Disclaimer: I Do Not Own The X-Men Or Anything Related To The X-Men.
Thank you to everyone who read the previous chapter. I appreciate you guys and gals taking time out of your busy days to look at this chapter and story. Big thanks to Jehilew again since she awesomely gave this chapter an earlier look through.
As the world slowly returned to the exhausted woman, a definite pain in the back of her head shattered the slim hope she was still injury free. The pounding rhythmically reverberated through her skull, forcing her to bite the inside of her cheek in an effort to halt the list of colorful words sitting on the edge of her tongue. To try and calm the growing force, she slowed her breathing down and attempted to take long, deep breaths. Which would have worked fine, if a small pointy thing hadn't continuously poked her shoulder.
"I told you to leave me al-" Anna's eyes burst open and took in the sight before her with a slack jaw and the first word of what was bound to be a long list of colorful language.
No longer was she stuck in an impressive waiting room under the watchful eye of the mystery woman. The new location was far more inviting and filled with comfortable yet stylish furniture. Had she been less overwhelmed with the current predicament, Anna would have taken far more time to admire the design and feel of the room. Everything from the wall colors to the curtains was breathtaking, in her humble opinion. Pictures carpeted the walls along with a rather impressive flat screen television staring directly at Anna and the newest stranger to enter her life.
Cheerfully giggling at the side of the woman's newest recovery couch stood a small girl who barely looked large enough to be two-years-old. She smiled widely after locking eyes with the scared mutant then gently patted Anna's knee with one pudgy hand. Anna scooted farther away and felt her heart race in sudden panic when the kid tried to climb onto the couch with her.
"Where in the world am I now?" She worriedly mumbled aloud, before outwardly flinching when the kid grabbed her hand.
Anna whipped her hand out of the stranger's grasp and observed the girl tilt her head in surprise, like a dog listening to a high-pitched sound. It was obvious from one look into her emerald green eyes, which seemed to take up most of her small face, that she was becoming just as puzzled with their predicament as Anna was. Unlike the panicking woman, now busily gawking at the lone curl of white hair hanging loosely over the kid's right temple, the girl's surprise melted away quickly and turned once again into an expression of simple happiness.
"I got to get out of here." Rogue rubbed her eyes and dared to look back at what even she couldn't deny looked a whole lot like a mini version of herself. "Look, kid, where is the exit?"
"Exit." The child repeated unhelpfully and tried to crawl onto Rogue's lap.
"No. Stay. Stay there." She stated as firmly as she could manage while trying to push the kid back with the palms of her hands, "I need to get out of here." The kid sat back on her spot and furrowed her thin brows. "Are your parents here?"
"Mama!" The kid chirped happily.
"So your mom is here?" Rogue swiftly jumped up, pausing only a moment to clutch her head in pain, then busied herself by trying to find a weapon she could use if the situation turned ugly. "Good. Now, where is she…"
Her working theory, as scrambled as even she admitted it sounded, was she'd been dragged to the sunglass woman's home for who knows what reason. The lady knew far too much to be just a passing face. No, there was something bigger going on here. Maybe she was gifted with some kind of healing power? How else could anyone explain Anna walking away from a car crash with only a simple headache? Whatever was happening here, she thought as she grabbed a poker from the fireplace; she wasn't going down without a fight.
The kid slid off of the couch and ran ungracefully over to the paranoid mutant. While Anna attempted to decide what it meant her kidnapper left her with a random girl, the girl in question latched onto her ankle with a death grip. The sudden weight threw her solidly off balance, forcing Anna to drop the poker and crumple to the floor.
"Get off of me!" Anna hissed out roughly and tried to yank the kid off of her leg.
"No!" The little girl shouted in a much less happy tone when Rogue finally succeeded in tearing her away from her ankle, "No, mama! No!"
The words and shocking familiarity of the belligerent green eyes staring into her own matching pair officially freaked Rogue out. She scrambled clumsily away from the kid and held out both hands defensively as if she feared the child would suddenly attack. Instead, the girl's bottom lip quivered and her expression of irritation shifted into one of waterworks.
