
“I dunno. Kiss me passionately and walk off into a
dusky sundown?”
“Ick.”
“Woulda been
preferable to concussion and a fractured skull.
And to you nearly gettin' your leg amputated.”
She frowned.
“Don’t remind me.”
“So why'd you do
it?”
She thought a moment.
“Ah guess you were
offerin' me the only thing in the world Ah ever wanted,” she answered slowly.
“And suddenly Ah had to make a choice between savin' the world and savin' what
Ah wanted.”
He grimaced.
“And duty won out?”
“At first. But when Ah thought Ah'd killed you… Ah
realised Ah couldn’t have done it, not without you. Ah couldn’t carry on the mission if you
weren't gonna be there to do it with me.” She paused, stared out of the window
once more. The snow had thinned, was
flitting like sawdust to the ground. “You were s'pposed to make it,” she
murmured. “You were s'pposed to get to Rachel, even if it meant killin' me in
the process.” She looked at him again. “Ah knew you wouldn’t give her to
Sinister. Ah knew you'd cut her loose.”
His expression
softened.
“You really
believed I could've hurt you?” he asked, looking a little offended.
“Well, after
Kincaid… And Guess…”
“So you're tellin'
me dose guys coulda held a candle to you?” he voiced in disbelief. “Chere, you
piss me off sometimes, but I ain't gon' kill you 'cos of it.” She couldn’t help
it. She laughed.
Ah was so stupid… Of course he wouldn’t have
done it. But back then… with all the
bullshit he came out with about bein' in the business… About not bein' able to
feel, about havin' no attachments… Ah bought into it. It seemed so real. But sittin' here with him, like this… It's
hard t' believe we ever pushed one another away so hard…
And yet they both
knew instinctively that there was a moment when both had thought they would kill the other…
…That it was the
only way either could have held onto the other forever.
An awkward silence
followed, one that engulfed them as each digested this sombre realisation. But then he smiled, and it was as if the
thought had never occurred to them.
“Think I'm gonna go
now,” he said softly. “Let you get some sleep.”
“Ah don't wanna
sleep,” she protested grumpily, although in truth she was tired…
“Raven's waitin'
outside, I can feel it,” he grinned. “And if I don’t come out soon she's gonna
get suspicious.”
“Let her,” she
murmured, holding onto the lapel of his coat, not wanting him to go. “Ah don’t
care.”
“Rogue…” he reached
out and touched her cheek tenderly, “you need some rest. And I really don’t wanna get m' ass whupped
by Mystique again.”
“Liar,” she
muttered with a pout. “You could have Raven any day, she knows it, Ah know it,
and you know it. Yah just wanna be on
the road again…”
“I'll be back,” he
assured her.
“One day, you
won't.”
He said nothing but
smiled, kissed her on the forehead, got up and left quietly. Rogue sighed and shifted onto her side. Outside the snow was faltering, dwindling to
tiny white spots flitting pitifully across a patch of grey sky. Soon it would be gone altogether, just as all
the threads of Time had fluttered past her and disappeared out of reach. She thought of Rachel; she wondered where she
was and what she was doing, and whether she really would become a mutant
saviour, the heroine of a blind old woman's prophecy.
She wondered about
the phoenix she'd once seen at the very end of Irene's Diaries, and whether
she'd simply dreamed what she had witnessed when she had absorbed her
foster-mother what seemed such a long time ago.
The phoenix, rising from the ashes. The symbol of rebirth, of resurrection, of new
beginnings.
Maybe there was hope. Maybe she could have her own personal phoenix
and make her penance after all. Maybe
she could silence the voices in her head, and finally lay Kincaid and Rifkind
and Guess and Xavier and all the others to rest.
She stared up at
the window. The snow had stopped.
Closing her eyes,
she slept.
*
By the beginning of
February, the edge had gone off the winter – the snows had stopped, and the
world was beginning to thaw.
He came back to see
her, now and then. She didn’t know where
he was or what he did when he was away, but as always, she found she could bear
it as long as he was doing whatever made him happy. Not once, from the very beginning of their
acquaintance, had she ever envisaged a happily-ever-after for the both of
them. Somehow it was enough to know that
they possessed a connection stronger than their separations. Sometimes, she thought, it was better for
them to be apart, so that they didn’t hurt each other anymore.
