He hadn't grabbed her hand. She wonders why. She'd paused after turning from him, she'd even let her gloved hand fall slightly behind her to encourage him. So many signs, so many chances—and yet he hadn't grabbed her hand. There was no doubt in her mind that the swamp rat felt something for her, despite his careless exterior and attempts to act otherwise. He wanted her, wanted her more than a one-night stand or quick fling. He wanted her, and she read his thoughts and saw that her skin scared him not. Nor did Wolverine's threats or her involvement with the X-Men or anything else.

But he hadn't grabbed her hand. Was he afraid of something she hadn't seen? Some secret aversion to commitment that slipped her notice? No. She'd explored the insides of Remy LeBeau's ghost more times than she could count. His psyche was just as worn as his playing card.

She saw that he didn't settle down with a woman not because he didn't want to, but because he hadn't found one worth the time.

He thought she was worth the time. Well worth it. And that's why she's so pathetically confused. If Remy doesn't fear her mutation or the thought of being with her and her alone—then why hadn't he said anything?

When she went deeper into his essence she found other fears. Fears that aren't real.

"Hank says everything checked out okay." The rumble of his voice folds over her back like a bubbling stream.

He's afraid of the unknown. Of the demons hiding in dark corners, waiting to run their pitchforks through the flesh of his stomach and drag him to hell. Of the dead, still cursing his name in their graves.

"But I was never one to put much stake in all that medical nonsense." He sits in the chair cattycorner to where she lays. He would never sit on the bed itself: the act was too close, too personal.

She gets closer and closer to finding the answer, but each time she thinks she has it his thoughts slip from her fingers like a water snake. He's afraid of the past catching up with him and the consequences of his actions. He's afraid of being with her, but not for his own sake.

She knows more about Remy than anyone—herself included—would like. She's drunk off of his mind; high from his wild memories and dizzying tales; she's drenched in his aura and sick with his charm. She reeks of Remy—literally. Logan still averts his sensitive nose whenever he's around her.

Yet she can't figure out his hesitance in regards to her. Something about guilt...About tainting a purity the likes of which he's never seen before—

"Did…Did something happen, kid?"

She grins manically and pulls a pillow over her wet face. 'Something' can never come close to what he's done to her. 'Something' can't explain why she waits by the phone night after night, or carries his tattered card on her at all times, or even why she sort of wants to thank him for taking her away.

Especially not that.

"He obviously did something to piss you off." His anger boils at the thought. "Guess kidnapping wasn't enough for the jackass—"

And the most laughable thing of all is that the X-Men think she hates Gambit for putting her through what he did. They assume that the added bitterness to her usual glares and grumbles is because of the 'evil Acolyte' breaking her barriers and forcing her to do something she didn't want to. Not even Wolverine at his fiercest could push her if she really wanted to remain immobile, and they know this.

But she doesn't hate Remy for kidnapping her. She loves him for it.

He notes the stiffening of her shoulders. He silently berates himself and recalls Ororo's warning: whatever he did, he was not to mention the kidnapping. "I'm sorry, Rogue. 'Ro told me not to bother you, but I've always felt like I could talk to you more bluntly than I could the other kids."

She doesn't hate him for tying her up in rope so rough it burned her sensitive skin, or throwing her in the back of a train with less care than a sack of potatoes. She doesn't even hate him for seeing her soft heart deep inside and exploiting it. Knowing he used her hurt so much at first, but she never hated him for it. She'd been used so many times before that the pain was dulled.

"So if," he clears his throat. "If you ever wanna talk about…stuff, then uh—just let me know, okay?"

She hates him for pulling her up and giving her a glimpse of the care-free light that is liberty and then shoving her head back under the dark water. She hates him for breaking open her cage to let her soar in the skies of freedom, only to clip her wings and make her fall in love with him while doing it.

"I mean it, Rogue. Don't let that bastard ruin all you've accomplished here. He ain't worth it."

She hates him for not grabbing her hand and making her stay by his side on that moonlit bayou.

I wish there would've been someone to tell me what being a mutant really was; what prejudice, hate, and disgust felt like. The only family I knew liked to fill my head with frivolous dreams. They told me that what I had was a gift and that I should cherish it.

I remember wanting to switch bodies with them for a week and see if they still said that same thing. Touching your friend's bare arm to get their attention or giving your mother a kiss on the cheek doesn't seem like much. Most people take those actions for granted.

Try living without them.

Anna Robbins, The Road to Normality.

Cody keeps his hand on the small of her back when they reach the exit door of the studio and keeps it there until they get to his car. Anna thinks of him as her anchor, as her personal, non-mutant telepath that always knows what she's feeling without her having to say so.

"Thanks for drivin' her, Tar." She hears him say. "Ah got it from here."

He winks at her friend and Anna doesn't begrudge her for blushing. She knows her husband is handsome, more than handsome in fact: angelic. She sometimes wonders how she got him and why he took her—especially since their first dance together put him in a coma for nearly four months.

