Note: This is something I wrote before my mom passed away. She was a big X-Men fan because it all came out when she was a small girl. Anyways I thought that I would post the story because she seemed to really like it. It was originally a one shot but I think I will make it into a mini story breaking it up into five parts. I lost the original draft of it but I remember it for the most part so I hope ya'll enjoy.

Disclaimer: I don't own X-men.

Passion Flowers & Cajun Spices

Part I

Steam filled the tiny bathroom belonging to her single bed hotel room just outside of the French Quarter in New Orleans. The scent of flowers, passion flowers, to be exact filled the room as the foam began to over take the water. The scent, she determined as she added more hot water to the tub, of the south. She could still recall the scent of these purple flowers from her childhood memories. It was all relaxing. An escape into the past before mutations where popular among the teens. Before she was one of the cursed.

Not that she believed the mainstream notion that mutants were all cursed. No she could never admit to herself that was the case. She merely had decided long ago after nearly killing the first and only boy she had ever kissed that she was particularly cursed. That was why she was here.

She had to keep reminding herself that her goal was to find the man promising a cure for any mutant who sought him out. It was experimental of course since none of the actual cures really worked, but she was willing to give it shot. False hope was better than no hope in her book.

Rubbing away the fog that now occupied her mirror she noticed her face. She sighed, really, the young woman staring back at her was not herself at all. Her eye liner was now a dark smudge on both her eyes creating an affect that almost seemed to look like she had been punched instead of almost three days on a train. She tried desperately to come through her matted burgundy hair with her fingers but it was no use.

Conditioner.

Conditioner was what she needed, lots and lots of conditioner.

Her hair was simply too long for her to get the tangles out dry. It would take her at least thirty minutes, and she needed all the time she could spare. She glanced at the side of the porcelain tub. The conditioner they provided was too cheap and not nearly enough to do her hair any justice. Releasing another long sign she exited the bathroom into the small sleeping quarters. There was just too much Native American blood in her family for her to just simply use cheap brands of shampoo and conditioner. Her hair was just too thick.

Reaching into her bag she pulled out a shirt with Hugh Grant's handsome face peering back at her with a wicked smile. She longed for the days where she squealed with her friends over how cute he was. But those days had long since passed. Tossing the shirt on the bed she once again dug into the bag finally finding what she was searching for.

Holding tightly to the bottle she did not give the shirt a second glance as she once again entered the bathroom closing the door behind her. She locked the door out of habit, something she had developed after the many intrusions of others during her early morning showers. She was incapable of ever touching a human being, but it seemed every male and female in the mansion had seen her virgin body.

It was embarrassing really.

Pulling off her shirt she once again paused at the mirror taking a long look at the tired figure before her. There had to be some kind of absolution to her endearment. There had to be some reason that she was chosen by Fate to place this kind of pressure on her.

She turned the knob of the tub with one hand as she scratched underneath the fabric of her bra with the other. Was there some kind of karma involved in this torture she was forced to face every day of her life?

Sometimes she wondered to herself if she was being punished for a past life.

She unbuttoned the top of her hip huggers only to stop in the process. There was a noise coming from inside her hotel room. Placing her ear to the door she listened as the voices pierced through:

"I don think there's anyting worth takin' here cuz."

"We ought to at least check!"

"Tis is the cheapest hotel in New Orlean's I tink we ought te go back to the French Quarter."

"I'm telling' ya my gut says something valuable tis here."

Rogue narrowed her eyes in aggravation, growling to herself. She sure did have some kind of luck. She had hoped that picking a cheap hotel would ward off any thieves hibernating in the lively city. But she had no such luck!

Of all the odds honestly!

She heard them dump her bag out on the floor, the contents making a loud thud on the ground. The two intruders began to talk again.

"Don seem like much."

"Ha! Look cuz a Hugh Grant shirt. Maybe I'm keep for myself, eh?"

The rage of intrusion and theft bubbled into the pit of her stomach causing her to become more and more aggressive. She had nothing they could possibly want in that room and yet they still insisted on robbing her. These thieves had no shame at all! And to steal her shirt.

That was just low.

Lower than low.

The lowest you could get of low.

"Put that down."

"No need to snatch it away Remy. I didn't tink you were a Grant fan girl. Here take it."