Still, it didn’t
stop her from wishing for something more.
By February's end,
the voices had stopped haunting her altogether, and she was up on her feet once
more. Their new headquarters were often
silent and empty - of course Mystique and the others still occupied themselves
with 'the cause', and spent most days out on missions - and so Rogue often had
the place to herself, with the exception of Irene, who spent most of her time
holed up in her study anyhow. Although
technically Rogue was fit enough to participate in 'the business' once more,
Raven didn’t push her into it. There
seemed to be a tacit understanding between them that something in Rogue had
changed and her place was no longer truly with the Brotherhood. It wasn’t a conscious decision on Rogue's
part to draw that line between herself and the others; rather it was a gut
feeling inside her, a thing that manifested itself gradually over time. Even she didn’t know what the difference was,
but it was there. She spent more time in
her room, by the window, thinking. There
were times when she felt Raven's eyes on her back, boring into her, considering
her, wondering what the new Rogue was and what she would do. But Rogue could give no answers, because she
didn’t know either.
She wondered,
sometimes, whether Irene was the better person to ask.
At last the time
she'd been waiting for came; the familiar purr of his motorcycle outside on the
driveway, the tread of his boots on the gravel.
This time she went down to greet him; she put her arms round him and they
kissed without saying a word. Then she
took him by the sleeve and led him into the house - for the first time they ate
together and talked together and laughed together just as it always should have
been. But she sensed a change in him
too, one she couldn’t pinpoint; a restlessness, an inner agitation that
manifested itself in his sudden silences, his absent gazes, his plaintive
expressions. She had expected it all, of
course, and it made her a little sad; but she had long come to accept that he
was a slave to his whims, that if there was one thing he was born to do it was
to be fickle, to roam.
Later they made
love.
There were no more
heartfelt fumblings, no more desperate kisses.
They had all the time in the world, and it felt good. It felt so good she thought the world was
going to stop. For a few precious hours,
she'd never felt so happy in her entire life.
Afterwards they lay
there tangled together as she let herself drift into sleep without fear of
losing him again come the morning. When
she woke up an indeterminable amount of time later, it was to find the room
shrouded in darkness and him still awake, his hand in her hair.
“Yah still 'wake?”
she mumbled drowsily.
“I'm an insomniac
at de best of times,” he rumbled back comically. She chuckled and ran the back of her hand
absently against his bicep.
“Sugah, yah thin
way too much,” she noted wryly.
He made no assent
or disagreement. After a while she
placed her hand on his chest and stroked him lightly, running her fingers
inquisitively over the maze of old scar tissue that marked his flesh. It felt good, to touch without being afraid.
“What’s it like?”
she asked him sleepily. “On the outside?
Has anythin' changed?”
He was silent a
moment.
“Nope.”
“Ah thought not.”
She yawned. “Mystique and the others talk about it sometimes, but Ah try not to
listen. Maybe Ah'm scared of goin' back
out there.” She paused and opened her eyes, her finger tracing the dip in his
collarbone. “Ah feel bad for not helpin' the Brotherhood out anymore,” she
continued thoughtfully, “but Ah guess Ah finally figured out it ain't for me -
that it never was for me in the first place.”
He looked down at
her, his fingers gently cradling the nape of her neck.
“So what are you
gonna do now?”
She stared at her
finger, resting ghostly and pale upon his flesh, her brow furrowed.
“Ah dunno.”
And she really didn’t know…
His fingers began
to move again, massaging her with a languid cadence. And suddenly she had a question.
“Did you find
Sinister?”
He frowned and
shook his head.
“Nope. I looked, o' course, but when I got to his
place, he was gone. Guess he found out
what happened down at de Hound pens and took precautions in case de government
traced t'ings back to him. De whole
place was trashed, dere wasn’t anyt'ing left.”
“And you haven’t
heard from him?” she persisted.
“Non. But I get de feelin' he’ll call me, when he
needs me,” he answered wryly.
“And if he does…
you'll go back to him?”
