Coletterby appears onstage to several rotten tomatoes and a large lettuce covered in tomato sauce being flung at her. *
I am really really really really sorry for not updating this in a while *cough * two year *cough * but i've been ridiculously busy ... and i kept forgetting. if it helps you forgive me i haven't updated any story in about that long and this is the first one i am continuing. it is a decently long, for me, chapter so i'm hoping that will make up for the fact i think i was still in uni when i last updated.
once again i'm ridiculously sorry about the delay. please review even if it's only to tell me how much i suck for not updating. Now without further ado, the chapter ...
Rogue stared around the class in absolute horror. Everything that had been made of metal had been flung against the walls including the desks and chairs containing the few other members of the class who took advanced English. The Professor was currently fighting his way from the remains of the blackboard he had been thrown into whilst shooting her a glance that contained too many correct guesses about what just occurred. She immediately rushed over to help but was hurt when he flinched away from her touch. She glanced at the battered students in the carnage she had created and the glares they were all sending her way and, letting out a small noise of distress, rushed out of the classroom.
She had to escape.
Meanwhile, John found himself chatting amicably to Storm as they made their way along the passage to the Professor's room. She seemed to have taken pity on him for being pursued by Magneto even if, as he had admitted to himself, it was all his fault in the first place. Leaving the Blackbird had been one of the worst mistakes of his life as not only had he ended up not being there for Rogue when she had needed him the most, but as it had also cost him the only home he had ever known. His childhood had sucked and his early teenage years hadn't changed that much as his last set of foster parents had kicked him out after they discovered the real reason why the boy hadn't lasted in a family for more than a few weeks. His mutation had been extremely difficult for him to control when he had been younger and it hadn't helped that his had developed before he even hit puberty. Any sight of fire at all would start his mutation off and he would only resume control of himself after the fire had destroyed most of what had been around him to begin with.
He had, luckily, only seriously injured one person during those periods and that had been the first time he had used them. He hadn't regained control of himself until the entire house he had been living in was burnt to the ground and he still continued to stand watching the tealight in the pumpkin on the former front step burn. His foster father had been in intensive care for several weeks after that, after which he claimed to be too ill to continue his duties as parent. John knew differently though. His foster father never met his eyes after the incident and refused to see him unless he was accompanied, he was terrified his 'demon child' would try again. After that he had been shifted from foster home to foster home, always being moved following a fire until eventually the last couple to take him in quickly turned him out again, not bothering to wait for social services to rehouse the boy.
It had been Storm who had found him after he had been on the streets for nearly a year. When she offered him a place to stay, and shown him enough credentials to prove she was legit, he had taken her up on the offer and never looked back and at the mansion he had found a place where he did belong. Where screwing up just meant apologizing, cleaning up whatever mess you made and it would become, after a while, a funny story to tell the new kids about. Where living on the streets wasn't something to be ashamed of as so many of the children had come from such backgrounds, baring even worse stories of how they got there in the first place.
When he had left the Blackbird he hadn't known he was leaving all that behind, he only knew he had to help save those children, to prove that someone cared for them and that they weren't alone anymore, but he had got turned around in the snowstorm and whenever he tried to make his way back to the Blackbird he had ended up beside the helicopter and took it as a sign.
Just another bad choice in a long run of bad choices.
As he recounted this to Storm, still not quite understanding why he felt such a need to explain himself, she nodded sympathetically to his plight, not quite forgiving him for ignoring the X-men's orders but understanding, at last, why he had done so. As he finished his narrative she had only one suggestion for him.
"I think you should tell this to Rogue," she stated, halting him in the corridor they were standing and looking him in the eye.
He sent a questioning look in response.
"She honestly thinks that the reason you left the jet was to get away from her. She believes that you joined Magneto as a statement of agreement that she should have died for his plan and that you think she's a failure for not doing so." Storm watched her words sink into the fire starter's head and the look of disbelief on his face. "I don't think she would have thought it through that far if she had been allowed a chance to grieve you before losing Bobby and Logan as well but with both of them gone she found herself trying to come to some sort of conclusion about why all three of the men in her life left her within a week of each other and the only thing she could think of was the Liberty Island thing."
John shook his head in denial but was unable to form words.
"She saw you as believing in what Magneto was selling, she thought Bobby was scared of her when he saw how close to death she brought Logan, even with his healing factor, and she decided Logan himself wanted out of his promise to look after her as she kept nearly killing him." She paused for a few moments whilst John tried to relearn to breathe. "I think it will help her when she understands the truth. Hearing that one of the conclusions she drew was false might make her doubt the other ones she's drawn. She might be able to get over Bobby's betrayal and find someone who'll love her and not be looking around to spot the next girl he can date when he's tired of his current one."
"Why are you telling me this?" asked John, finally in control of his voice again.
"Because I really believe you can help her, John. You obviously cared enough about her to cross most of the country to see her when you knew your days could be limited, to me that proves you might have it in you to be, like Jean would have said, a good guy ." She smiled softly at the remembrance of her good friend whilst John looked puzzled over the reference. "And that, is all I'm going to say on the matter."
