What goes around

by Ekster

ROMY One shot. After two years apart, Remy finally plucks up the courage to confront his ex-girlfriend. Mature content and language.

Message to readers: Firstly, thanks for looking.

Secondly, this is an M rated fanfic. Here, this means there is violence, a lot of bad language, and some sexual content that is somewhat integral to the plot. Obviously feel free to skip it if you're not into that, but there are some plot points nearby you might miss.

Thirdly, This is not completely consistent with X-men Evo, but should follow up to the episode Cajun Spice then branch away from the canon.

---

I wandered around aimlessly around the crowd of people on the patio. Occasionally people spoke to me - usually no more than a vague congratulations, but most people ignored me or gave me those piercing, judging looks that I no doubt deserved. I'd been Magneto's lackey for long enough to have become a chronic threat to these kids' home and lives. A few I'd fought face-to-face, others I'd read about on the system but never met. Either way, I tried to avoid my soon-to-be team-mates' stares and had settled for drinking the piss-weak punch on my own at the bottom end of the patio garden, ready to bolt if anyone approached me again.

If I was apprehensive about seeing the X-men, I was a downright fucking wreck about seeing Rogue again. It had been weeks since we'd spoken, months since I'd seen her, or rather, watched her disappear back to New York with the X-men after our excursion down to my home in Louisiana.

I pretended not to be searching for her face or her hair, or the sound of her voice through the mass of students buzzing around the patio. I could see Piotr drifting through the crowds, and I convinced myself I wasn't jealous about how easily the X-men had accepted him into their ranks. In the scheme of things, it didn't matter. I'd never appealed to join the team to make friends, but I couldn't pretend it didn't sting a little. It was while I'd been watching Piotr that I spotted her first. She'd greeted him pleasantly, shook his hand, patted his back when they'd parted after a brief chat. I spied on her for a while, until as though she'd suddenly become alerted to my gaze her eyes shot up to meet mine, and left me utterly frozen. She looked straight through me, and when she walked away it hurt like Hell. It wasn't like I had any reason to expect her not to hate me, I'd kidnapped the girl for fuck's sake. But I'd thought hoped - we'd parted amicably nevertheless. Though her team-mates would have liked my head on a platter right then, there was something in the way she looked at me as they left that had stuck in my mind, festering in my head and making me do some silly things, which I was suddenly regretting.

Perhaps I was only curious about 'the look', or perhaps I felt guilty for what I'd done and had wanted to clear the air between us. Either way a few days after she left I'd phoned her up using the number I got back when I was piecing together my plan to kidnap her. In the days before I built up the courage to call her, I spent a lot of time reading and re-reading her files, (as uninformative as they were) trying to work out who this girl really was. Eventually I bit the bullet, rang her up. I can barely even remember what I said I was so nervous, but I have no doubt that I must have sounded like a complete moron. She didn't hang up, but she didn't talk much either, and let me babble on about nothing until I was so embarrassed I ended the call myself. Disastrous as it had been, I was encouraged that she'd even let me speak to her. Enough so that I called up again, this time more sober, and we begun what actually became a frequent habit of conversation. I loved that she listened to me and took an interest in my stories and thoughts; it was something no-one had ever really done for me, and I begun to adore her for it. Admittedly, it was dangerous of me to second-guess her motivations. In reality, there could have been a hundred reasons why she'd put up with my persistent phonecalls. Sympathy perhaps or pity; possibly just to try to tap me for information (that was fruitless, I'd already severed my ties to the Acolytes by then). I felt like we knew each other intimately, yet at the same time now I was doubting everything. We'd never discussed our relationship, even implicitly, and where I had completely fallen for her, I had no idea where I stood in her mind.

By the time I'd done reminiscing, I'd finished up my drink and was just heading over to get a refill. There was some food, normal barbecue shit, but I wasn't so hungry. Besides which, my number one mission was to get drunk enough to bear the night, which with that punch, was hard enough as it was on an empty stomach.

Halfway there, I spotted Scott hanging around at the table, filling up a plate with salad. Desperate to not have to speak with him, I veered off and went to take a piss instead, hanging around in the bathroom inside until I thought he'd've disappeared. As I came down the stairs back outside, Rogue blind-sided me, coming right up to the foot of the steps, blocking my way and watching me. Before I reached her, she took a few steps back and took off towards the narrow side-steps, which lead away from the mansion and the gardens, into the woods. When she reached the top she glanced back at me and I bolted straight after her.

The path was muddy and unclear, but she seemed to know where she was going and I trailed behind her by a few metres, too nervous to talk to her. After a long walk, we reached a clearing in the trees, where the grass was thick and mossy and the sound of chattering and music from the party was a muted buzz. For a while, we just stood there in silence. She was perched on top of one of the moss-covered logs, looking up at the canopy of leaves which the sunlight filtered through. She seemed so at home, and I got the impression this was somewhere she came often; I got a warm fuzzy feeling in my belly that she'd brought me here. When she turned and beckoned me over, I half expected her to show me what she'd been staring at in the clouds, but instead she just gave me this lazy look that I couldn't figure out. She rested her arms on my shoulders and had to tilt her head down to look at me.

Caught up in the moment, I stupidly tried to kiss her, and she jerked her head away - I had to grab her waist to keep her steady. My cheeks burned with shame.

She smothered my mouth with her gloved hand, arranging the scarf around her neck with the other. She looked like a bandit, covered up to her eyes, but it didn't matter when she let me kiss her for the first time.

For that moment, nothing else in the world mattered. Even though we couldn't make skin contact, even when we had to scramble in the dark back to the party before anyone found us missing - it was unbelievable.

---

Almost five years later:

I was in the middle of a basketball game when she came slinking over to watch. I spotted her without even having to look, but it seemed more appropriate to pretend not to see her.

It was only a few minutes before one of the kids called time, and everyone stopped for breath and broke into excited chatter. I declined the offer to play again and collected my shirt from the side of the pitch. I was just patting the sweat off my shoulders when I acted like I'd just noticed her, able to get the first proper look at her in a couple of years.

It was a little bit like getting the wind kicked out of you, though not so much cause she was looking alright, but because all the pent up anger and bitterness I thought I'd reigned in all decided to rear up at once in my throat when we made eye contact. I felt a surge of adrenaline, but I kept my cool. The last thing I wanted was for her to see was that she was affecting me in whatever ridiculous way.

She had this weird expression on her face, but I'd not been deaf and blind all the time we were together, and I knew from the look in her eye it was naught but a cover for whatever emotions my return had dredged up (guilt I hoped).

"Ah heard you were around, but Ah didn' believe it 'til Ah saw it for myself."

I strode over to the chain-link fence she was watching me through, spreading my arms out and hooking my fingers through the links, deliberately getting right into her personal space. She straightened up a little but didn't back off.

"Bet y' never t'ought you'd see me again."

I was toying with her, but she didn't look amused.

She said nothing.

She walked and I followed. For a while we strolled in a huge detour around the grounds. I'd known Rogue for years and we'd never run out of things to say, but now it seemed impossible to break the sudden treaty of silence.

"What's with the haircut?" I felt her fingers brush the short hairs on the back of my neck, and I swatted her hand away, briefly irritated at her boldness.

I smoothed it back out of habit. While my hair was shorter back and sides, it was long enough at the top to flop down and tickle my forehead.

"It's a guild thing... They get off on all dat military crap. Ain' nobody gonna take orders from a guy lookin' like a greasy moptop teenager."

"Could'a let me cut it for ya."

"Fuck off, after de last time?" I'd wanted to be serious, but at the memory I laughed despite myself, "Rather keep my ears, thanks."

She laughed too and her amused hum rang in my ears and my chest.

I'd been concerned that it would be awkward to talk to her again; I'd never been very good at behaving civilly around exes. Rogue and I had kept in touch, of course we wrote, but the last time I had actually spoke with her was not a pleasant memory.

After we'd managed to break the ice, we both loosened up a little. She probed me about what I'd been doing back home in New Orleans and I told her as little as I could, mostly repeating things I'd told her before, just to stave off the silence.

"How's Bella?" She asked, quietly, like it was some top secret information. To be fair, generally guild information was classified, though sometimes I'd end up sharing it with her all the same. In this case though, the guild connection was irrelevant; I'm sure she didn't particularly care about the political merits of my marriage.

Almost as soon as I'd returned home after the messy breakup, I'd made good on my promise to wed Belladonna Boudreaux. I was disappointed my father couldn't have seen it; he'd always had a secret little soft spot for Bella. Besides which, it'd been his idea in the first place. Though if he hadn't begged me on his deathbed, I would have assumed he'd forgotten about it.

It wasn't a completely altruistic move on my part though. I had my motives, though becoming the co-leader of both guilds had not been one of them. No, my favourite part of the whole thing was getting to tell Rogue that I'd married another woman.