He thought about
it.
“I dunno. Fact is, I don’t owe him a thing anymore,
chere. He knows it, I know it. But he’ll be back, one way or another. I got somethin' he wants, and when I find out
what it is…”
He trailed off,
lost once more in his own thoughts. She
knew it was best not to push the subject.
When she had absorbed him, she'd got an inkling, the faintest intimation
that his relationship with Sinister bothered him more than he was ever willing
to reveal. Because there was something
deeper in that relationship than even Remy himself couldn’t understand, and
probably never would.
On the contrary, my dear boy, I find myself
quite attached to you… in more ways than one… …
Outside rain had
begun to fall; the air was cooler now, making her shudder pleasurably, making
her draw closer to him for warmth.
“Nights like
these,” she whispered, “they remind me of Storm.”
He held her close.
“Me too.”
She wondered if
Forge was awake, and whether he thought so too.
She wondered whether Storm was alive somewhere, waiting for someone to
come, waiting for them. And suddenly she thought, Ah'm gonna find you, Storm, Ah'm gonna find
you and all the others that are left. Ah
promise.
The promise gave
her strength somehow. She had a purpose, and it didn’t need to be
dictated by some diaries or visions or hopeless prophecies. Her life held some meaning after all.
“Have you been back
to the safe house?” she asked him in a sudden whisper - even though she didn’t
really need to hear the reply. Somehow,
she knew the answer already.
“No,” he
returned. She nodded. There was no reason to go back, not
anymore. But she would miss it, in a
way. She would miss their little cocoon,
their little safe haven, the place that had hidden them for so long.
“Ah’ll miss it,”
she told him decidedly. Somehow, she
could almost feel his smile penetrating the darkness.
“Was nice, while it
lasted. We had some good times, chere.”
Good times. The best she could recall. All the pain and the passion and the
heartache, and yet nothing else in those few short years had ever made her so alive. A smile flickered across her own lips, pale
as a candle wavering under moonlight.
Somehow he seemed to sense it.
His palm cupped her cheek, his thumb smoothing across her lips as if to
capture that smile in his hand and hold it tight. He said nothing, made no promises. She expected none. Like Rachel they were free in the world now;
she no longer constrained to the narrow worldview the Brotherhood advocated, he
no longer bound to the man named Essex.
Neither tethered to a little room where they had played their earnest
games of make-believe once a year. The
circles they had trodden – those well-worn paths that had led them back to one
another time and time again – had now been left behind. There was no reason to tread them
anymore. No reason for them to be
together, here, now, except for habit and a lingering sense of mutual need.
She wanted to ask
him, where to now? She wanted to
ask him where his path would lead him to, whether he knew where he was headed,
whether he knew what was waiting for him out there.
She wanted to ask
him if, from here on in, the path they’d walked together so far would branch
off into different directions, into different futures.
But she remained
silent, because she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear his answer.
His hand on the
small of her back; his kiss replacing his thumb upon her lips. She reached for him in an embrace as languid
and resigned and familiar as summer siestas and sleeping out under stars. If they were living on borrowed time she felt
no sense of urgency. Neither of them had
to be here. But they were; they were
still here together, and that was all that mattered.
A little while
later she slept again, curled up against him like a bird, dreaming of a world
that was a vast tapestry of thrumming, shining, burning, interconnecting
threads; dreaming that she was a butterfly, flitting silent and luminous,
overhead.
*
He stayed a couple
more days, and it was more than she could have ever expected or asked for. She wasn’t surprised, then, when on the
morning of the third day she went outside to find him loading his few
belongings onto his bike.
“You’re goin'?” she
queried, sidling up beside him.
He secured the last
of his bags to his bike and nodded.
“Yup. I'm hittin' de highways. Until Essex calls on me there ain't a lot I
can do round here. S'all right for
you. Mystique's family, she’ll keep you
round no matter how mad she gets at you.”
He paused, not
looking at her. She was oddly reminded
of their previous partings, furtive and reluctant.
“You'll be stayin'
in New York?” she asked quietly.
He shrugged,
non-committal.
