I Remember You

Rogue was very quiet the whole time they explained things to her. Henry McCoy was the one doing the explaining, but Logan was there, too, along with Storm.

"You have to be very sure, Marie," he told her patiently, "that you do want this. It's going to change your life once more."

"But I'll get it back," she said. "I'll have my powers again."

"It's not guaranteed, though," Storm spoke up. "There's every likelihood that the effects of the cure cannot be reversed. But we will do what we can for you, if you really want to have your powers back. Warren Worthington has already promised to help us with this. All he needs is a blood sample from you and he can get his scientists to start working on it immediately."

"Of course," she nodded. "I want it. I do. I'll give him all the blood in my body if I have to!"

"Marie, you really know what you're saying?" Logan was looking at her worriedly. "You won't be able to touch anyone again. You can't get close to people again. Can you really live like that?"

"I did it before," she reminded him. He was silent. She turned her attention back to Mr. McCoy. "When does it all start?" she asked anxiously.

"If you're ready, I can take the blood sample now," he said.

"Do it."

When Bobby learned about what had happened, he was hurt and angry. "What were you thinking, Rogue?" he demanded. "I – I can't believe that you would do this!"

"I haven't done anything yet!" she defended herself. "But if those scientists find a way to give me my powers back, then I'm gonna grab that chance! Don't you understand, Bobby? I am miserable without my powers! I feel I've lost myself and I can't go on like this! I'll die!"

"What about me? I love you and I wanna be with you!" He grabbed her and shook her. "I want to have a life with you! Damn it, Marie! What about me? Do you even love me anymore?"

She crumpled in his arms and started to cry. "Of course, I love you," she admitted weakly. "You saved me. You loved me, - and I never thought that anyone would. And I'm so sorry. I'm sorry, but I don't love you enough to do this for you. I won't be less than I am for you."

He looked like she had struck him. He let go of her.

"Bobby?" She tried to reach for him but he pushed her away roughly. "Bobby, please! Listen to me! Try to understand, please!"

"Don't. There's nothing you can say." He sounded hollow.

Bobby avoided her from then on. She let him, and she didn't try to force a confrontation between them since she felt too ashamed. She knew that she had wounded him deeply but she couldn't lie to him about her true feelings. He deserved her honesty at the very least, after all that they had meant to each other. She could only hope that he would learn to forgive her eventually.

During this particularly difficult time, the person she wanted to talk to about all of it was Pyro. No. Not Pyro but John Allerdyce. Her friend, John. She knew that he would understand why she wanted her powers back so badly. The two of them were a lot alike, even before she absorbed some of his energy and she got his personality stuck inside her mind. But she also knew that he would hate talking to her. Because he had been in love with her, and that had played no small part in his decision to leave them all behind years ago.

After he left, that was when she finally realized that she had been a little in love with him, too. John was exactly like the element he had control over: he was fire, with his rage and his volatility, yet he also had warmth and passion. He was alive in a way that other people weren't and that had drawn her to him.

So when she learned that Bobby had rescued him from the wreckage of Alcatraz and had brought him back to the mansion, she thought that there was finally one person who could help her make sense out of it all. One person who would understand the feeling of loss that was threatening to consume her. She really thought that she could get her old friend back. Then she saw what had become of him.

He wasn't her friend. He wasn't the same boy she remembered, the boy who had left a piece of himself with her. When she looked into his eyes, she saw that boy was dead. His own fire had killed him.

And her world was a little colder because of it.