Hi! It's been a bit since I wrote anything X-Men related and I thought I should get back to it! This story isn't going to be very many chapters but I think its a fun little story so I hope everyone enjoys it! Thanks!
Several things did not make sense. For one, Rogue did not remember taking to the air and when she looked down, the scene below her could not have been possible. She shook her head and tried to clear it. There was a distinct ringing in her ears, obscuring all other noise but what her ears could not hear, her eyes saw well enough. But again, what her eyes could see could not have been real. She brought her hand to her ear and patted it, trying to clear her heard from the ringing. Down below she could see herself, or at least someone who looked like her. But that someone was not moving. Next to that someone knelt Gambit and that struck her as strange because he looked heart broken. He was crying but she could not hear him. She shook her head again and drifted down to be near him and slowly her hearing cleared and she began to hear his words. He was crying in French and when she looked around, she could see the others standing around, all with mournful faces.
She reached out a hand to touch the still woman's face, to assure herself that it was not her but she could not bring herself to touch the curtain of hair that so resembled her own. She didn't even need to, Gambit lifted the woman up and held her and her head lolled back, clearing the hair away. She was pail, with only the last glimmer of life's color still gracing her cheeks and her bright red lips stood out strangely against her paling skin.
Rogue felt herself sink because the woman in his arms was her. The woman who in all likelihood was dead was surely her. "No!" She whispered but he did not hear her and he continued his misery in his own broken French.
She reached forward to touch his face, to assure him that she was not really dead but she couldn't touch him. Her fingers went through him as though she was not there and then she too cried, because she could not look at him anymore and she could not look at the form that was supposed to be her. She stood and turned away and through her teary, green eyes, she saw the others, all standing around and she heard them in their misery. She looked from each one and realized that they could not see her. Still this realization could not keep her from going to each one in turn. She stopped by Scot and waved a hand in front of his face before moving on to Logan and flat out trying to smack him. She moved to Storm and snapped her fingers but nothing she did mattered because none of them could see her and she was forced to redirect her attention. A crowd of civilians was forming.
Scot moved forward and bent towards Gambit. "We have to go." He whispered.
Gambit nodded and rose, carrying the body in his arms. Rogue floated after him. She waited for all of the X-men to file into the Black Bird before she followed in after. She found Gambit in the back, still sitting with her body and she noticed how no one told him to strap in or told him that the body would be best left elsewhere. She knelt by him and listened to him talk in French.
"Remy," She whispered. "Remy, it's okay because that's not me! I'm right here, only you can't see me." She made to touch him again but her hand went right through him again. She sat by him and watched his face, carefully not looking at her own.
She hardly noticed when the jet landed at the mansion.
"Gambit," Storm said, making her notice their new surroundings. "Remy, we must leave the jet."
He looked up at her as though he wanted to argue but then he nodded and with a final heave of strength, he stood.
Rogue followed them out and to the medical lab. She drifted along behind the others, fearful of what Hank would say when they brought in a body. Would he say she was dead? It couldn't be true because she was there. She could see everything and hear, she just couldn't interact. She couldn't be dead and then the scary thought that maybe she was a ghost flitted into her mind. That would explain a large portion of her current situation. She heard yelling and looked up. Gambit was being told he had to part from the body.
She drifted to float next to him as he slumped into a chair. She floated around behind him and draped her arms over his shoulders, resting her head on her arms and hovering there. "It's okay, sugah. I'm right here."
He sat in grief. Shoulders slumped and head down. She wished she could reach him and it was worse than the usual no touching because now she really couldn't touch him. It wasn't just skin, it was everything.
"Are you alright?" She looked up, it was Storm. Storm came and sat next to them, though she could not know that Rogue was there. Storm put a hand on Remy's.
He shook his head. "There no point in having a doctor check her." He said. "I looked for a pulse and didn't find one an' I felt her get col' in my arms. She be dead."
Storm's brows rose and came together in pain. "I'm so sorry."
He sat, head down again. "Dere be nothing de doctor can do fo' her."
Rogue drew away and floated upwards. She could not bare to listen. She floated to the medical room and passed through the doors as easily as if they were not there. Beast was there with Jean and the two of them looked solemn. "Oh, don't you two say I'm dead too!" She said, angrily.
She looked down at the beautiful woman on the table. It was her and it was a strange sensation to be looking down at herself. It was unreal, yet there she was, in two places at once.
"Gambit knows she's dead." Jean said quietly.
"I fear for how he'll take this. Knowing is one thing, but it is always different to hear it from a doctor. Somehow, it is always so much more final."
Rogue looked between the two of them, they said she was dead too. She looked at the body and in a fit of rage, flew up through the ceiling. Up and up and up and up she flew, wanting to get away. She came out through the mansion roof and screamed. The wind lifted her hair and she hung still. "What's going on?" She asked.
No one answered but there was no one really to hear her and even if there was, they couldn't hear her. She hung, thinking hard. She tried to think of how she had 'died'. Who had she been fighting? She tried to remember but there was so little of the fight that came clear in her mind. She rubbed her temple.
She had been fighting the Scarlet Witch. She remembered that. She had been fighting and then. . . the Scarlet Witch had said something and she had tried to hit her but then. . .
It came to her that there was a gap in her memory from where her attempt to hit the Witch had failed and where she had awoken in the air. The battle had apparently ended during the gap. She floated down, feeling dejected. She sank through the roof and into the kitchen. There was a heavy feeling in the house. She looked and found Storm in the kitchen with Jean.
"I can't believe it!" Jean said. "I just can't believe it." He voice fell low.
Storm put a hand on her arm. "I know. I can hardly either. And I can only imagine how Gambit feels."
Jean nodded. "I know. I'd keep a watch on him. He's very upset but that's completely understandable."
Both women fell silent and Rogue hovered by the microwave, watching quietly. She bit her lip and turned away, pushing herself into another room. She found Scot staring into the fire in the library. He was with Beast but neither of them were speaking and what ever they might say when they got around to it, she didn't want to hear, so she drifted onwards. She found Logan in the garage. He was drinking and had smashed a work bench.
Moving on again, she headed to her own room and moved to lay down on the bed but some one was already there. Gambit lay asleep on her bed, clothes and shoes still on. He was curled up as though he wished to hold a person who was not there. She stood in the doorway and looked at him. He face had dried but left tear tracks under his eyes and his hair was a disheveled mess.
She sat on the bed and ran a hand over his hair. She couldn't touch it or feel it but it made her feel better and she hoped that somehow it made him feel better too. "Sugah, I'm here." She whispered. "I'm here and I wish you could know that." He didn't move.
She lay down next to him and watched his face. It was so still and calm that it scared her but there was nothing she could do to assure him that she was there, right next to him. So she lay, still and quiet and felt her own tears dampen her hair.
Thanks for reading!
The next chapter should be up soon!