If the sight of Anna's mini-me wasn't jarring enough, the high-pitched squawking suddenly unleashed by her new friend was more than enough to do her in. She darted from the room in an effort to escape the madness and the noise then ducked into the closest hallway. She spotted what appeared for all intents and purposes to be the front door only feet away, but the race to freedom was halted the second her eye caught sight of something almost as shocking as the kid still screeching in the living room; her reflection.
The woman staring back from the hallway mirror looked older. It was hard to wrap her mind around the apparent age of the reflection, let alone the grand physical changes. Her hair, if this could actually be her true reflection, was rather long, past her shoulders, and fully embodied the bold curls Anna had tried so hard to hide through straighteners and strategic short haircuts. It was definitely a far cry from the frizzy home cut mess she'd lived with for the past four years. Tentatively, she brought a hand up and stroked her left cheek, making sure to mentally note the reflected woman copied each move. The skin beneath her fingertips was smooth and held a healthy looking tan, a far cry from the gaunt, white her skin boasted for so long.
Slowly, the hand rose higher to grasp at a loose white curl. She tugged the strand gently until a loud knock echoed throughout the entryway. She cussed under her breath and dropped the accidently pulled strand of hair, before creeping silently towards the door. Whoever was on the other side seemed to be in no mood to wait for her to decide if she wanted to open up or not.
The knock came again, followed by a new female voice shouting, "Seriously Anna? Open the door!"
Against her better judgment and any ounce of common sense she still owned, Anna unlocked the door and barely stepped back before a short boy raced into the house and right past her. The kid looked around five or six, somewhat tall for either age in her opinion, with a thick head of coppery brown hair. The remarkable thing about the kid, to any observer, was his eyes; a strikingly bright green on black.
"I thought you would never open up." An overdramatic young woman followed the boy into the house and dumped her purse onto the small entryway table. She was short, no more than five feet max, with dark, mischievous eyes and a trendy pixie haircut. Although the young woman didn't give off a very intimidating aura, it was nearly impossible to tear your eyes away from the confident lady. Anna, not being one to relax in anyone's presence, refused to chill out and maintained at least five feet between them.
"What's up with you?" The spitfire continued and walked into the living room, forcing Rogue to take a few steps back, "You feeling alright? You got that crazy look in your eyes, chica."
"Crazy look?" Anna repeated unsure what to think since both of the kids had rejoined them in the living room. Was she really up for taking on a fight in front of an audience?
"Man, this party planning must be burning your brain. Guess no one said it be easy to pull a surprise past him." She laughed brightly making her eyes sparkle like fireworks, "Either way, I kept my end of the deal so don't forget yours."
"Deal?"
"Of course! Don't tell me you forgot." The woman stepped closer to Rogue then the confused brunette expected, "I pick up Oliver from school to give you extra planning time and you hook me up with that single dad from Ollie's class. I mean, how could you ever forget a guy with a six pack, brains, and a sense of humor?"
"Right… Our deal." Rogue nodded her head slowly; not caring for how little respect this stranger gave personal space. "Sure, I'll do that for you, uh…"
"Jubilee." The woman narrowed her left eye and scrunched her face questionably for a moment, "Your awesome, damn attractive friend and horrendously underpaid babysitter." She snickered at her own brashness, then took a slightly more serious tone, "Seriously, girl, are you okay?"
"I, uh-"
"Hold that thought." Jubilee mercifully interrupted Rogue as she suddenly remembered one of the main reasons she was so desperate to get into the house. "Be right back."
As her newest acquaintance disappeared into the long hallways past the staircase, Rogue turned around to find herself face to face with two small and unimpressed people. The older of the two watched her with a hint of suspicion that seemed far past his years. Even when Rogue tried to get away from their stares by escaping to the nearby kitchen, the pair followed in perfect step. It was a creepy feeling to hear the shuffling of feet, but see no one when she dared to take a look back.
