It takes him two months to track her down.
He finds her in an alley (of course, and the cliché disgusts him,) the odor of hard living abrasive in his oversensitive nose. She's ragged; clothing not quite in tatters but close, hanging off a now- gaunt frame; hair oily and matted and longer than she'd ever had it at the Institute, and dear God, those eyes…
She has dead eyes.
He slips up on her, not giving her an opportunity to run before she can hear his voice.
"Rogue."
It takes her a minute to figure out that he's real, and he's able to get close enough to leap onto her when she takes flight- literally. He dangles off her as she streaks through the streets, sticking to the darkest, seediest ones, stubbornly retaining his grip while she attempts to shake him off her like a dog with bathwater.
It's the work of a few minutes to claw his way up to her back, using his fingers instead of the formidable blades housed in his arms. He leans forward to speak into her ear.
"Might as well set down, darlin'. I'm not lettin' go."
After a few more minutes of pointless flight, she concedes and her feet touch ground. Satisfied, he slips off her body. She turns to face him. "I'm not comin' back. I cain't."
"You can't keep this up, either." he challenges. "I'll drag you back if I have to, Rogue."
She snorts. "You could try."
"I'd rather not." he says, biting back his first, instinctive response. "Kid, you're fallin' apart. Come home."
"X Men don't kill." She's so quiet even his advanced hearing almost misses it.
He sighs. "Rogue…"
"I did it deliberately." she confesses, and though she can't look at him her voice is low and even. "I hung on, knowin' what could happen… and… and these powers… I enjoy 'em. I stole her powers, I stole her life." The last is flat, the repetition of a mantra not of her own making.
"I've killed." he points out.
"It's not the same, Logan, an' you know it." she snaps. He's profoundly relieved to see a spark, no matter how faint, in her eyes at last.
"I've lost control." he confides. "You ever heard of a berserker rage, kid?"
He can read the answer in her eyes, and doesn't wait for her to say it. "I've killed people I shouldn't've, and enjoyed it." He deliberately affects a casual posture, leaning against a wall and settling in. "You killed someone. You shouldn't have, you fucked up in one of the biggest ways possible. You can't take it back. The best you can do is try to atone… do some good in this life. Wallowin' ain't gonna do anybody any good. Certainly won't bring her back."
"I could give up my life." she mutters.
"That doesn't even it out, either." he counters. "'sides, if you were goin' to you woulda done it already." His voice softens. "Runnin' away isn't gonna help, Rogue. This is a slow, coward's death, and you're no coward."
Her head whips up; eyes not quite blazing but getting there, hands fisting, features shifting from depressed indifference to active anger. He's encouraged, but keeps his own expression impassive. "How can you say that?! I held on too long deliberately, I killed somebody- what is that if not weakness?"
"Didn't say it wasn't weakness." he corrects her. "I said you're not a coward. Everybody has moments of weakness, Rogue, it's what makes us human. Lettin' it beat you down, runnin' away and drownin' in it like you have been- that's the coward's way out. Redemption takes strength."
"I don't wanna be strong any more." she murmurs, mostly to herself.
"Then you're not Rogue." he shoots back, starting to get impatient. "We'll just call you Pansy Ass from now on."
"You have no idea!" she shouts back. "You have no goddamned idea, Wolverine! She's in my fuckin' head, she shouts at me all the time, I'm goin' absa- fuckin'- lutely batshit insane! I- I cain't even figure out what's me and what's her half the time! I-"
"So come home!" he yells. "Come home and face the music, get help, be a better person for it! Goddamn, Rogue, don't let it break you! You're better than this, you're stronger than this!"
"Am I? What the hell do you know?"
He looks her in the eye. "I know that if you want those mistakes to have any meanin' to 'em, if you really regret it, you don't run away like a pussy. You learn from it. You make yourself better for it, so that sacrifice doesn't go to waste. If Carol Danvers means anything to you at all, you'll suck it up, quit snivelin' and come home."
She hugs her arms, looks lost. "Home, huh."
"Home." he agrees.
"It's never gonna be the same."
He concedes the point with silence.
"It's gonna be hell for a good long time."
"Most likely." He lights up a cigar, figuring he deserves it for putting up with this. And really, the thought of abstaining to provide her a good example is laughable.
It's why she's his favorite.
She gives him a shrewd look. "Some of 'em hafta hate me."
He exhales, looks at the stars. "Does it really matter?"
She considers this a moment. Of course it does… and that's exactly why…
Atonement.
Redemption.
"I guess not."
Because going back is the most painful thing she could do; because facing Scott, facing Kurt and Kitty and the Professor… facing the others, facing what she's done… moving past Carol's neverending, screaming lament in her head, picking up the pieces and living again… playing the part of the hero when she's anything but…
Why should she bother picking herself up when she's fallen so low? "I'm no angel." She never has been.
It was a complete rush, unlike anything she'd ever experienced before. Not even Jean had given her this sense of power, had taken this kind of satisfaction in her strength.
Carol is strong. Carol's strong and damn near invulnerable and she can fly, and there's a scant handful of people in this world who can take her on. Carol loves her powers, is completely comfortable with who and what she is, and is well satisfied with her life. It's good to be Carol Danvers.
In that moment where Carol comes flooding into Rogue's senses and mind, when her powers imprint into Rogue's DNA and she's both of them at once- she can't-
Let
Go.
Carol fights the absorption as no one else ever has. Carol fights her tooth and nail, and despite the dim corner of her mind screaming that she has to let go, she has to, between trying to reassert control and her own intoxication with being Carol Danvers Rogue holds on far too long. By the time she's sorted the body hanging from her hands is dead, Carol is screaming in her head and rattling it from the inside out, and what could Rogue do but fly away as far and fast as she could?
She wants to run. She wants to fly away again, take to the sky and never come down, go to sleep and never wake up, to shatter into a million pieces and scatter like ash in the wind. She wants it more than anything.
It would be so, so easy, so good to break right now.
And that's exactly why she can't.
She'll take this, these powers that she robbed Carol of. She'll go home and face the disappointment and condemnation of the people dearest to her in the world. She'll continue to wrong Carol, do her the complete injustice of locking her away inside her mind and smother her until she can complete this murder and erase all that remains of Carol Danvers. She'll go home and work to build a life for herself that she doesn't deserve.
Because she doesn't deserve redemption, can only attempt to atone for what she's done (but to the only person who can sit in judgment she never, ever will.) She's made an irreparable mistake, stained her soul, and nothing she could do, not even death, can absolve her of it. But if she can pick herself up, even an inch, then something of value will have come of this. Because the mere attempt has to count for something, dammit, and all she can do is take what she can.
Because she is Rogue.