She remembers the mind exercises with the professor and the excursions into the deep, cobwebbed recesses of her mind where the 'ghosts,' as she called them, hid away. There she sent the psyches to dwell—along with their memories, wants, and feelings.

As a teenager she visited this place for the first time and found Cody's ghost. She looked inside of him and saw all that he felt. He thought she was beautiful. For years he'd stared at her in math class and hoped against hope that she'd show up to one of his football games. Because of her supposed 'skin condition' she looked right through him and paid him no mind.

Until that night, and after that she promised she wouldn't dream of him anymore or think about how things could've been different.

She maintained this practice for years, lest the guilt consume her. And until things in New York went bad and she returned south for a visit (white streaks dyed to match the rest of her hair) she didn't let herself see Cody's psyche ever again.

But he'd taken her—after the coma and the lack of attention—he'd still wanted her. She can never thank him enough for that.

Before he starts the car she leans over and takes his breath away with a deep kiss. His arms go around her, and she pities him for having falling in love with a shadow of herself.

There's a third being in their bed at all times, a specter of sorts. Where Cody's mouth and hands go the specter's invisible appendages follow. She makes love with two men: the one that is here with her and the one she wants to be here with her. It's Cody's skin that molds and rubs against hers, but the specter's sizzling touch that brings her to the top time and time again, that makes her writhe and gasp and plead.

But it's only at intimate times such as these that his memory sneaks up to wrap itself around her. It's only times such as these that her walls go down and her want goes up and she lets herself feel him: his touch, his hands all over her, the way his lips used to fit over hers with such ease that it was so obviously meant to be.

It's only times such as these that Anna allows Remy's spirit to rise from the dead.

The live feed starts up too soon and the audience gets a quick peek at the news reporter berating her assistant with a slew of dirty words and curses. She pats her stiff blond hair impatiently and chucks her Styrofoam cup across the street.

"How many times do I have to tell you—" She pauses mid-complaint, enraged at being interrupted.

The camera man, finally catching her attention, winces apologetically (not really, he's been wanting to take the bitch down a peg for years) and signals to her that they're live.

With a precision unknown to most, the woman smoothes the lines from her face and rearranges her expression into that of grave solemnity.

"Judy Johnson here for Channel 8 news. I'm standing at the residence of best-selling author Anna Robbins and her husband, Cody. Just hours after Anna partook in one of the most widely-viewed interviews ever recorded, police received a call stating that the Robbins' home had been robbed. After arriving on the scene, officials found Anna missing and her husband critically injured from a bullet wound to the chest—"

Cody never even saw it coming. He was completely at ease when he went down to the kitchen for wine and strawberries. He'd been thinking about how much he'd been leaving Anna alone lately—and he felt bad for it. He planned on calling into the office tomorrow and spending the day together: just the two of them.

There was pain and a spreading warmth across his chest and then he was waking up in the hospital.

There is a nurse above him. She leans over the bed to hear his weak attempts at speech.

"Anna?"

She's an older woman whose seen much sadness and many tragedies. Her face seems meant for pity; sympathy suits her nicely. "I'm sorry, Mr. Robbins. Your wife went missing the same night you were injured." More pity around her mouth; if possible she frowns even more deeply. "The police still haven't found her."

He goes completely rigid. His azure eyes glaze over and he thinks about the last time he woke up in a hospital without her.

The nurse blushes for her mistake, and seeing his desperation, tries to intervene. "But don't you worry, everyone's out looking for her! Police all over the city have been searching day and night, volunteers, too—you know how people love that sweet girl—and the news said just a few hours ago that they think the dogs may have caught her scent—"

"How long?" he rasps, and steels himself for the answer.

Her brown eyes avert from his and he can tell she's debating on whether or not to give him the answer. Receiving any kind of shock in his fragile condition could prove to be fatal.

She tells him anyway, knowing she'd want someone to do the same for her if she was in this position. "Three days, Mr. Robbins. It'll be four in a few hours."

"Sources say they aren't sure how the intruders disabled the state-of-the-art security system, but they are researching as we speak." Her ridiculously pink jacket flaps around her waist. "If you look behind me—" she points to the bottom western corner of their mansion.

The summer before Anna and Cody had planted daisies around the bottom trim of the entire house as a bonding project. Their sweat, frustration, and patience went into the work and Rogue would've screamed had she seen what the intruders had done.

"—you can see where the break-in occurred. It's obvious from the damage done to the landscape and the shattered window that the culprit, or culprits, were not worried about being sly."

The camera zooms in—past Judy, past the police, past the ruined flower beds—to capture a closer glimpse of the window. And there (unseen by anyone until much, much later) on a jagged edge of broken glass, rests a piece of cloth that will complicate this kidnapping more than anyone could have expected.