At the time I was grieving in all sorts of ways, for my father's death, as well for my own life and freedom, which I could feel slipping away as the inherited responsibility for the Thieves' Guild fell upon my unwilling shoulders. Added to which, the emotional stress at the sudden loss of my relationship with Rogue and the life I'd planned to have with her, had meant the shock and loss on both counts had morphed into the most incredible anger. I'd gone through a fairly rough couple of months where I'd have liked nothing more than to inflict back on her a good portion of the misery I was going through.

Bitter and scorned, I'd spent a lot of time thinking through the various ways I could tell her about the wedding: phone her, let her find out through the grapevine, send her a wedding invitation (I didn't like that one - there was always the chance she'd actually show up). Perhaps I wasn't as angry as I'd thought, or perhaps I was too cowardly to tell her, because it was months and months after the wedding before I finally confessed, by a Christmas card of all the things. But even as I'd written it, when my hatred had subsided into a sort of spiteful bitterness, I'd been fantasizing about what she'd do when she read it. Would she cry? I loved the idea that she'd suddenly realise what a mistake she'd made and come crawling back to me, and I would frequently compose little speeches in my head where I'd refuse to take her back, and tell her how much better my life had been since we'd broken up. In retrospect, I was kidding myself - if she'd ever have even hinted that we should get back together I'd have been there like a shot.

"Bella's okay. Mainly lookin' after th' Assassin's guild now. She's a good leader, ain't anybody dare piss her off."

"An' what about you?"

"Yeah I piss her off now an' then."

Rogue grinned, as though she were silently agreeing with Bella's impatience for me.

"It's not like we're livin' together any more... But you know how it is, I see her everyday at work anyway... if she had to live wit' me as well she'd have killed me by now for sure."

I lived in my own flat in New Orleans, an hour from the guild HQ - though these days I was spending far too many nights in my designated room in the guild. Bella lived on her own too, we both needed our own space. We'd only managed to bear each other for a couple of months before it became very apparent that our relationship could only ever be a business arrangement. Whatever romantic notions of love and marriage we'd once shared as young, flighty teenagers did not translate well into real life. She was impatient and I was stubborn, and we really didn't like each other enough to work it out. But I couldn't have asked for a better partner in our line of work.

In truth, the Guild work was unspeakably mundane. Hours of the day were devoted to admin alone, then liaising with attorneys, accountants, clients. In truth it was just embarrassing. I - once a king amongst thieves - had been nailed to a desk for the rest of my life. Unlike Bella, I'd never been raised to run the guilds. Henri was the one my father had always intended to become the next leader; he had the head for business and the training to handle it. In actuality, Bella helped me out a lot more than my pride would care to admit.

"You're looking pretty skinny, Cajun." She murmured staring right at me, and I realised I'd been daydreaming.

"Not a lot o' time for exercisin' to me honest." I laughed at my own private little joke. "Shoutin' down th' phone an' signing documents ain' exactly the same workout as a danger room session twice a day."

I looked down at her, properly taking her in. There was no denying Rogue's appearance had evolved more than a little in the two years I'd been gone. She'd grown up in the best possible way, into a stunning young lady and in the heat of the day's sun, she was wearing a thin skater dress that left the perfect amount of work to the imagination. Not that I had to imagine. Either way, she'd never have worn anything revealing back when we were together and it had nothing to do with fidelity. Her attire had reflected her caution about her mutation more than her modesty. It seemed unlikely that the habit of covering up head-to-foot that she'd been accustomed to since childhood should have changed so suddenly. Ever since we started talking again I'd been extremely curious about the development of her powers - though, of course, it had always been highly inappropriate to ask her straight out.

"Dat's a nice dress."

I eyed her carefully; her expression altered subtly and I knew she was busy processing my seemingly innocuous comment.

"It's nice weather." She defended coolly. I stopped in my tracks, shielding my eyes from the low sun and studying the tall, dark clouds in the otherwise clear, evening sky.

"Looks like it migh' change." I tried to gesture at the clouds, but she wouldn't look away from me.

"Looks can be deceptive. You know that." She murmured cryptically and there was a deep look that shadowed over her face for a moment. "Wind's blowing north anyway. Weather won't budge." I stared at her back as she continued off up the footpath. There was my answer, and I knew more questions were pointless - that was all I'd get.

---

The entire conversation took us from the playing courts through past the lake and along the outskirts of the wood before climbing back up the hill to the mansion. She wasn't talkative after my little faux-pas of broaching the subject of her mutation. Wolvie was outside sitting on the wall having a smoke when we came past. I'd had a swift one before I'd arrived this afternoon and I wasn't too desperate, but I didn't want to have to keep up the awkward small talk any longer than necessary and this was my escape route.

Rogue gave me a dirty look when I pulled the pack out of my back pocket. I pinched one out and lit it up anyway. Back in the day I never dared to let her catch me smoking, but now there wasn't a lot she could do about it. She seemed to sense this too, because all she did was roll her eyes and wander off inside.

I chatted and gossiped with Logan until I'd chain-smoked far more than I should have, and his cigar had burnt down to a stub. In the time we'd been outside, dinnertime had been and gone, so I wound up eating the leftovers in the kitchen, with some of the kids buzzing around, cleaning up and doing whatever. I realised how much I'd missed this all while I'd been away. It was soothing to say the least, and for the first time in a long time, I felt at home.

After playing catch up with a few of the others who'd caught me on the way, I headed up to what had been designated as my bedroom for the duration of my stay - however long that would turn out to be. I threw all my gear out of my bag (my version of unpacking) before heading up to the attic to root through the boxes of my things that I'd left behind when I took my leave. There was nothing interesting, just whatever stuff I couldn't carry on my bike or didn't care enough to keep, but I found a few nice shirts I'd forgotten about. There was another box which I left until last because I already knew what was in it. It was full of Rogue's things, or rather things she'd once given to me. I hadn't been able to bring myself to throw it all out, but determined to play the scorned lover I didn't want to take them with me, to prove a point if nothing else. I'd regretted leaving a few of them, my harmonica for one, but I'd been magnificently spiteful at the time my possessions hadn't seemed so important.

I didn't take me long to deduce that Rogue had moved out of her old room in the girls' wing. I found Jubilee kicking around the games room; she was just as I remembered her, bubbly and excited as ever. She quizzed me, mostly about Rogue. Turned out there'd been a lot of gossip about about my return, and she had no inhibitions about egging me on to get back with her. I took advantage to tap her for as much information as I could bear to though I wouldn't have vouched for its accuracy. She was more than happy to tell me that Rogue was now living in the old boathouse by the lake, and as I left she made a few lewd suggestions that made me laugh all the way down through the gardens.

---

I rapped twice on the solid wooden door in a upbeat rhythm and waited. It was bizarre, knocking on this door. From the time I'd joined until the time I'd left, this boathouse had been my own space where I slept and worked. Why Rogue would have moved in here was beyond my comprehension, but then again, she'd all but lived there back then as well.

I knocked again after a couple of seconds and she jerked the door open immediately.

"Bonsoir." I noticed her pyjama bottoms and standard issue, X-insignia sweatshirt. "You sleepin'? I c'n come back tomorrow-"

"Why?" She sighed, folding her arms, but she shifted to one side to let me pass. "Ah'm awake now."

The room inside was dark, apart from a few embers in the fire, which she began to rekindle as I stepped across the threshold, removing my boots on the mat by the door. It had always pissed me off enormously when people wandered around this place with their muddy shoes on.

The way she was knelt down over the fireplace sent me on a little nostalgia trip, and I reminisced to myself about struggling to stay warm here over the cooler months. It wasn't a particularly fresh night, but it was cold enough to have warranted the fire. The hut was insulated and kept heat well, but it could still get chilly at night.

After she'd stoked and fed the fire for a few minutes and was satisfied it would keep burning okay, she set a kettle down on the bar over the flame. We didn't speak while the water boiled, and I didn't move from my spot by the door until she was pouring us both a drink.

"So they tellin' me you had a thing going on with th' Iceman?" I joked, taking the cup she offered me.

She raised her eyebrows.

"Fool on you for believin' 'em. It's just gossip."

"So you not been seein' anybody then?" I slipped in.

She turned her head to face me full on, I could see her watching me from underneath her eyelashes. If it was anybody else, I might have thought it was a blank stare, but this was Rogue's default expression - the one she made when she was turning things over in her head. It was what made it so difficult to argue with her; her brain was like a machine - never missing a beat, always calculating and analysing. It was like she could see straight into my head through those half-lidded eyes, and that was a lot of the reason I liked to wind her up, to coax an emotional response rather than a considered one.

"Really, Remy? Do you want to go there now?" She rubbed at her face and sipped her tea slowly, waiting to see if I'd change the topic. But her sudden defensiveness had made me much too curious, and the dangerous nature of the topic wouldn't deter me now. I really had to know.

"Alright, if you really must know... There was one guy." She sighed after a minute's silence. "It's over now." She added, which didn't make me feel any better. I regretted asking almost immediately. It wasn't what I'd hoped, or expected, to hear.

She visibly squirmed in the heavy silence. "He, uh... He's a teacher, was a little bit older than you are now."

I made a sound in response and I could feel her watching me. I wasn't going to pretend that it wasn't damaging my pride a little to know she'd been seeing someone else. What did I really expect? For her to spend the rest of her life alone? I guess I'd just assumed it'd be that way.