"Stop fooling around. We need nothing' from here lets go."

There was a shuffle of feet before the other finally spoke up, "Hey look what I found."

"Leave it alone Louis."

"it's a bra."

She froze her heart sinking.

"Take it off you idiot."

Really?

Really?

Was the one called Louis really wearing her bra? That was more than just a little sick. She had about five of them in her bag. She would burn them all before the chance of wearing the one that the thief was playing with. Her hand instantly flew to the cash she had stuffed inside the very bra she was wearing at this moment. It was a good thing she had enough money to spare for a few new undergarments.

A very good thing.

She just hoped the cross dressing clown know as Louis would listen to his disapproving cousin Remy and leave before they find out she was secretly hiding in the bathroom. She would really hate having to have their minds inside her head, especially this Louis character.

Tired and exhausted she contemplated making a move away from the door. She was sure that with all her training with the X-Men she would be able to move without being heard. Slowly she turned from the door barely catching the annoyed cousin's words:

"Lets go."

Unknowingly her bare foot touched a puddle of water that had leaked off of her hand when she had tested the warmth of the water. Everything began to play in slow motion as her only thought that crossed her mind was that she should have used a towel instead of just simply shaking her hands dry.

How many times had Kitty and Jean complained that they had fallen in the bathroom because of the lack of using proper drying tools?

Now she had wished she had listened.

She reached out trying to grab the nearest thing to her. Her downfall was that the nearest thing to her was a towel hanging loosely from a towel rack. Her fingers gripped if with instinct. She cursed that same instinct as the towel slide from the rack causing her to tumble backwards over the toilet.

Again her instincts made themselves apparent as she sensed that if she did not turn her body sharply and quickly she would fall into the water filled tub. So she turned with all the grace of a robin avoiding the deadly talons of an eagle. However, as she bi-passed the water, her bare foot landed on the fallen towel she had grabbed early.

Knowing that there was no escape from this final trap set down by this cunning hotel bathroom she felt her temple make contact with the corner of the tub. A blast of white insued her vision has she laid there breathing heavily as she waited for it to clear.

She couldn't move.

She couldn't even really see.

But she could hear.

"What the hell was that?"

"It sound like it comin' from the bathroom."

Heavy footsteps made their way to her hiding area. She knew that she had to somehow get up and make an escape but as she lift her head a sharp pain pierced through her skull. She would be discover if they managed to pick the lock and then two things would occur:

They would either find the money she had been hiding and rob her.

Or.

If they were true villains of this story then they would try to do more than just rob her. Although she knew that there was no way they could molest her body without injury or death, she most certainly did not want their thoughts inside of her head.

Someone from the outside jiggled the doorknob and then proclaimed it was locked.

"Open it up Remy."

"I don think there's anyting we need in there," the other one snapped darkly.

"Sure there is," the other one insisted, "Other wise why they lock it?"

"Let's go there are plenty of people out there we can rob."

"Your Pops send us here for a reason now open tis door up, or should I tell'em you refuse to follow orders?"

There was a long pause before the other finally stated, "Fine but I don see why we need anyting from dis shit hole after we rob the Duke."

Rogue's heart sank into her stomach as the door knob first started to glow and then as if a tiny bomb exploded into tiny pieces. Her frustrations grew as she realized that at least one of them was a mutant. Things were going to be a little tougher than she had initially hoped for.

The door swung open as two figures loomed in the darkness of her room. She could only note that one was significantly taller than the other one with glowing, red eyes.

Eyes, she might have stated if her head had not been bleeding and exploding with pain, that really gave her the creeps.

"I told you there was something valuable in here," the body belonging to voice she had determined to be Louis stated.

"Only a bella donna," the other muttered running a silhouette hand through his hair.

"Ah," the other stated with a smirk, "But we can sell her to the slave runners on the docks. Much money to be made in dat trade, cuz."

"Don think so," the other snarled, "Stealing money is one thing, but humans is another. Let's go."

"You don get to determine everything Remy," he came back with a snap.

"And you don get to determine nothing," Came the sharp reply.

She knew she had to get out of their some way, some how. While the taller of the two seemed to have some kind of gentlemanly honor about him, the other did not. And she knew better than to believe that there was any kind of honor among these thieves.

She needed an escape.

And she needed one fast.