"Now lets go tell her, and the Professor of course, that you're staying." She said striding down the corridor, John hurrying to catch up in her wake.
Rogue's hands were caressing the things in her room, running her hand over the cracked desk which Bobby had frozen and subsequently cracked, stroking the burn on the wall from where John had gotten bored and made a candle burn much hotter than it should have, patting the bag on the bed stuffed with some clothes and a few toiletries. She took a final look before making a last mental catalogue to ensure she wasn't leaving behind anything necessary before slinging it over one shoulder.
Time to go.
They rounded the corridor to the Professor's classroom just in time to catch the aftermath of Magneto's attack. The Professor was being helped from the wreckage by a telekinetic who had managed to shield himself form the worst of the flying metal, the only damage he had incurred being a thin slash across his left arm that was bleeding profusely. Storm promptly ran over to help the man whilst John began moving desks and chairs in an effort to free the people trapped underneath.
"Professor, what happened?" gasped Storm as they finally reseated the man in his wheelchair.
"Magneto, he …" the Professor struggled to think up words.
"He's here already!" yelled John. "I have to go, I can't endanger the kids by staying here if he's found me."
"He wasn't here, he was inside Rogue." replied Xavier before John tried to leave. "I couldn't do anything because all I could have done would only injure Rogue. She managed to get him under control but not quick enough to stop him from attempting to harm me."
"I knew that freak was out to get us," interjected Mark, the telekinetic.
"If she's so unstable why was she even allowed in class with the rest of us, she should be locked up!" agreed the girl John had just managed to unearth from the mess. There was a chorus agreement from the students who were uninjured enough to follow the conversation.
John looked disgusted at them, "What happened to the place where when you screwed up most people didn't even make you apologise for injuring them?"
"Listen," replied the girl still resting on his arm. "You're new here and there's one thing you should know. That girl is evil. She hates everyone, she doesn't sit with the rest of us for meals and if you sit near her in class she drains your mutation. That's her power see, she steals mutations .. And she wants to swallow them all."
"That's enough." interrupted the Professor before John could take a swing at the girl. "Rogue has provided proof against all those claims…"
"Well then, why did she try and kill us all today if they aren't true?"
The remainder of the class once again chipped in their views until John stopped the noise with a sharp hand gesture.
"You've had your say, now hear me," said John, his quiet voice directly opposing the fire that was burning in his eyes. "Rogue is one of the best people I have ever known. She has used her mutation maybe a grand total of five times and every time she did it because she had to. She saved me from killing several policemen when I lost control of my powers by taking them away from me and for that I am eternally grateful. But because of that she not only has to learn to control my powers, she has to learn to control my thoughts, because she absorbed all of them too. And not just my thoughts, the thoughts of her first boyfriend who she accidentally put into a coma, the thoughts of her next boyfriend who then cheated on her, the thoughts of the man she thought of as a father who deserted her and most terribly the thoughts of the man who tried to kill her.
"I have never once heard her complain, not even about the fact that she can't go outside her room without a full layer of clothes incase she accidentally bumps into someone in the mansion and knocks them out. Have you ever thought how it would feel to not be able to touch someone? Not be able to get a hug from a friend because you've been having a bad day, or hold hands with your boyfriend without a layer of material between you?
"Next time you decide to go off on one about Rogue I'd advise you to think twice. Apart from today I'm willing to bet she has never touched any of you, and the only reason you're injured today was because her would-be-murderer took over her body which I'm sure was just so much fun for her." He ended sardonically before leaving the girl on the ground and the rest still trapped in the mass of desks and marching to the door. He paused in the doorframe, remembering why he had needed to speak to Xavier in the first place. "Professor, I'm taking back my old room. If one of those Rogue hating jerks is in there when I arrive I'm throwing his ass out the window. You might want to inform him, and that threat goes to anyone who says anything bad about Rogue in my ear shot again." and with that, he marched out of the room.
Rogue was about to open the front door when she suddenly remembered to kids from her class. She hoped they were alright. The classroom was the one right above the entrance hall, maybe if she was quiet she could tell if any of them were really hurt.
She heard a weird crunching sound coming from right beside her but when she spun to face it the only thing there was a plant. She listened again and pinpointed the sound to be coming from one of the leaves and saw a tiny caterpillar munching the leaves.
'Logan's ability' she thought to herself.
'Thought it would be useful for you, Stripes.' Logan's voice replied in her head
She instantly pointed her hearing upwards, through the concrete to the room above her head.
"Rogue is one of the best people I have ever known …"
She felt tears fill her eyes as John continued his rant. Despite the fact that she had yelled at him, tattled on him and tried to stab him with a icicle without listening to what he had to say, he was still defending her. When he stormed out of the classroom, she fell to her knees and started to cry.
All done. Hopefully it won't take me another two years to update again. Thank-you everyone for sticking by me and this story.
ttyl
'Terby xx