"We only dated a little while."

There was an even longer silence, which was becoming overwhelmingly stale. "Teacher, huh?"

"Uh, yeah - math teacher."

I felt a rush of unjust hate towards this man. Some person I'd never even met, but who had swooped in and taken up what had been my position as the man in her life. And who to add insult to injury could give her something I never did: intelligent conversation.

You see, Rogue was an engineer. Not by profession (yet), but just because that was just the way her head was built. I'd watched her breeze through equations like it was kids' stuff, and I'd seen her drag vehicles back from the brink of scrap metal using only her head and a tool box. To me, the girl was a genius. I didn't know it at first, and I don't think she knew it either. She'd been bad at applying herself at school, but as soon as she set her hopes on going on to study engineering at college, it was a totally different story.

We drank our tea in excruciating silence. There had been a time when the breaks in conversation had been the best times of all, when I could dwell on the way I felt about her. Now it just reminded me of all the shit she put me through when she dumped me, and my mood soured further.

"Well, uh... What about you, Cajun?"

"Well, you know me. Couldn't wait to stretch my wings a bit." I wallowed in the hurt look she allowed to slip across her face momentarily. "Forgot what I'd been missin' out on. You know, skin-to-skin."

"Really fuckin' nice, Remy." She slammed her cup on the floor and shot to her feet. "I'm so glad you came to chat."

I caught her wrist as she moved to stalk past me, and tugged her back hurriedly. I'd meant to get under her skin, but I didn't want her to actually kill me. I should have known better than to make a jab at her one real weak spot.

"Ey! Look I'm sorry. Don' know where dat came from. I Didn' come here to get at y'... I got somethin' for you."

I fished out the scarf from my back pocket and held it out for her. She took it off me but no light of recognition dawned on her face until she unravelled the little bundle of black material to its full glory, kneeling to hold it towards the fire to see it in a better light. There was a long silence while she examined the fabric between her hands, it was worn out in certain places, ripped and frayed at the edges; there was no mistaking it.

"Have you had this the whole time?"

She ran her fingers over the holes and tears and traced the pattern of little, faint-white skulls with her thumbs.

"You know Ah searched everywhere for this?" She finally looked at me, heavily.

"Figured y' would." It was precisely why I had taken it. It was just a scarf to me, but she was very attached to it. I mean, she'd worn it almost constantly, and not just because it was convenient for the occasional kiss. I hadn't ever asked, but I knew there was some deep sentimental value behind it for her. To me, it was just the scarf we'd smooched through now and then... you know, when she wasn't embarrassed about doing it.

She stared down at it, her expression melancholy. Far from sympathetic, I got the distinct feeling I was being manipulated.

For a long time she sat saying absolutely nothing, which was her favourite trick for making me squirm. It always worked. I knew she loved that scarf, but I never thought she'd have the gall to still be mad about my stealing it. On some level I felt like I was being unfairly punished. I could endure her guilt-tripping tactics while we were together, but if she thought she'd be able to pull that shit with me now, she was sorely mistaken.

Things were beginning to chip away at my patience. Her aggravation about my own personal business and that fucking scarf stood in painful contrast to her flippancy about our break-up. A little over two years ago, she'd suddenly decided we shouldn't be together any more without any remorse or hesitation. How could anyone be so cold about a romance we'd surrendered nearly three years of our lives to? My head began to pound with the desire to lash out at her.

"So I took y' favourite scarf. It dat anyt'ing like as cruel as breakin' my heart?"

"What?" It took all of half a second for her surprised face to morph into her confused face. "Where is this coming from?"

Every pore in my body was screaming at me to give her a thick piece of my mind tell her once and for all how it had felt to have my heart stomped on and the whole thing we'd had being tossed away like it meant nothing to her.

I'd spent the last two years pretending that everything was fine between us, and why? Just to save face, preserve my ego. I hated - hated the idea of being the sort of whiny, clingy, pathetic loser who mopes around begging their ex to take them back. I'd live a thousand times over before I'd stoop to that level.

Of course I fucking cared that the only girl (...No, scratch that: the only person) who had really ever meant anything to me - the only person who knew me for who I really was - had got sick of being with me.

But obviously, I couldn't tell her that. For one thing it was just embarrassing that I'd been so deeply infatuated by someone who clearly couldn't give a crap.

On the other hand I hated that she was getting by thinking that what she'd done was okay. That she could just treat people like shit without ever having to face up to it.

Of course I couldn't have my cake and eat it. I'd come up to New York fully intending on letting her know exactly how not-okay it was, but that also meant owning up to how not-okay I had been after we broke up. It wasn't something I wanted to discuss right now, when things were so horribly awkward between us. And especially when I was so angry with her. I didn't want my emotions to get in the way of making my point. She always assumed it wasn't worth listening to anything I had to say once I'd started shouting.

"It doesn't matter." I scoffed, wanting to backpedal out of starting a dangerous conversation.

"I don't know what your sudden problem is, Gambit, but if you've got somethin' to say, yah'd better spit it out."

I waved her to sit back down, suddenly fearful that I'd been misinterpreting her quiet mood for a personal attack.

"Nothing, it's nothin'." I cleared my throat. "I'm just messing with you. Why are y' still at dis place?" I shot, wanting to change the subject quickly.

"Why are you?"

"I asked first. What are you still doin' here, Rogue?"

She gave me a look brimming with stubbornness masquerading as innocence.

"Well Ah live here."

I sighed through my teeth in frustration. She could be so difficult and she never liked to make things easy when she didn't want to talk.

She must have picked up on my mood, as she continued, "Ah'm just doing odd jobs... you know."

I did know. I used to do exactly the same thing back when she was still in school.

"Actually, now Ah tutor the kids that ain't doin' so well in maths an' science. Ah help Hank out in the labs like a research assistant; an' Ah'm the sucker who's gotta fix up the jets an' the cars when they get smashed up." She tugged at a loose thread on the rug. "Then there's the X-men stuff, obviously."

She looked at me again - I could tell from her expression that she knew exactly what my next question is going to be. In fact, she was probably a few steps ahead of me in the conversation. I asked anyway.

"What about college?"

She just shrugged, as though it wasn't worth answering the question.

"You still on your 'gap year'?" I goaded seriously. "How many years you gonna-"

"Why does it even matter?" She sighed, throwing her arms up in exasperation. I opened my mouth to argue but she cut me off: "What good would it possibly achieve?"

"Dat's not the point-"

"Well what is the point exactly?"

"I jus' don't get why you wouldn' want to make somethin' of your life!"

"What, like you did?" She mocked, cruelly.

Her words rang hard in my ears and I could tangibly feel my temper slipping out of my grasp. I shut my eyes and counted to ten, like I'd been told to do but I only made it to three before I felt better. When I opened my eyes, she wasn't even looking my way.

"You're nothin' but a hypocrite, Remy."

"You think jus' cause I fucked up my life, mean I ought to let you screw yours up as well?"

"This wasn't ever about my life because unlike you, I don't run shit-scared from my responsibilities!"

"An' what is that supposed to mean?"

"Do you need me to spell it out for you? There's people here that need me, and Ah ain't gonna run out on them."

"So what are you sayin'? That that's what I would do? Run off an' leave em in de dust?"

She scoffed "That's about the only thing you do do. That's why you're here now, ain't it? Did ya get tired of playin' Guildmaster and leave your wife to pick up your slack?"

As she turned her back on me I lunged to snatch her arm and yank her back to face me. She panted through her teeth, giving me a hateful grimace.

"Do you have any idea how hard it is to run de Guilds? Huh? Can you even comprehend the pressure dat puts on you? You think dat there's anythin' that happens in dere dat I don't know about? You think a day goes by when I don' have to jump t'rough hoops an fuckin' hoops to keep everybody happy? You have no idea the shit I have to put up with from those pompous, arrogant cocksuckers dat call themselves th' Council.

"Bella an' my brother, they w' groomed for this position since they were kids. I was never taught how to deal with this shit. And if it wasn't for that fucking salaud brother of mine runnin' off like the cowardly prick he always was, I wouldn' have to waste my life runnin' around cleanin' up all dis shit that he left behind when he abandoned his own fuckin' family.

"I never claim to be th' best man, or the most honest man. But don't you ever, ever insult my sense o' honour, Rogue. I have my responsibilities, and even though I hate it, an' every particle in my body hates it, I'll spend th' rest of my days wit dat responsibility on my shoulders. You think I wanted to give up my whole life to run th' guild? I never had any choice in dat."

She tried to prise my hand off her arm. "What the fuck does this have to do with college?"

"Cause you have this stupid idea that you gotta stay here cause people need you, but de' truth is dat th' longer you stay th' more you'll think dat they'll need you 'til you're stuck here when you're forty, wonderin' why you never took the chance to carve out y' own life while y' still could! You think you're trapped here 'cause - oh some kids need help with their homework it's fucking bullshit, Rogue. If you're too scared to leave den that's one thing, but don't fucking act like you have no choice. At least stop lyin' to you'self."

