Title: Understanding
Disclaimer: I don't own anything, really.
A/N: Another random one-shot I wrote from Rogue's point of view. I hope you like it, please review and let me know how I'm doing.
I had always imagined that one day Professor Xavier and I would finally devise a way to control my powers. He would look at me with a smile and say, "Rogue, I think you've got it." I would look back at him apprehensively as he reached for my hand. I would brace myself, afraid to hurt the Professor, who had all of my respect and already seemed so fragile. We would finally touch, and instead of feeling the enormity of his energy and power flooding into my mind and coursing through my body, I would feel his hand, cool and comforting inside my own. Immediately after realizing that I was finally able to control my mutation and finally able to touch, I would run into Bobby's waiting arms.
The reality of something is always so much different from the fantasy. Instead, I stood outside of the clinic that was administering the Cure, and was passed through a line of scared and apprehensive mutants, all questioning their motives and wondering if they were being true to themselves. I stood in the line, trying to think of anything but the crowd of protestors across the street and the things that they were saying. They couldn't understand what it was like to live without touch, and they couldn't imagine that instead of being an act of weakness, standing up and taking the Cure was an act of courage on all our parts. I hoped that it wouldn't be one that I would come to regret.
I couldn't help but feel ashamed as I returned to the mansion; I had nowhere else to go, and as an ex-mutant I was still undeniably different from the humans I could rejoin in the world. Professor X was gone, and as grief-stricken as I was by the news of his death, I was somehow relieved that I wouldn't have to look into his kind eyes and admit that I'd given up the fight. I had thought that the first person I would touch would be Bobby. It was fitting, he was my boyfriend, and had dated me for far longer than the average teenage relationship without any of physical conventions that you would expect to find. However, the fantasy collapsed here as well. I ran up the stairs and turned towards Bobby's room. I was distracted by the sound of laughter coming from down the hallway. I approached Kitty's room and heard two distinct laughs that I had come to know so well, as they belonged to my boyfriend and my best friend. I hesitated, wondering if I should tell them what I had done, but at that moment it only seemed that I would be intruding- on what, I didn't know. I didn't continue down the hallway, nor did I go to Bobby's room to wait for him. Instead I turned down the stairs, not angry, but accepting of something that I already knew in my heart.
In the fantasy of my Cure, I would be eagerly touched and hugged by all of the mutants in the mansion who had been unable to do so before. In the reality, the other mutants wouldn't look me in the eye, let alone touch me. I was seen somehow as a traitor to the cause, and no one seemed to understand the cruelty of the mutation, the sacrifice that I had made, and the difficulty of my decision. I stood outside the mansion, looking back at the door and at the gate that lead to the rest of the world. I was caught in between two worlds, and I didn't know where I could turn and be accepted for who I was. I knew, as I had always known, that one person would understand what I did, and why I had to do it.
Finding him was easy; I had him in my mind for so long that it was almost instinctive. It was strange, that I could still feel him there even with my mutation's absence. I knew that he was grief-stricken and alone, desperately confused by what he had to do to Jean, who he loved even though he knew he shouldn't. I would never have been able to understand his feelings without my mutation and the fact that I had touched him, allowing his innermost thoughts to mingle with mine. I found him standing before her grave, staring at it, and I could tell by the look on his face that he was trying to come to grasp with her death. It was something that he had done before, we all had, when we believed that she was dead after Alkali Lake. It was so much harder for him now, knowing that he had killed her himself. It occurred to me that I was the only other person who knew how she had died. I stood behind him, needing to tell him what I had done, and expecting him to be strong for me, but as I saw his shoulders shake before the symbol of the death of the woman he loved, I knew that I couldn't ask him to understand me and be there for me. Biting my lip, I turned to leave.
"Don't go."
I stopped; surprised by the sound of his voice, but at the same time I realized that there was no way he could have been ignorant to my presence. I waited for him to speak again, almost holding my breath. I stared at his back, and saw him slowly turn to face me. He was wearing what he usually did, dark blue jeans, with a wrinkled jacket over a faded t-shirt, and that sign of normalcy told me that he was the same man he had always been, and was somehow comforting.
