The smile had long since left Rogue's face as she sat in her room on the windowsill, staring off at the dark scenery before her.
Temporary.
The Professor had said many things to her—as well as Hank—but both had used that ugly word.
They weren't for sure how long, though. Leech's power was undeniably strong, especially since it had developed in him long before most mutants developed their powers. They weren't for sure how, but they believed that his powers to negate energy may have simply quashed her powers for the time being. They also believed it'd last a couple days, like Mystique's power had when she had touched her.
Oh, how she hated that woman's mind.
Rogue quickly changed the course of her thoughts, unwilling to think of the labyrinth of thoughts she had received from the shapeshifter. As she stared off into the night sky, her mind drifted to Apocalypse again.
When she had sucked the powers out of almost everyone she knew to revive the monster, the only reason she kept her sanity was through Mesmero's control on her mind. In that brief moment before she had awakened Apocalypse, she herself had awoken to a dark and unforgiving mind. Before it had taken any hold on her, however, Apocalypse had grabbed her hand and taken all of the mutants' powers she had borrowed.
But he did not take their memories.
When the X-Men had all recovered from the field of energy that Apocalypse had thrown at them during his escape, they had apparently been greeted with the sound of Rogue's painful shrilling. She hadn't been quite all there, but pieces of what she remembered and what she had been told by the others gave her a pretty clear picture.
She did remember Logan trying to snap her out of it as she convulsed from the amount of minds that had begun to fight to take control of her mind. It had felt like the world kept shifting under her feet as each persona attempted to use powers she no longer had.
They battled against her and each other, trying to hone nonexistent powers and draining her body of energy. They invaded her mind with an ambush of memories, some so horrifying she apparently had begun trying to claw at her head to get them out.
That was when Logan had to pin her down.
They had sedated her with a tranquilizer gun they kept in the jet for particularly dangerous mutants. When they got her back to the mansion, they had placed her in a medically-induced coma while Professor Xavier slowly worked to rid her mind of each of the memories.
When she woke up almost a week later, Logan had greeted her with one of the most relieved smiles she'd ever seen on his face.
But along with it came the knowledge that they had failed the mission to stop Apocalypse's awakening. And, while never said out loud, she knew the blame rested on her.
She could not remember the memories that had plagued her since the Professor had blocked them out, but every now and then certain scenes from a movie, or a place she knew she had never been to would bring back inklings of emotions and surges of thoughts that she knew weren't hers. And—while not often—nightmares had her screaming awake in the middle of the night, with no recollection of what it was that had terrified her.
She often wondered if having an unknown monster lurking in the recesses of her mind was better than knowing whose memories were affecting her.
Now, as she sat in her dark room—with a slew of new memories and emotions thanks to Gambit using her to help him save his father—she wondered if she had made the wrong choice by closing herself off to the rest of her teammates.
She had seen Leech after she had taken his powers. He was in the school's infirmary, being watched over by his mother. The woman had not looked upon Rogue with hate, as she probably knew that it was a necessary evil Rogue had to do to her son to save the world.
But there was wariness in her eyes that kept Rogue from entering the room; she only nodded respectfully and quickly returned upstairs.
It was there that she announced she would wait for Leech's powers to wear off in her room, and that until then people were to remain far away from her.
She had used the excuse that because of Leech's powers masking her own, there was no telling when her powers would come back and she couldn't take the chance of hurting anyone else by accident. She also had pointedly mentioned that she didn't think her mind could take anymore invaders.
The latter excuse tended to gain more understanding, as they had seen what absorbing too many powers had done to Rogue; not once, but twice.
Thus, she had resigned her temporary gift to the confines of loneliness. While the excuses she had given the others were true, they were not the real reason she had chosen to hide.
Truth be told, she was afraid what the brief change would do to her.
The touch she had given Logan was amazing—not only because she could really feel skin for the first time in over a decade, but because she had grown quite fond of Logan, especially when he took care of her after her powers had turned against her the first time.
Having the ability to touch would probably cause her to do some irrational things, especially since she only had hours to really enjoy it. She didn't want to get herself worked up over possibilities that would be wretchedly taken away from her again.