She said nothing but we were both still huffing angry breaths. She looked at me like I was a monster, and when I released her arm, she rubbed at it feverishly.

"You talk such shit, Remy." She spat, and even as I caught my breath it gave me a horrid little thrill to know my words provoked her.

She slammed both her fists into my shoulder and I stumbled back against her dresser.

It frustrated me to no end that she'd throw away her shot at freedom just to appease her sense of responsibility to the X-men. I hated that she'd miss out on the chances I'd never had, and it was a lot of the reason I used to push her so hard. She applied to study mechanical engineering at a few institutes, even went so far as taking the entrance exams... and then nothing. She tore up the letters unopened and wouldn't hear a word about it. We had fought about it constantly, though, so this wasn't exactly new ground for us.

She threw a slipper at my face, as I struggled not to punch a hole through the wall. "You don't call, we barely talk. Then you just show up, unannounced what for? Why did you even bother coming back?"

"Just to throw it in my face what a fucking awesome life you have screwing every girl you meet, and to lecture me about my life like you're a fucking saint? Well, you know what? Well done, you have successfully made me feel like shit. Congratulations. So now you can fuck off back to your wife, and your shitty little desk job, and your fucking... dog and get on with your happy fucking life!"

I gripped the edges of the dresser , because my vision was getting fuzzy from what felt like all the blood in my body racing around in my head.

"Why it my fault dat I had to leave? You were th' one dat 'Needed space', Rogue. Sorry, but I di'n't realise 'space' meant screwin' around wit' school teachers-"

She clocked me around the jaw so hard I'm sure I head something crack. I'd caught my tongue between my teeth when she struck me, and I could taste blood, even though it was a moment before my brain registered what had happened, and that there a lot of pain. I hauled myself off the floor using her cabinet as support.

Furious, and scared I would retaliate, I lashed out at her furniture, swiping everything off the dresser with such a force that a few things hit the wall on the other side of the room and exploded.

She yelped at the sound of the impact, but she was still shaking with rage, looking like she could batter me to death me without a second thought. After a long, staring contest, she just turned on her heel and walked away.

"Course, maybe y' were just making 'space' for dat guy all along." I remarked under my breath.

"What was that?" She said, quietly, though I could tell she'd heard.

"Think whatever you want, Gambit. I'm through with you."

"Just get out." She shoved me away and I stormed past her, nearly ripping the door off its hinges on the way. My head was buzzing so hard I only realised I'd left my boots inside when I was halfway back to the mansion.

---

I woke up with stinging, bloody knuckles and a niggling knot of tension in my chest, which sank down into my stomach as I remembered how terribly my heart-to-heart with Rogue had backfired.

My head begged for caffeine, but I didn't want to go down to the kitchen in case I saw her at breakfast. I found half a bottle of warm coke in my bag and gulped it down before running my thoughts back over my stupid behaviour last night.

So what if she'd had a boyfriend? I'd been systematically - pointedly - been rampaging my way through girlfriends, breaking hearts where I found them for the last two years.

Rogue wasn't my lady anymore - I barely even recognised her as the girl I'd foolishly trusted with my most intimate feelings. I didn't have any say over who she saw. But it still bothered me.

When Bella goes away with her boyfriend I don't get jealous. Maybe a little lonely sometimes, but who she sees isn't my business.

It was that I'd been replaced that really got to me. So, I'd seen some girls, so what? I'd never even attempt to find someone to be my new Rogue - how could I? She wasn't just a person I went on dates with and fooled around with on the weekends, she was my raison d'etre; the thin red line that kept me from spiralling down into the abyss.

And horribly enough, part of me had always been grateful for her mutation. It definitely had kept her standards low enough for her to give me a shot. But it had always been at the back of my mind - this worry that she'd eventually realise that anyone who couldn't look past her power and see the beautiful, intelligent girl behind it was a fucking idiot.

Of course it had been easy for her to find someone else to fill my role as doting boyfriend. There was nothing I could offer that she couldn't find in someone else.

It hurt, shit - it hurt like Hell, but I shouldn't have flown off the handle at her.

Without my anger to tint my judgement, I realised I was going to have to tell her how I felt -one way or another it would come out. The truth was, I didn't stop loving her despite all the shit we went through. Course it was a little shameful that I hadn't managed to move on in the last two years, especially since it was so clear to me that she had done so.

I finished off the last of my coke and pondered over what I should do for the day.

---

I loved that bike.

It was a total classic, something I'd picked up years and years back, from a junk-yard back when I'd been riding long enough to get cocky and think I could handle her. I was really only a novice, and she taught me everything I know about riding; now riding her was merely an instinct. She moved like part of my body, and even these craggy, coastal roads I was bombing down couldn't do her any justice.

Of course, I'd not ridden her in years and I knew Rogue wouldn't have either. She refused to learn to ride even though she helped revive this beast of a motorbike after I'd neglected to fix the faulty engine properly for the hundredth time. I couldn't handle the delicacy of the repairs it needed - I wasn't a mechanic, but then neither was she well, not then at least. At the time she was getting weary of the lack of a challenge she found in her school studies, and was developing an insatiable, if spontaneous, interest in electrics. I'd tried to take of advantage of her interest to get her to fix my spark plug, but she'd taken much more of a liking to the innards of engine itself (which I'd foolishly dismantled and couldn't get back together). Logan encouraged her, which was a little unnecessary, since she spent most of her free time from then on getting to grips with inner workings of the engine. Eventually I became little help, so I left her to it altogether, and she only consulted me about it when she needed me to buy some new parts. It took her a while, it was a tough project for a rookie, but the stacks of notes and sweat had paid off - no way I could have fixed it up as good as she got it. Soon Rogue had outgrown Logan too, and single-handedly emasculated every male in the mansion by becoming the resident machinist. I bound up all her papers diagrams and calculations, stuff I didn't understand, and gave her the bike as a present. It was really hers by then, after all.

After my ride I eventually worked up the courage and the appetite to drag my sorry ass down to dinner later in the evening.

I'd spent all day cruising around, blowing off steam and, to be honest, avoiding Rogue. I had a red welt on my jaw where one of her rings had connected with my face, but really, the bigger blow was to my ego. I knew I should go and make my peace with her, but I wasn't the only one who could hold a grudge.

I knew I might see her at dinner, so it was my best opportunity to check if she was still mad with me. Being a weekend, everyone ate at the same time, so the room was at maximum capacity.

Pretty much the whole time I ate I was surrounded by kids I knew and didn't know, so on request, I recounted (somewhat dramatised) tales of a few of my least boring robberies in the last year to whoever came to sit within earshot. Halfway through my wrestling away a pair of vicious guard dogs (only a half-lie, there had been some dogs, though I'd stayed the fuck away from them) I noticed Rogue was at the fringe of my group of attentive listeners, but only as she was getting up to leave the table.

After I'd finished up my food and my story, I jogged down across the grounds to the lake hoping to catch her on the way. I could tell she'd made it into the boathouse already, because there was smoke pouring out of the chimney and the lights were on.

My bravery ran out on me and I lost my nerve just before I brought my fist down to knock on the door. What was I even going to say to her? I lit up a cigarette to calm my nerves, inhaling as deeply as I could before coughing it all out. I was planning my next move when the door cracked open, bathing me in orangey light.

"You comin' in or what?"

I stood and gaped, far from impressively, gesturing at my cigarette.

"It's fine," She waved her hand dismissively "just come on, you're lettin' the heat out."

I stepped across the threshold, feeling extremely awkward and peculiar. She'd never let me smoke in here before, even when it was my room. She disappeared and came back with the cracked espresso cup I'd secretly (or so I'd thought) used as an ashtray when I was too lazy or too cold to go outside to smoke.

"Stinks of smoke all the time in here anyway 'cause of the fire. Besides, Ah'm stuck in the garage breathin' in exhaust fumes day-in, day-out. Figure if anythin's gonna mess up my lungs, it's not gonna be a cigarette, you know?" She laughed to herself while making me a cup of tea I hadn't asked for. I stood on the spot, watching her fuss over the kettle and the wood on the fire. She was half wearing pair of old blue overalls, which were now filthy with dirt and oil, with the sleeves tied around her waist. I slipped off my sneakers on the mat and carried my makeshift ashtray over to sit on the armchair by the fire.

"Oh no, you might wanna put your shoes back on, Ah cleaned up a bit earlier on, but there's still a load of glass on the floor... Ah haven't had time to clear up yet." I felt my face go a little redder from shame, and I took a mouthful of the searing hot tea she handed me to avoid responding.

"Look, Ah'm covered in fuel an' grease - Ah was gonna hop in the bath, but you just... Make yourself at home, Ah'll be out soon, okay?"