"You did it, didn't you?" he said, coming closer to me, and I nodded, reading his face for signs of approval or disapproval in my actions, and to see if the grief I knew he felt was written on his face. He was well-guarded, as always, but there was a resignation to his typically restless and fiery nature that alarmed me. I nodded in reply, and I watched him scrutinize me.
"Why are you still wearing those?" he asked, gesturing towards my gloves with a nod of his head.
Until that moment, I hadn't even realized that my hands were still covered by the silk fabric that had become like my second skin. "I don't know. Habit, I guess," I said with a shrug, staring down at my hands. I made no motion to remove them, and he suddenly grabbed my gloved hand within his own and slipped off the silken glove, loosening each one of the fingers before taking it off. I felt my hand shake inexplicably, and I tightened it into a fist. He watched me take off the other glove, which I handed to him, not knowing what to do with it. He let them both fall to the ground, and I looked back at him with interest, not confusion.
"You know what I did," he said softly, still standing in front of me as strong and solid as he'd always been, but with something inside of him broken. I felt it as acutely as if the pain was my own, and I nodded again, unable to speak through the tears that suddenly filled my eyes.
"You did what you had to do," I whispered back. He looked away, and I saw his jaw tighten and his fists clench. "It wasn't your fault."
At that moment, he turned away from me, grinding his foot into the soft grass in an expression of something I thought might be frustration. I didn't know what to do; what words could I possibly say that would be able to ease his pain, even a little bit? "Logan," I began, touching his arm with the tips of my fingers.
He whirled around to face me, and much to my surprise, he caught my hand in his own. I wondered for a moment if he thought that the Cure hadn't really worked, and that my mutation would still be in effect. He looked at my hand, and then into my eyes, and I felt nothing except the roughness of his hand surrounding mine. "Why aren't you with Bobby, finally touching him after all this time?"
"You always do get straight to the point," I said, smirking. "I did go to find him; I thought he deserved to be the first to touch me. But he wasn't. He was with Kitty, and well, I didn't want to interrupt," I told him, unable to keep the slight regret out of my voice. His brows furrowed in confusion as he looked back at me, still holding on to my hand. "You have to know that I didn't do it for him."
"I give you more credit than that, Marie," he admitted, and I smiled at his use of my name. No one used it except for him. For a moment, neither of us spoke, as if we knew that words weren't needed to convey the fact that I understood perfectly his grief and confusion, and he understood my need to feel his hand against my own.
"What are you going to do now?" I asked him, breaking the silence. I told him with my eyes that I didn't want him to go, and he managed a wry smile.
"I think I'll stay on at the school for a while. Storm asked for my help, and I'm going to lend a hand, for now at least," he told me. "What are you going to do now?" he asked, mocking my question.
"This is my home, mutation or not. I don't know how the other students will see me now. I'm the same person. I hope they can recognize that, and not see me as more of a freak than before." My face twisted in distaste when I spoke the word 'freak.' It was what I had always been before, and I knew that among the mutants at the school, I would now be the freak who had succumbed to the pressure to receive the Cure.
"If anyone calls you that, they'll have to answer me," he growled, and I tried to laugh as he tried to smile. "I'll take care of you kid, I told you that once and the offer still holds."
I smiled at his words, this time for real. "Thank you, Logan. And even if the rest of them don't, I know that you understand why I did it."
He threw his arm over my shoulder easily, and we began to walk back towards the school. "Of course I do. And I know that you understand…. why I do the things I do."
"I understand most things," I agreed. "You're a man, and I don't think any woman alive understands that whole man thing completely," I replied lightly.
He laughed, and I was relieved to hear some of the tension leave his voice. "You've got that right."
We walked back to the school together, the knowledge of his friendship surrounding me like a shield of protection against everything that I would face upon returning to school. My only hope was that even though he still saw me as a little girl he needed to watch out for, he would somehow know that I was there for him, and prepared to be for him anything that he needed me to be.