“I’ll go wherever
I'm needed. I'm tired of small steps,
chere. Dat kinda thing's best left to de
Brotherhood, hahn? I think I'm gonna find
me some X-Men.” He paused, produced a cigarette seemingly from thin air and lit
it. “You wanna come?” he asked her. At
the unexpected question she merely stood and stared at him; but he said
nothing, blowing smoke, so perfectly nonchalant, waiting for her answer just
like he'd waited for her to make her choice outside the Ritz nearly three years
ago.
And suddenly the
incandescent flame that had awoken in her was blazing, leaping, and the animal
hope was flaring once more…
“What -- now?”
He sucked on his
cigarette and considered her through wreaths of smoke.
“Sure. Why not now?”
She still couldn’t
believe it.
“You mean… right now?”
He shrugged.
“Well, I was gonna
go back to my place first, pick up a few things I need. Like cards and cigarettes maybe. And then… I guess it's goodbye NY.” A small,
conspiratorial grin touched his lips. “So.
You comin'?”
She didn’t even
have to think.
“Ah won’t be five
minutes.”
She ran back to her
room and threw a few of her things together - although there wasn't much to
decide on, because nothing she owned really mattered anyway. She had no connection to anything in this
house, and only to very few of her possessions.
And as for the rest of the Brotherhood… they were out on a mission, and
perhaps it was better that way. There
was little she could have said to them, and apart from Raven she bore no
especial attachment to them.
Raven.
She tried not to
think about her as she packed the last item of clothing into her small
carryall. Raven had twisted her,
perverted her, made her into the monster she'd always dreaded becoming. From the very first moment of their
acquaintance she had used Rogue as a means to some unfathomable end. And yet she had nurtured her, shielded her,
loved her in a way Rogue had never experienced before and never would
again. She had shaped her in so many
ways, made her into the person she was today.
And for the first
time, she didn’t regret it.
She didn’t regret
being Rogue at all.
There. She was finished. It was better that Mystique wasn’t here, that
she didn’t have to prolong the separation with farewells and the possibility of
recriminating glances. She was going her
own way now. Wherever this road took
her, it was going to be her choice, her decision, her path. She wasn’t going
to be a pawn anymore. She wasn’t going
to be an instrument of destiny any longer.
She swung her pack
on her shoulder and turned to the door.
Somehow, she wasn’t
so surprised to see Irene standing there.
“So,” the old woman
remarked in the same amiable and inoffensive tones she always did, “I see the
time has come already.”
Riddles, riddles,
always riddles. It was one thing Rogue
wasn’t going to miss.
“Ah'm leavin',” she
declared, a little defensively - was Irene here to stop her, or otherwise?
“So I see,” came
the ironic reply, and yet there was a smile on that thin little mouth. Rogue stared.
“So you’re not
gonna stop me?”
“Would you want me
to?” Irene queried with a raised eyebrow.
Rogue shook her head.
“It wouldn’t make
any difference. Ah'm done with it,
Irene. With all of this. Ah played out your game and y'know what? Ah failed.
Looks like your prophecies were just wishful thinkin' after all.”
The words were
defiant, but to her surprise the smile on Irene's face didn’t even flicker.
“On the contrary,
Rogue, you did exactly what I expected you to do. And no,” she added gently, “I don’t expect
you to stay now, nor to want to. Your
job here is done, child; and so is your penance. Are the voices not gone yet?”
There was little
left that surprised her about Irene, but she hadn't been anticipating that.
She knew her foster-mother expected no answer. She looked away. There was a long pause, thick and pregnant -
presently she heard the soft tapping of Irene's cane as she crossed the creaky
wooden floor towards her, felt her hand on her shoulder.
“Did you think
you'd made the wrong choice?” she questioned softly. Still Rogue did not look at her.
“Ah thought…”
She paused. She didn’t know what she had thought. Suddenly there was a lump in her throat; but
Irene's lined and aged hand patted her shoulder with a vigour that not even the
strongest man would have possessed.
“The Brotherhood
doesn’t have Rachel, that is true - but perhaps it is just as well. She is free in the world now. Free to make her own destiny. As are you.
As are we all.”
It was only then
that Rogue looked at her, into the pellucid eyes behind the rose-tinted
glasses.