She disappeared into the bathroom and left me standing around in the lounge on my own. I carried my cups of ash and tea through to the bedroom, which was looking worse for wear. When I flicked on the light, I saw she was right, there was still glass on the carpet, I could see it glistening in the light as I went towards the dresser, which was now devoid of any of her things. I carefully picked up the bottles and bits that were salvageable and arranged them back on the top, before picking up the bigger chunks of glass and taking them to the bin. It was almost full mostly of screwed up tissues, some of which were spotted with a dark reddish-brown colour I recognised as recently dried blood. I supposed she'd cut her foot on the bit of broken glass, and I felt a surge of guilt wash over me. I guessed the vacuum cleaner would still be in the garage adjourning the boathouse; I cracked open the door and fumbled about for the light cord. The room still had a sole canoe under a tarpaulin sheet, and a huge cabinet of all my tools which now belonged to Rogue. I hoovered every corner of the bedroom until it seemed safe, by which time I could hear Rogue moving around in the bathroom. She was probably naked in there, but that was a bad thing to think about. 'This is why we can't have nice things' my conscience reminded me while I picked shards of glass from under my nails. 'Because you fuck them all up, sooner or later'.

She emerged a while later, and got changed. Lay on her bed, I pretended to be heavily engrossed in reading an article in the magazine I'd found stuffed under her pillow.

She knelt down on the corner, the mattress sinking a little to one side.

"It's kinda early still. I was gonna watch a movie or something, you want in?"

I nodded in agreement - I didn't want to talk either, and so we wound up sat on her bed watching a terrible action film on her laptop. The plot was predictable but strangely engrossing, until about halfway through when I couldn't think about anything apart from the fact that at some point Rogue had fallen asleep with her head on my shoulder and I hadn't even noticed. I sat still in the dark for about twenty minutes after the movie had ended, just to prolong the moment a little more.

Eventually I realised I'd have to stop being so mushy and go back up to the house before they locked up the front doors.

When I was trying to manoeuvre her gently off my arm and onto the pillow, she awoke, and seemed - luckily - more drowsy than annoyed.

"Sorry, Ah dropped off...it's been a long day." She rubbed at her eyes with a long yawn.

"Don' worry about it." There was a short silence while she yawned that I suddenly had to fill up with a joke. "You only drooled on me a little."

She looked at me dopily, the hand that had been half-way to wiping imaginary dribble off her chin paused, before she hit my shoulder with a grin.

Impulsively, I jammed my hand up into her exposed armpit, taking advantage of her slow reaction time. By the time she'd registered the action, it was already too late and she was rendered helpless with howls of laughter, flailing her arms at me whilst trying to defend her under-arms from my hands' merciless attacks

Finally she managed to find the strength to wriggle both legs out from under me, and steadied her feet up against my chest, legs bent and poised with the leverage to kick me off if she'd wanted.

Knowing I'd lost, the game abruptly ended and after a few moments of recovering my breath, it became an overwhelmingly tense period of silence. It occurred to me that I'd pressed my luck a little. I'd almost forgotten that we weren't a 'thing' and that it might not be acceptable to be rolling around on the bed with a girl after reuniting for the first time in years.

She sat up quickly against the headboard while I scrambled off her bed.

"I'm goin' back to Louisiana in th' mornin'."

"Oh..." I straightened up my clothes guiltily while she shuffled around the side of the bed. "It ain't 'cause we were fightin', right?"

"No, no." I lied, "I'm just a busy man... unfortunately. Bella's goin' away wit' her boyfriend next week so we got a shitload to get sorted before den."

"Ah didn't mean to get so mad at ya. Ah am sorry, y'know... for..." She gestured at the red spot on my cheek. "You just... have a way of messing with my head."

"I'm sorry too. Didn' want t' make a big stink or nothin'. It's been good seein' y'. I mean dat."

We sort of smiled sheepishly at each other for a few moments until I indicated that it was time for me to leave.

She nodded slightly, and followed me when I plodded out after collecting all my stuff.

The coldness of the night air was a surprise, but not just to me - I could hear Rogue's teeth chattering and her closing the door softly behind us.

"Ah'll see ya tomorrow morning... right?"

"Of course. Goodnigh'."

"Night." She whispered.

After I insisted she go back in, she shut the door and left me in the cool night, alone. I stalled for a moment, wondering if I should go back in and say goodbye properly. There was absolutely no way I was going to stick around until morning. Judging by how often I'd been blowing my chances the last few days, that'd probably be the last time I'd see her for a long while... Maybe forever if I never got the willpower to move on from moping about after her.

I really felt awful about leaving things unresolved, but I'd proven to myself that there wasn't really any other option. I'd gone to her last night wanting to tell her so many things, but instead I'd screwed up and made things worse. I'd gone to her tonight wanting to tell her so many things, but I hadn't - because I was too scared of making things worse.

At this point, I'd be best off to cut my losses and try to move on with my life. It was the cowardly option, yes. But Rogue and I had left on speaking terms, and that is more or less the best I could hope to get it between us.

I turned on my heel and stalked off towards the wooded path, before I lost my resolve to walk away.

In retrospect, it was a stupid idea: reckoning I could come back and sweep her up in my arms and that everything would be okay. That she might realise that letting me go was a terrible mistake and patch up my broken ego by telling me how much she'd missed me and wanted me.

That's an exaggeration, though I shouldn't lie - that would be pretty great. In reality I'd hoped at least I'd have the nuts to tell her that I missed her, and admit that I wanted to understand the reasons we'd failed at making things work between us. If I was feeling brave, I might have told her I still wanted to be with her, but to be honest, I was beginning to doubt I'd ever have the courage to admit it.

"Remy!"

I thought heard her calling after me, and froze in my tracks. For a minute I thought my ears were playing a cruel trick on me; it was so dark I couldn't tell if it was really her until she was right in front of me, making me jump.

"You forgot these, uh again." She held up my muddy boots that I'd left last night.

"Oh... Thanks." I took them off her carefully.

"It's okay..."

I obviously waited too long to respond because she crossed her arms, and started backing off down the path back towards the boathouse until I had to squint to see her.

"Ah, um..." She stopped in her tracks, her hand rubbing the back of her neck as she twisted around to look at me.

"You can stay the night. You know... if you want to..."

I hoped it was too dark to see the surprise on my face. There was really only one reason she'd be inviting me to spend the night it didn't have much to do with sleeping, but whatever the woman wanted.

"I'd like that."

---

As soon as I heard the door click shut behind us, I made my move.

I gripped her shoulders and kissed her lips twice, each time less than a second - I didn't want to end up a spazzing heap on the floor. My heart hammered like crazy - I didn't know what she wanted, but I knew how much I didn't want to mess this up by not making my intentions explicit.

As I'd hoped, she completely melted into it, letting me pet her backside and nuzzle at her neck through her hair. I was relieved I'd been interpreting her not-so-subtle come-ons correctly. Even so, I was anxious not to overstep the mark, I crept my hand up her side onto her front slowly, but she didn't object. My palm traced the tight curve of her breast, and I held it there, happily.

She was already dressed for bed and judging from the negligible amount of skin she was showing, dressed for company. It looked like I was going to be sleeping in my clothes, so it was fortunate for me I wasn't wearing jeans.

We backed up until I felt the bed against the back of my knees. We tumbled onto the mattress and became a spaghetti mess of blankets and limbs.

What were we doing? It felt like the first night we ever spent together - in that I was sick with nerves and obviously neither of us had any clue how to behave.

Her hands leapt up to cradle my head, gripping my ears and tugging at my hair; I lost my resolve, and buried my face in her neck just as hard, desperate to remind her what she'd been missing out on.

I so much wanted to kiss her properly. Her cheeks, her chin, her neck begging me to taste them. It was cruel how much emotion, the importance, bestowed upon a simple act of touching another person with your lips.

I dragged her close and she rolled on top of me, while I tried to fight her off. Our version of making out was a lot more like wrestling; since we couldn't use our lips, we used our bodies. And it was a game I never liked to lose.

It was easy to avoid her skin, though obviously it had been years since we'd been this intimate. You simply don't lose that kind of habit. Not when it had meant the difference between living and dying every single say. It was second nature to us. Don't bend over too far or your top will ride up. Be careful not move too suddenly because the scarf might slip. Watch the gap between her gloves and her sleeves. Keep your pants tucked into your socks.

I was just building up my strength to haul her down beneath me once and for all, when she broke away from me.

It was dark but my eyes were adjusted; by the moonlight pouring in through the window, she saw right into my soul.

It was only for a moment, her face hovering inches from mine, but I found a depth in her eyes that I'd forgotten existed or that I'd let myself forget.

I bent up to kiss her, as tenderly as I could; it didn't seem right to play rough with her any longer.

I held her tight for as long as I could, but she wriggled free. I got a sudden, guilty thrill upon realising where her hands were roaming.

"No, Anna-"

"Shh,"

I let out a long groan, feeling her hand pressing up firmly against my groin. I knew it was so wrong to be letting her do this, yet at the same time I couldn't think of anything I wanted more right then.

"I don't-"

Her fingers slowly undid the buttons on my fly.

"Shhhhh."

Before I knew what was going on, she'd slipped away, diving down beneath the covers and worming her hand into the undone opening on my track pants.

I just lay back let her stroke my erection for a while, enjoying the rhythm and grip that was completely unique to her hands alone.