"Mama," The skeptical looking one of the pair, Rogue vaguely remembered Jubilee calling Oliver, spoke up finally as they blocked Rogue's direct escape route back to the living room. "We're hungry."
"I am not your mom." She snapped immediately while trying to calm her mind enough to formulate a new plan. If this Jubilee person was a friend, maybe she could help her escape. Then again, maybe she was in league with the strange sunglass woman?
"Yeah, you are." The boy countered with confidence. "Can we have a snack now?"
"I am not your mother," Anna growled out the words a little too roughly, causing the boy to scrunch his eyebrows nervously.
"You don't wanna be our mama?"
"Exactly!" Anna exasperatedly answered, but regretted it instantly. The little girl let out another shriek and started to cry louder than before, while the boy stared at her as if he couldn't believe she had such a thing.
"No, look, I am your mother. I want to be your mom." She scrambled the words together and tried to think of anything that would stop the ear-splitting cries, including grabbing two containers of candy from the top of the fridge. She handed the treats over to the pair who stopped crying and glaring almost instantaneously. "Happy?"
"Thanks, mama!" The girl giggled, a little too joyfully in Rogue's opinion after such a grand display of tears, then stuck a handful of candy in her mouth.
With the two kids occupied, for the time being, Rogue started looking around the kitchen for anything that might give her a clue about where she was or even who she was in this place. The scribbled pictures on the refrigerator each had one of two names written on them; Oliver or Amelia. The contents of the fridge and the cabinets looked normal, and by the time she opened the last drawer in the gigantic room, she had yet to find anything that hinted at more than the happy homemaker. Was it possible this was all some bizarre experiment to test her mental status? Then again, even she realized her theories were starting to reach new levels of paranoia.
Before paranoia patrol could fully conclude, a sudden cheerful tune floated through the air. It took Rogue an entire minute and a second replay of the tune to comprehend the sound was coming from her pocket. A cell phone! She thought eagerly and pulled the thing out so quickly it fell to the floor. Oliver picked up the phone and started punching numbers into the device before Rogue could take it back from him.
"Hey, be careful with th-" She paused as her eyes caught sight of the newly unlocked screen, "You know the phone code?"
"Are you mad?" He questioned a little nervously since his mom was always rather annoyed when he cracked into her phone.
"Are ya kiddin'?!" She commended him for the action and patted his head slightly awkwardly, "Good job…you."
His look of puzzlement came thundering back as Rogue focused all of her attention on the phone. She opened up the texts and almost fell to the floor when the first name on the list came up; Remy LeBeau. What the heck was Remy LeBeau doing on her phone? And why in the wild world was he texting her plans for some romantic evening? She tried to fight back a deep blush after reading the more juicy details of his message. Despite the growing sense of calamity in her gut, she opened the picture album next in slim hope she could prove the looming realization untrue.
Frankly, she felt like a complete and utter idiot, disoriented or straight minded, for not making all the clues fit together far earlier in this bizarro world. Romantic texts, the kid's eyes, Jubilee's comment about being hard to surprise… was she seriously dating Remy LeBeau?! To finish her poor sanity off and finalize her place in the stupidity hall of fame, the confused and bewildered lady glanced back down to her hand and finally noticed the large stone daintily perched on one very specific finger.
She wasn't just dating Remy LeBeau… she was married to him!
Had any outside observer asked what happened next, the stories would have all been exactly the same; Anna Marie completely lost her mind.
She pocketed the phone, leaped over the kids covered in candy and brimming with questions about what their mom was doing, and ran straight for the door. Without pausing a moment, she grabbed the keys that had fallen from Jubilee's purse and bolted to the long driveway. As the engine of the sassy woman's two door car revved to life, Rogue barely registered the shouts escaping the house, nor did she notice Jubilee step onto the front sidewalk and wave her arms in a last ditch effort to reach her friend. No, the only thing Rogue knew as she careened into the street and slammed the gas pedal to the floor, was she had to get out of the loony bin and back to the one place her life ever made sense.