She didn't think she would be able to handle transitioning back to her old self in such a short amount of time, and was even more afraid what the addiction would do to her afterwards.
For instance, trying to take Leech's powers again.
She involuntarily shivered at such a cruel thought. That boy was in an unconscious state because of her.
Tears welled up in her eyes. She knew this was the right thing to do, but it didn't mean she had to like it.
Her mind drifted to Logan again as she shifted her position on the windowsill to lean her head against the cool pane of glass. He had noticeably balked at her decision to remain isolated, but had resisted coming after her when she made her way to her room afterwards.
She wasn't sure if he was aware of her feelings for him. There had been some very awkward moments that they had shared during her recovery from awakening Apocalypse, as well as before when she had first lost control of her powers. She knew the age difference was not the entire reason for it.
While her classmates thought her to be eighteen, in reality she was twenty-one.
Mystique's memories had clarified a lot of Rogue's past: a slight positive in the slew of negatives that came with knowing what Mystique knew. When Destiny had first learned of what Rogue's power would become, she and Mystique had prepared to hide its manifestation by keeping Rogue away from people. While they knew what her powers would be, they weren't able to pinpoint when they would happen.
Thus, at the tender age of 11, Destiny had begun to tell Rogue of a skin condition she had that required her to cover up and keep her distance from others. It was contagious, she had told her. Mystique had apparently played the role of a doctor, examining Rogue and confirming the illness.
It was the only form Mystique had taken in front of Rogue, at least before becoming Rogue's principal. Beyond that, Rogue had never known Mystique, in her natural form or otherwise. Destiny had been her sole caregiver.
Being only a child, they knew that her "illness" would be a hard act to sell, especially since her skin appeared quite normal. Thus, through Mystique's memories Rogue learned that they had purposely made her sick by drugging her, forcing her to be taken out of school and isolated from the world. Rogue's own memories of the ordeal made her shiver, now knowing all those days she had wished she could just die were all because of them, and not some rare disease.
After a year, they stopped making her physically ill, but told her the skin condition would never go away. After months of begging and pleading, Destiny had agreed to allow Rogue to go back to school, as she had promised her to remain covered up and to keep her distance from other students.
They had ruined her life on the knowledge of a mutation that hadn't even surfaced yet.
All the years she had had the chance to touch, they had taken away from her. And in addition to that, she had lost two years of schooling because of her faked illness.
When she did return to school, she and Destiny had moved to another town, and Rogue had taken it upon herself to keep her age the same as everyone else's by lying. She had begun going by the nickname Rogue instead of Anna Marie, and had become the goth kid that no one bothered, just as Destiny and Mystique had wanted.
When her life was once more turned upside down during the true manifestation of her powers, she began schooling at Bayville High and continued to lie about her age. The Professor knew how old she was, as well as Storm and Logan, and all had promised to keep it hidden until she was ready to tell the others.
She knew her classmates would understand, but was afraid of the pity she would get from them upon learning why, as well as the harassment at school by others. She could already here the dumb jokes a mile away.
Rogue sighed and wondered if twenty-one really was her true age. Even though the Professor had wiped the majority of mutants out her mind, they had left their mark there, leaving her feeling worn down and impenetrable to the world. Nothing could get to her.
While she may as well have lived over a hundred years emotionally, Logan had had the lovely option of doing so physically.
She wondered if you could really classify as one being worse than the other.
A loud, obnoxious banging nearly knocked Rogue off her perch on the windowsill in surprise. Grumbling at the indignity of her less-than-graceful response, she hollered, "What part of isolation dontcha understand?"
"All of it," came the gruff reply through the solid oak door.
Rogue sighed and came up to the door to keep her voice from traveling further than it had to. "Logan, Ah told ya—"
"Will you just open up Rogue and talk to me? I'm not gonna bite."
Rogue had to smile at that. She almost said, "Why not?" but thought against it as she sighed loudly enough for him to hear and unlocked the door.
Instead of opening it, however, she made her way back to the windowsill. It took a moment before Logan got the picture and opened the door himself, closing it as he made his way into her room.