She bobbed up for fresh air after a little while, and we discarded the duvet altogether. I found her lips again through the bundle of scarf around her neck.

From the way she was laying on top of me, my cock was pushing up against her belly through my boxers and it felt exactly right.

I withdrew from nuzzling at her neck to burrow my head between her breasts, cupping and weighing them simultaneously, pleased when her nipples began to take shape from beneath her night shirt. I kissed and nuzzled at her left breast, keeping the other wrapped up in my palm. When she was seventeen, and evidently still developing, her boobs had been a little out of proportion, with the right one being a little rounder and heavier. To compensate, I'd made a habit of showering the left one with love and attention in the hopes she wouldn't get self-conscious about it. Now her breasts were almost indistinguishable, but for the slight quiver her left boob made every time her heart beat.

It wasn't enough to feel her back arching under my hands, or the sharp tugs she made on my hair when I was too rough with a nipple. I had to hear her shout my name, or I'd never be satisfied.

On top again, I pried apart her legs to settle in between her thighs, toying with the waistband of her pyjama pants as a warning in case she wanted to object. She was still kneading my back and shoulders where she knew I liked it, so I took my chances and slid my hand down to her front.

She wasn't wearing panties, so I pressed my fingers down, trying to find my bearings despite the fabric. After a few tense seconds of probing, I hit the spot. If I couldn't tell from the firmness of the tiny organ against my finger, it was easy from her reaction to know that I'd found her clit. As I pressed down harder experimentally, she gave up completely on my back rub, flopping back onto the pillows with a delightfully husky groan rising up from deep in her throat.

I used every skill in my repertoire to make sure she was getting off, trying my best to concentrate, despite the urgent throbbing in my crotch. Soon she was chanting the chorus of her climax, my name rolling off her tongue exactly the way I liked. She was shuddery and panting when she finished, and held my head to her chest with an iron grip while she came down off the high. I listened to her heart beat a thousand times a minute, ignoring the urgent aching in the end of my cock, informing me about its envy of the pleasure she'd just enjoyed.

My pulse pounded when she pressed a colourful condom packet into my palm. I didn't dare to waste time as I rolled it on, but I checked the expiry date nonetheless.

I'd been looking forward to it so, so much.

I'd never felt good like I felt when Rogue went down on me. While we'd been apart, I'd looked back on our relationship and wondered how we'd ever got by without once having sex.

Then again, she was the most considerate partner I could have asked for. She had always been more willing and eager to please me than I really deserved.

When the very tip of my cock reached the back of her throat, we both choked a little. For me, I was hyper-sensitive from the foreplay and the novelty of what we doing, so the intensity of the feelings was shredding up any coherent thought. She, I guessed, was just out of practice. There'd been a time when she'd been able to take it all whole, deeper than I'd imagined was possible. It felt way better than sex, it was endlessly more intimate than touching. Learning to deep-throat had taken her a good while, but with her inexperience had come a need to practice frequently about which I had absolutely no complaints whatsoever.

When the end was drawing near, and the sensations were so intense I was biting my lip to keep from screaming, she withdrew completely, only to switch to using her hands in place. I could see her opening and shutting her mouth while she worked me off, trying to soothe the cramp that had built up in her jaw. It was always such tiny things that reminded me why I missed her.

She stared me down, hands still rubbing and squeezing my dick in all the special ways that only she knew how to do. It felt so good, but I couldn't break my eyes away from hers any more than I could help groaning out loud every time her fist slid over the head.

She leant up to my ear to whisper what I'd assumed were sweet nothings, but was really more of a direct proposition, the shock of which seemed to totally shut down my higher brain function entirely.

I just nodded, dumbly; I didn't have much time to think of reasons not to, because before my mind had processed what was happening, her pants were off. And to be honest, after she climbed on top of me, I wasn't really concentrating on thinking.

I tried my best to be careful with her, but she seemed impatient. I couldn't blame her: we were moving at a snail's pace as it was, double-checking every inch of skin would remain safely behind fabric or latex.

It wasn't long before she was sinking down onto me, and I moaned and groaned filthy things into her shoulder, which I hoped she wouldn't remember come the morning. At first, I was reluctant to move at all, it felt like I'd driven through her body as deep as was physically possible. After a few moments, my masculine instincts took over and had me rocking away in a relaxed rhythm.

We kept going for what felt like forever. I'd been teetering on the precipice, on the verge of release, for almost the entire time - yet she didn't seem any closer to orgasm than when we'd begun. It was around the time I'd begun to panic about my stamina, when she let loose a moan that resonated against my neck. The sexiness of the sound and the vibration of her throat set off a chain of shivers that rippled through my whole body towards my genitals. I felt the head of my cock swell and erupt in the most uncontrollable, incredible rush inside her.

I didn't try to fight the irresistible urge to keep jerking my pelvis against hers until the very last clutches of orgasm had surfaced then drifted away. I caught my breath in the crook of her neck as she breathed against my ear.

When I could bear to, I rolled her off me gingerly and moved off the bed to cleaned up the mess I'd made with a wad of tissue.

I perched at the bottom of the bed, suddenly freezing cold; my top was soaked through with a blend of our sweat. I kept running over things again and again in my head. It seemed so surreal, I could hardly even process what was going on. I groped for my cigarettes in my jacket pocket; I lit up without even bothering to crack open the window.

With the nicotine, followed a clarity of thought I'd been sorely missing. I glanced up to check on her. She was just laying there, staring. Perhaps waiting for me to come back to bed. Perhaps waiting for me to leave.

I wanted to burrow back under the duvet with her, to cuddle up and pretend everything was back to normal, I really did. But we'd crossed a line tonight that separated well-trodden paths from territory we'd never wandered before. Sex wasn't something we'd just decided not to do, it was just something that we'd never even approached. It wasn't a religious thing, and it wasn't to do with her mutation, she just didn't want to do it. And that was fine; we both got our rocks off plenty without it anyways.

But tonight, tonight she'd been all over it. She'd all but chased me across the grounds earlier on to get me to stay the night. What changed?

I pinched out the end of my cig half-used and lay it down in the mug by the side of the bed to finish it in the morning.

"You're not gonna leave, right?" She reached across the bed to grip my arm, like she was worried I was going to suddenly make my escape.

"I am gonna leave." I murmured, taking her hand to kiss it slowly. "But not tonight."

She seemed satisfied with my answer, because once I'd crawled back under the covers with her, she hugged me tight for a few minutes before shuffling under the cover sheet and falling asleep. I tried to switch off my mind and relax and sleep. But my mind kept returning to one thing in particular.

She hadn't been a virgin.

---

I woke up dazed and still half asleep. At first it was just like I'd never left. The pillows were scrunched up on the floor like usual, since she never liked to sleep with them; everything smelt the same and looked the same, even that bastard magpie that used to wake me up every day was outside squawking. But there was a nagging in my stomach trying to remind me of something, something good and bad. But for those few minutes before my memory caught up with me, I was back in the past when Rogue still loved me and family wasn't shattered to pieces.

Rogue was gone, obviously - always an early riser, and I rolled out of bed to go piss, stripping off in the process. The mirror above the sink was still hung a little wonky - a minor household issue I'd never got around to resolving.

I stared at my reflection; I looked old. Perhaps I only noticed now I was back in New York, but the last couple of years were beginning to read on my face like scars. The line between my eyebrows had become a permanent crease, and my ears seemed to jut out further from my head, mostly because my hair was so short. I looked myself in the eye for the first time in a while and realised how tired I was looking.

My heart jumped a few beats more than it should've when I remembered about the night before. I could question myself forever about why we'd let that happen between us, but it really only solidified my resolve. I had to talk to the girl and tell her how I felt. If there's one thing we were awful at, it was communicating our feelings. How could I expect her to tell me her feelings about everything, if I didn't even have the courage to tell her mine?

My mind inevitably returned to our carnal act last night. I had the pieces of the puzzle, but they didn't quite fit. There'd always been something holding her back when we were together. I'd always assumed she was jumpy about accidentally killing me in the middle of doing the deed, but if she'd cared so much about it, we'd never have gone as far as we had. When I say she was holding back, I don't just mean in a sexual sense... We were very close - close enough that I felt that slight emotional gap like a thorn in my side, and close enough to know she'd wouldn't (or couldn't) close it. Was she trying to signify to me that she'd bridged whatever emotional barriers we'd been bumping up against for God knew how long? Or was she trying to complete our bond in a more literal sense. Or was she simply looking to get off and saw me as an easy target? I know I'd done the same with a few exes in my time.

I shrugged it off grabbed her razor and jumped in the shower before I could creep myself out any more. No good would come of overanalysing it.

---

I dropped from the chin-up bar fitted in the bedroom doorway when I heard the front door slam, interrupting my callisthenics.

"Jesus!..." I heard Rogue sigh,

"Put some fucking pants on!" She stomped through the front room, kicking my underpants from the floor right at my head but grinning at me, and then booting me firmly up my naked ass when I bent over to pick them up.

She put down the cup she'd brought in and went into bedroom.