“The phoenix…” she
breathed in a hoarse and sudden rush, “is it real?”
Something glinted
behind the shades; the smile on Irene's lips was knowing.
“The phoenix is
creation, the phoenix is passion. You
feel it in your heart to be real, Rogue, because it is inside of you.
Of course she is real.”
That isn't what Ah meant…
“You should go,”
Irene murmured. “He's waiting.”
Rogue nodded and
placed her hand over the old woman's. It
was withered and bony, but it was warm; she could feel the blood beneath the
skin, pulsing inexorably onward.
“Say goodbye to
Raven for me,” she whispered. “And to Forge,” she added as an afterthought.
“I will,” Irene
nodded, smiling as if there would be no parting, as if there would be no
separation and that before long Rogue would return to the fold. For all the time that Irene had lived on this
sad and sorry earth, perhaps it would not be long before they met again after
all. But for Rogue, she honestly hoped
that it wouldn’t be any time soon.
And now there really
were no more goodbyes to be said.
Irene's hand dropped; she smiled once more, encouraging, and stepped
aside.
And Rogue was
walking out the door without once looking back; because this time she was
moving forward of her own volition, and not even the past, not even the
shackles of her own memories could tie her down.
She knew what Raven
would say.
You'll walk a circle, Rogue.
It didn’t
matter. In a way she had come full
circle already, and if all circles inevitably led back to this point then there
was nothing to fear from life anymore.
Nothing at all.
It had taken her
years of slog and hardship, but finally, she'd laid all her ghosts to rest.
*
It was still something
of a surprise to find him waiting for her when she got back outside; but then,
he had always been there for her every morning after the night before, and
whenever he had disappeared out of her life, it had always been in the
knowledge that sometime, somewhere along the line, he would return. And he had
returned, every time.
She watched him a
moment, standing a little way off with his back to her, still smoking, gazing
off into the middle distance. Looking at
him now, with all the barriers lowered between them, she honestly didn’t know
how long they would last or whether they would ever truly learn to reach out
for one another. But one thing was
certain, and that was that she was going to try.
“Ah'm ready,” she
greeted him, adding her bag to the rest of his stuff. He looked back at her and frowned.
“Dat all you’re
bringin'?” he asked. She shrugged.
“Ah've got
everythin' that's important t' me, sugah.
Not a lot else matters.” She paused and grinned at him. “Thought you
woulda preferred it if Ah didn’t bring the kitchen sink with me anyway…”
He grunted
humorously.
“As long as you
bring your beautiful self, chere, I ain't complainin'.”
He turned and
stared back into the distance. There was
something on his mind, she could sense it a mile away; but she didn’t want to
pry. She walked up beside him and
followed his gaze. The same broken
houses, the same roiling clouds, the same ashen skyline. What he saw she didn’t think she'd ever
see. She turned slightly and tugged on
his sleeve.
“C'mon, Remy. Let's go.”
He turned and faced
her. It was starting to rain.
“One last t'ing,
Rogue,” he began, so seriously it took her off guard.
“What?” she
asked. He paused; his fingers brushed
her hair from her shoulder absently.
“Your name, chere,”
he murmured.
Another memory,
dredged up from a past long since abandoned, long since buried, a place no one
had touched in over fifteen years, a little nugget of truth she'd never been
able to confide to anybody. Because the
memory was dead, and it wasn’t her anymore - and yet it was, and it always had
been, and now she didn’t know why she had hidden it away for so long. And so she screwed up all her courage, opened
her mouth and said:
“Anna. Anna-Marie.”
He considered that
a moment.
“Anna, hahn? I'll haveta get used to dat.”
She scrunched up
her nose in distaste.
“Ah prefer Rogue.”
“Really?” He
grinned, lop-sided. “So do I.”
She knew what he
was thinking of. That first meeting
round the pool table, what seemed like a lifetime ago. She knew because she was thinking the same
thing too. She tugged on his sleeve
again.
“Let's go,” she
whispered.
He nodded.
He walked to the
bike with her following close behind.
And for the first
time in her life, she had the courage to reach out and hold his hand.
* * * * *
- END -