His eyes squinted at the darkness in her room compared to the brightly lit hallways outside. He stood there for a moment, probably to let his senses adjust, before making his way over to the other side where Rogue had sat back down. She looked away from him, staring out the window.
"I don't get it, Stripes. You were so happy at the thought of being able to touch people, and then all of a sudden ... you've imprisoned yourself." He leaned against the opposite side of the windowsill from where she sat, and crossed his arms. His eyes could have glared a hole right through her skull, if he'd been Cyclops.
"Temporary isn't the same as control, Logan. What am Ah supposed to do, happily touch people left an' right until one of them falls into a coma? Yeah, Ah'm sure the kids would love to play some deadly musical chairs with mah powers." Rogue took her eyes off the world outside and settled with looking at her gloved hands.
She smirked, figuring she had put them on without realizing it. Some habits were hard to get rid of. She supposed this was one she probably shouldn't get out of the habit of doing, just yet.
"Marie—"
"Rogue," she quipped acidly, annoyed at the use of her real name.
"You told me your name for a reason, so I'm calling you Marie. All right, Marie?"
God, why'd she have to tell him her real name? At least he didn't know it was actually her middle name. "Fine," she said haughtily, although with a lot less bite to it. She resignedly thought that she was Marie at the moment, anyway: Marie didn't have poisonous skin, as far as she was concerned.
"Now, Marie, who's to say this is temporary? That's just the doc and teach warning ya. They don't even know what to expect from this. Maybe it's you actually gaining control of your powers—did ya ever think about that?"
Rogue looked Logan in the eyes, studying him. His gaze was strong, and looking for some sign of hope in her. She feared that she just didn't have it in her to give him that kind of satisfaction—she couldn't until she believed that was truly the case at hand.
"Logan, Ah'm sorry, but as much as Ah wish that was the truth—"
"When the minds in your head first went berserk, and we were trying to get through to you, you started morphin' into all the people you had touched. All of them. And you were usin' powers from some you hadn't touched in almost a year. Their powers stay inside you, Marie. Maybe Leech's powers will give you what you need to gain control."
Rogue had never taken her eyes off Logan. The hopefulness in his voice was obvious even to her, and she wondered briefly if the feelings that she had felt grow for him over the past couple months had had the same effect on him.
He shifted and sat next to Rogue, his back to the window. His gaze descended as he reached down to grab her hands, which were resting in her lap. Both of hers fit into one of his, and he used his other hand to peel her gloves off slowly.
She watched the gloves land unceremoniously onto the ground, then shivered as she felt his own bare hands clasp hers gently. His hands were rough, and his bones thick. She closed her eyes and gently felt along his skin, trying to memorize the sensation.
She hadn't held someone's hands in over ten years. She wasn't even sure if she ever had, for that matter. She wasn't even allowed to get close to Destiny during her fake skin condition. God, the simplest of things she had missed out on....
The hands she was practically massaging at this point left her embrace, and before she could open her eyes she felt them on her face, brushing away tears that she wasn't aware had formed.
The move had an opposite effect, however, because the tears refused to stop. The sheer power of emotions she was feeling was beginning to overpower her, and she was vaguely aware that these were feelings her body was completely foreign to.
"Hey," Logan whispered, cupping her face while still gently wiping away the tears with his thumbs. "It's okay."
"Ah know," her voice sounded so weak, so drained. "Ah just ... Ah don't know if Ah'll be able to handle—to handle losing...." she couldn't finish her sentence, instead taking a deep breath to quell the sob that threatened to escape from her throat.
She felt Logan's hands move from her face to her shoulders, and he pulled her next to him. Her head leaned against his chest as he draped both arms around her protectively, and she felt herself wrap both of her arms around one of his, relishing in the skin-on-skin contact.
She had hugged Logan many times before. But she had always erred on the side of caution, which had made the hugs awkward. He never flinched from her, however. While she would carefully place her hands across his shoulders to avoid his exposed neck, and keep her head low next to his covered chest, he would wrap his arms around her without hesitation. Many times, she would feel his face bury into the side of her neck, where only her hair had saved him from certain dreamland.
Now, however, she did not fear his skin, and she let herself hold onto him as if her life depended on it.