There was a steaming cup of coffee which was blacker than the night and smelt delicious. My fingers didn't quite reach it before she snatched it away from me.

"Who said that was for you?" She teased, holding out her bath robe for me to put my arms through. Obviously she still didn't approve of my habit of wandering about nude.

"You never drink it dat strong,"

In defiance, she dramatically took a gulp. She swallowed very slowly then tried to turn away so I wouldn't see her grimace at the taste.

"I tol' you!" I lunged forward to tickle her and she narrowly escaped, wielding the cup dangerously but mirroring my grin.

"So help me Ah'll throw this on ya!"

I surrendered, knowing nothing was an empty promise when tickling was involved. She handed over the cup as per our truce, as well as the brown paper bag she'd been waving around, and disappeared into the bathroom.

I sat down on the sofa to investigate the bag - peanut butter on toast... The woman sure knew how to make me happy.

She perched on the arm of the chair with me while I ate my breakfast, and didn't object when I rested my head on the side of her leg. She followed me through to the bedroom when I finished up and went to put on my clothes.

While I was crawling on the floor for my sweatpants, she was being nosey looking in my wallet. It only occurred to me a good while afterwards, (when I was paying at a gas station in Harrisburg), that she'd seen the passport photo of her I still kept in the little plastic window on the inside. That was kind of embarrassing in retrospect.

I tugged on a big, grey X-men hoody from her drawer and I felt her arms curl around my waist from behind. I turned in her arms and I returned her squeeze in acknowledgement, surprised at the sudden display of affection. We stood for an time in our private little world. I savoured the smell of her hair and the way the fine hairs flickered each time I breathed out.

I took a deep breath and let it all out in one, slow gust.

"Rogue..."

She looked up at me with her scanning, puzzled eyes. I pulled away a little, holding her hands tightly. I reminded myself for the thousandth time of how this could be my last chance to get everything I needed to off my chest before I had to leave again.

"Reckon we got some talkin' t' do..."

She pulled away quickly, like I'd burnt her.

The little bubble of denial we'd been enjoying since last night had been burst. I could go on forever pretending things were normal again between us, but it would never be normal unless I got some closure from her.

I think she knew where this was going she must have done, but she said nothing.

"I didn't come all th' way up here jus' to try it on with you."

I saw her brow furrow up, even though she was looking away.

"I mean, not dat I didn't want... that... but-"

She looked over at me and I understood the message - 'get to the point'.

"T' be honest, I not been doing great dis last couple of months."

"I was goin' outta my head. Kinda needed to get out o' town for a bit... An my shrink said I should come talk to you 'bout some stuff. See if dat won't clear t'ings up a little."

"You're seeing a psych now?"

"Been seein' her since I was a kid, chere. You don't know th' half of it."

"Don't condescend to me, Remy. Ah knew what was goin' on with you."

She was referencing that I frequently suffered from moderate to severe bouts of clinical depression. The result of a fucked up little kid being raised by a pack of unreliable, dangerous criminals. Anyway, it's not something I'm proud of, and it's not something I like people to know about me. So for a long while I tried to keep it secret, but it was difficult to get something like that past someone you spent every waking hour with. At first it scared the shit out of her; she eventually figured out just to put up with it. And learnt never, ever to ask about it.

"Alright, whatever. Look, the point is dat I got some stuff I wanted to get off my chest. I just been thinkin' dat we never got the chance to talk... about us..."

I shuffled a little awkwardly, because her expression was so intense.

"I don't know. I just... It was years ago, but I still think about it... Tryin' to figure where we went wrong. I dunno. Guess I jus' wanna have dat proper breakup talk we didn't get round to havin'."

"Because you left," She pointed out, eyes still boring into my head.

"Well, sorry dat my father dying was such an inconvenience."

"Oh, come on. You know that isn't what Ah meant. Ah'm not cross at you cause you left. Ah just think you're a hypocrite for gettin' mad at me for not explaining myself when you're the one who didn't want to know about it. You know as well as Ah do that you just ran off without a word. And you didn't know shit about your father 'til you got back. You shot off away from here like a bat outta Hell within the hour. I mean, Ah get that you were angry, Ah was angry too. But, Hell we used to have fights like that all the time. You know if we'd had time to cool off we could'a talked about it like adults."

"I wasn't just angry, I was devastated, I was furious. No amount of 'cooling off' would's solved that. So yeah I left. I know it's my fault we didn' talk about it. Maybe if I hadn' gone back we could'a fixed things. I know dat if I hadn't shown my face in New Orleans dat shit with my father wouldn' have kicked off th' way it did."

"It's not your fault he died..." She cut in quickly.

There was no point arguing, because we both knew the truth. My father died as an indirect consequence of me breaking my exile treaty. If Rogue and I hadn't fought, maybe nothing would have happened. If I hadn't been such a coward and run home, perhaps he wouldn't have died.

"He was old, he was ill... He would have... passed away anyway. You know that, don't you?"

"We're gettin' off topic here. It was like y' just decided overnight dat that you didn't wanna be wit' me anymore-"

"Don't trivialise it. You're implying that Ah just decided on whim that it wasn't working out between us. Don't make it sound like it was an easy decision to make, and there was no way in Hell Ah was gonna follow through without makin' up my mind about it."

"But dat's worse! Don't you get it? I never felt for a minute like anythin' was up between us. And dat's scary. I mean, how long were y' feelin' like we should end it? A week? A month, a year? What? Dis is exactly the fuckin' problem, that you never communicate. First I hear there's a problem is when y' kickin' me out the door!"

"No-one kicked you out," She rolled her eyes up at this. "It wasn't anything you could have done about it. It's not like it was somethin' you were doing or that you'd done."

"Then..." My blood started to run cold as it dawned on me: "Dere was someone else dat y' met, wasn't there?..."

"Nothin' like that." She shook her head

"What about..." I tailed off, realising I had no idea what Mr. Loverboy teacher was called.

"Mike... No. Ah never even met him 'til the end of last year."

I breathed a relieved sigh inside, although I wasn't any clearer to getting to the bottom of the issue.

"But y' still slept wit' him."

She clicked her tongue and looked me straight in the eye. It was a rare thing for her to be lost for words; she ran her tongue against the top row of her teeth, in a kind of menacing way.

"Alright, go on then. Ah can tell you're bursting to yell at me. Go ahead, get it off your chest."

"I got nothin' to say about it." I lied through my teeth, hating that she knew me inside out.

"Then why'd you bring it up?" She sighed, rubbing her forehead with her palm.

"Just an observation. It's none of my business who you screwed-"

"You're damn right it's not! Pot, kettle, black, Gambit."

After a moment, her expression softened and she looked over at me guiltily.

"Sorry... Look, without sounding cold: it really had nothing to do with you. It wasn't some stab at your ego, or... or revenge. It was just something I wanted to do, and it was the right time to do it.

Ah know you're thinking you deserved it to have been you... No, don't shake your head, Ah know you do. Maybe sometimes I'd rather it had been too... Ah mean Ah know we almost did quite a few times. But Ah don't regret doing it, not by a long way."

"It's not really th' sex thing... What gets me is dat you were gettin' that close t' some guy after y' told me dat you didn' want to see nobody... Dat kinda stings..."

"Well, we were apart for a long time... Things changed, well I changed anyways. Besides, it wasn't anything like what we had." She studied my expression for a few seconds.

"Ah just mean that it wasn't serious. Ah only saw him a few times a week. And shit, it wasn't even going on for more than a couple months. Ah feel like Ah had time to think, like really think after you left and everything. Ah wasn't kidding around when Ah said Ah needed space. My whole head was a wreck. Then Ah got my shit together, an' I met Mike, an' I hadn't heard shit from you for months, so Ah figured Ah'd give it a shot."

I stared at her for long second. Why couldn't she have developed with me? Was our relationship really so suffocating that she sought comfort in the arms of some guy who would never, ever feel about her the way I did. Was that such a relief?

"When Ah told you we ought'a take some time apart, I really meant it, but it wasn't somethin' I thought was gonna be forever..."

There was a pause where she tugged at her bottom lip and looked at me like she was trying to decide what to say to me.

"Remember... Remember before we got together, what Ah told you right before we... Ahh, you know... made it official?"

"I, uh... I don' really remember... Think I was just excited y' were givin' me a chance to be honest."

"Ah told you that I needed you to be patient. Ah needed time, and if it was gonna work at all I needed space. It didn't mean Ah cared any less about you...

"How long were we even together? It seemed like Ah just blinked and suddenly it'd been two years and everything was super serious...

"We were just stagnating. Ah didn't get to do any of the stuff I wanted because my whole life revolved around you... Ah mean it's not like we were just dating and seein' each other twice a week, we were livin' together and workin' together, and Ah just never had any time to think about who I was, who I wanted to be...

"Somehow it'd gone from being this casual relationship to absorbing all my time and energy. Ah just felt like I couldn't breathe or move, it was like there wasn't even any Rogue anymore, it was just Rogue-and-Gambit. And how could Ah step back from that?