Anna hears pops and crackles right near her ears. Water bubbles surround her and tickle her skin. She feels comforted by the warm water around her and steam rising up to heat her face and ears. She finds herself grateful for silence, because years before this peaceful moment would not have been possible: Too many different voices tearing her inner mind apart.

There was never a time—not even once—that she regretted the lack of chatter going in inside of her head. She never missed them, never found herself shrinking from the absolute quiet.

Not even Remy's ghost. Especially not Remy's. His psyche's residence in her battered mind only further showed her how far away he was from being hers, how pathetically hopeless her little crush was.

Anna takes deep breaths because she knows her thoughts have gotten too serious. She stills all movement of her body, sinks deeper into the hot tub, and once again welcomes silence.

She finds that calm again—

Until everything she knows is turned upside down by the shattering of glass and the sound of a gunshot.

But before the actually kidnapping itself occurs, an incident of equal importance must first take place. The scene changes from Anna in the tub to the night of the cocktail party. Once again Anna and her suitor are ignored and the focus goes to the shady man watching her from the corner.

His face comes into view. Startling white hair frames an unexpectedly-young face. Blue eyes, just like his father's he is often told, burn with a chilling coldness. This man is bitter; some say he would have every reason to be.

Because years before his father was attacked with the same 'cure' that runs through Anna Robbins' veins. The Great Magneto was reduced to the inferior species he so despised in the blink of an eye, and after months of sulking the once-great pursuer of justice perished quickly and quietly in his bed.

His son blames heartbreak as the culprit. In life, Pietro and his father were never close. He was always trying to please the unappeasable; always wearing himself down with joke missions and dangerous situations to win some of his father's approval. In life, Pietro couldn't understand his father. In death, Pietro understands him completely.

Along with his father's death came an unwavering maturity that startled those around him. Suddenly he could relate to the remote enigma that was Magneto. Things began to make sense and the passionate fever for mutant supremacy that plagued his father infected him, too. He hid his immense grief away and mourned in a different way: by action. He quartered his father's troops and spoke to them like their once great leader had. He boosted their hopes and dreams, and the doubters could only doubt Pietro's will for so long before they too followed him.

His empire is building, but he has to take things to the next level. What he truly needs, as the case may be, is attention. He needs the cause Magneto started to once again be brought to the public eye.

And who could help him more than little-miss-traitor, Anna Robbins, as she goes by now. She's the perfect testament to everything Pietro stands against. When he kills her everyone will know he and his people's exact thoughts on the human-processed 'cure.' They'll know, too, that the brink of war will once again loom in the near future.

He gets a thrill every time he thinks of this, and his hands tighten around the steering wheel of his Ferrari until his knuckles crack.

His speed demon tendencies do not stop when it comes to main roads. He pushes the car to the very limitations of its engine and whips through the streets of New York, paying no heed to passerby's or other vehicles. Smoke forms around the misused tires and fills the air. Not surprisingly, he reaches the bar in no time and exit's the car and races to the door.

He's among the group of men, seated comfortably in a round table, before any of their eyes have a chance to catch up.

Their shock only makes him more arrogant. "A little slow, aren't you boys?" he says smugly. He took great pains years before to slow down his speedy speech, one of the only changes he's consciously made. He found that people listened to a voice that resonated and made them feel emotion—rather than a voice they could barely keep up with.

"You've really got to stop doing that," one of the men says, decked out in a full tuxedo. "My poor heart can't take many more of your…surprises."

The yellow-haired man speaking to Pietro is prone to dramatics, so he does not pay much mind. "I've called you all here today because you're the best of the best. My associate here has run checks of some, and as for the rest of you: your reputation proceeds you." He inserts a dramatic pause accompanied by a charismatic (at least—it was meant to be charismatic) grin.

Most of the small gathering remains listless and unimpressed.

"I want something, and I want it bad. The type of skill it'll take to pull something like this off requires more than the run-of-the-mill thief." He smirks again, seeing the slight bloom of interest in faces all around. "I want a person."

There are cries of outrage. A woman in the back out yells the others. "We're not kidnappers. We're professionals." She moves to leave and most move to follow.

Until Pietro speaks again. "Fifteen million dollars will go to the one who can successfully bring to me the prize, half up front."

There is no movement or speech. The woman shatters the silence for the second time: "Never knew a woman could be worth that much. Who?"

"Anna-Marie Robbins. I'm sure you've all heard of her."

"A damn celebrity—"

The sound of metal boots slamming against the ground pauses the inquiries. A man who'd remained in the corner during the entire meeting, who'd not interacted with anyone else, who'd kept his opinions, thoughts, and outcries to himself—finally leans forward from the darkness. His face is all shadows and red glow.

"Anna Robbins: de author, oui?"

To control your mutation you must first accept it. To accept it you must make peace with all that you are—your past included. No matter how much we try and ignore or how far we try and run the past can't be erased. It's a major part of who we are that won't ever stay in its proper place—

And it will always catch up with us.

Anna Robbins, The Road to Normality.


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