"You, you were just this husk of a man who'd given up on everything else. It was heartbreaking how house-broken you were. That wasn't the man Ah fell for... It was just so unhealthy for both of us. Me just existing in limbo and you just pouring all your soul into this poisonous, pointless relationship which wasn't even going anywhere-"

"Dat's not fair, you make it sound like I was settlin' for less? Maybe I 'gave up' on everything else, 'cause I'd actually found something worth doin' with my life."

"What, waiting around all day for me to finish school so we could watch a movie and hold hands like fourth-graders?" She tucked some stray hair out of her face.

"That ain't any way to live, Remy. And then you were throwing around all this ridiculous stuff about quitting with the x-men and settling down, and Ah just..."

She paced backwards and forwards along the room, looking like she was about to start tearing out her hair.

"Maybe Ah was too young? I just wasn't at a point in my life where I was ready to start planning out the rest of my future. You knew Ah never wanted any of that. Ah had all this stuff Ah wanted to do with my life, and Ah just couldn't do it any more 'cause Ah had to think about you, and your plans in life..."

She sighed and dropped her hands, which had been punctuating her words forcefully.

"Ah mean we were in love... course we were; if there was ever a reason to be with someone it's 'cause you love 'em. But that wasn't enough. Love just doesn't solve those kinds of problems.

"And it was so obvious that you weren't happy either... You used to just disappear for days or weeks, or you'd just sit staring at the wall... How was Ah supposed to deal with that? You know every time you left Ah thought 'This is it, this is the time you're just not gonna come back'. Ah know it's fucked up, but it made me glad to think that-... that you'd found something that made you enjoy your life again.

"You know... It's stupid, but when we got together Ah was always worried that you were just gonna shoot off and leave, Ah mean Ah used to have nightmares about it it scared me so much.

"You have to understand that you were my first ever boyfriend, the first chance Ah had to prove that Ah was a desirable human being - that someone wanted to be with me. Hell, for years Ah thought Ah never, ever would have that chance... But then you came along and you were great, and interested, and it all just... Happened.

"But Ah think, deep down, Ah liked that you were unpredictable. Ah liked the constant threat that you might up and leave.

"Because Ah didn't want anything serious; Ah didn't want a faithful, adoring boyfriend like Ah thought Ah did. Ah just wanted a flash-in-the-pan, once in a lifetime, goes-down-shooting kind of fling. And we had that... we had that way longer than most people could... And it was good." She smiled at me - for real, like she meant it. "For a time."

"I know things got worse 'tween us. I get dat. An' I get dat it was mostly my fault but, even so I still loved y' so much dat it made my heart ache. All the time... An' all the time we were together, jus' made me love y' more...

"Whether it was for th' best interests or whatever it was don't matter... I couldn't have broken up wit' you... An' if you'd've felt th' same about me, you couldn' have done what y' did either."

"Ah did love you, Cajun. But Ah knew what that relationship was doin' to us both. It was all just... inevitable Ah knew there was gonna come a point where you were gonna want more from me than Ah was willing to give you..."

"Rogue. Could y' not have told me dis? Is it too much t' ask dat you communicate dis kind of important shit to me? I'm only human, I can' read your mind. Not once did y' ever give any indication dat you didn't want t' be thinkin' dat far ahead."

"Yeah, yeah Ah know... Ah know. I just couldn't... Please try to see it my way. If Ah'd told you Ah wanted to step back and take some space, or that Ah didn't think I was ready to commit to you, you couldn't have handled it... It would have torn us apart anyway, Remy.

You'd have got upset and you know... you'd have worried all the time that we were gonna break up. I do know you; and Ah know it would have been more damaging than a clean break."

"Den forget all of dat now. You know, make it a clean slate... De only thing I really want is t' be with you."

She looked at me with a familiar, exasperated look.

I cleared my throat to jump in before she could voice her obvious disagreement.

"I never stopped lovin' you. Reckon I'd be here fightin' wit'chu if I didn'?

"You're de only person who has ever believed in me. Made me feel like I'm actually worth somethin' in the world. I mean... You are the only person who's ever told me dat they loved me, or stayed up wit me all night when I had those dreams. An' you are the only one that reminded me dat there is somethin' worth living for. 'Cause everythin' else in my life is fucked up for sure."

She gaped at me like I'd sprouted another head. I backpedalled, holding my hands up in surrender.

"Hey, you th' one dat brought me back t' your bed last night. Don't tell me that didn't mean nothin'?"

"Shit, Remy. Sex is one thing - but a serious, long-term relationship... That's just..."

She shook her head at me.

"You know..." She started quietly and then trailed off, like she was deciding against saying whatever was fighting to come out.

"When Ah told you we needed to take some time apart from bein' together..." She swallowed slowly, "Ah didn't... Ah wasn't just tryin' to let you down gently. You know, if things had been different... Ah don't know. Ah just figured that things'd fall back into place between us when the time was right." She sighed, "Ah guess things didn't really work out that way..."

I mulled over what she was hinting a few times in my mind. I felt as though leaving the institute that day had been the worst decision I'd made in my long life of bad decisions. So much shit went down in New Orleans when I got back, when what I should have done was stick around and wait on the woman I loved to fix herself up so we could get back on track.

"Y' sayin' we could'a given it another shot once you got your shit sorted out. So why don't we give it another shot now?"

"Why? Because stuff's changed now, Remy... We're not the same people we were, we've both got tangled up in all this other stuff... For one: you are married, in case you'd forgotten that small detail."

"Don't pull dat one on me. You know 'bout Bella an me. Ain't nothin' threatenin' you on dat front."

"Two: you live in Louisiana and Ah live in New York. If if we got together, we'd still be fourteen-hundred miles apart.
Three: I want to go to college before Ah even Ah consider settling down. So that's what, three, four, five years from when Ah start. Could you handle that waitin'?

"Four: Ah don't want kids. Not like Ah know you do. Maybe Ah never will... Don't look at me like that, Remy. What makes you think Ah could carry your babies even if by some miracle we could make 'em?... Look, you remember when those Brood insect things... whatever they were, had injected their eggs or their spores or whatever into the whole team and it made everyone go nuts? Ah had one livin' in my chest that didn't survive all of half a day, let alone nine months. Ah mean look at me..."

She tugged the leather glove off her left hand and shook it at me.

"This - this isn't exactly 'doting-wife-loving-mother' material."

"Don't tell me dis 's all been about your fuckin' powers again... You know that makes not one bit of difference t' me..."

"I know that now. But back then, it made a difference to me... Ah was only a kid. Getting married, starting a family, Hell – even havin' sex... It was all stuff Ah couldn't even comprehend let alone be thinkin' about doing. Ah was so consumed by the idea of being normal, Ah couldn't see how good Ah had it. Ah wouldn't settle for anythin' less... how could Ah? Ah'd sooner have just forgotten about the whole thing."

"De only thing stoppin' y' from having dat normality was y' own attitude about your life... We been over dat a million times."

"But that's just somethin' Ah had to work out for myself. And it's just something Ah have to deal with, like it or not."

"You de one dat gave up trying at masterin' y' powers."

"'Cause it wasn't going anywhere. Come on. You knew that-

"Dat's jus' not true! I thought you could do it if y' pushed yourself."

"No, Ah mean, sure, you were supportive, Ah really couldn't accuse you of not being that, but it was obvious you didn't think I'd ever control it."

She barked a laugh that sounded like it was tearing up her throat on the way out.

"And you were completely right."

There was a long dip in the conversation, since I knew anything I said would result in an argument.

"You don't know me any more, Remy. I'm different. People change... And that's fine, Ah just feel like we need to get to know each other again. You can't come back and expect me to just want to get back with you like that-" She clicked her fingers. "Ah need time to chew it over... Or we're just gonna fuck it up again."

"Maybe I should come up an' visit some more? Hey maybe de long distance thing will work out for you, y' get plenty of space."

She smiled vaguely, "Yeah, but I'd never get to see ya..."

"Maybe dat's for de best... Y' know, take things slow t' begin wit. Slow as y' want. Maybe even just stay friends for a little bit if y' wanna try dat out first."

She sighed. "Ah don't know how you're talkin' me into this..."

"Can't get rid of me. I always come back - I'm like a... boomerang."

"Yeah, more like herpes" She laughed at me, which was a wonderful relief to hear.

"You really think we can make this work?" She asked, more sombrely.

"I dunno... But it's got to be worth tryin'... even if we rip each other to bits in de process."

"For what it's worth, Remy... Even thought Ah think it was the right decision... Ah missed you too. Ah really did."

That was by far the most sentimental thing I think I'd ever heard from her lips. I wasn't deluded, we both had a lot of problems. But right then? Didn't matter.

---

I would appreciate feedback (bad or good) on the dialogue, flow, characters, plot, grammar (anything).

(Edit 2013-07-15: Some dialogue reworded slightly)

(Edit 2013-07-28: I can't help tinkering. I removed some dialogue and added some other bits in. Nothing major, mainly just wording)

(Edit 2013-10-21: Re-formatting bold text, re-inputting lost m-dashes and amending the circumflex coding problem)