Author's Note: Er. Uh. Hi?
*sighs* Yeah. I've been gone a long time. School is. . . well, school is school and leaves little time for anything that isn't school. Honestly folks, it's study-work-classes-work-study-cry about chemistry-study. Which uh. . . let's not tell my mother I've been working on this this morning instead of working on the previously mentioned chemistry. Cause. . . yeah, chem's due on Thursday. Hmm. Should get on that.
So this is me, saying I'm not dead. This story is not dead. If, however, you believe I have anysort of ownership rights? You might be.
Chapter Seven: Rogue
Sickening familiar crunch of bone breaking somewhere behind. Someone in front – someone wearing the wrong uniform, and it's explosions and bullets and the high pitched, once terrifying whistle of bombs from above. There is no now, no here, only movement.
Lunge forward – towards the wrong uniform, bearing him to the ground. A growl from behind redirects attention and she – no, he – he turns to see the loping form of the one constant in his life. Averts his eyes from the scene – unnecessarily cruel, unnecessarily bloody, even for war time.
There's no time to make judgments, no time to stop the other, no time to care, because the one beneath is unconscious, and there's another coming in from his blind spot, there's only time to –
A shout somewhere between sleeping and waking, a thud and a groan. Slowly, hesitatingly, Rogue opens her eyes, catalogues her position on the floor, sheets and blankets a twisted, confining mess between her body and the bed she so recently vacated. Staring at the ceiling, wooden floor hard against her back, she falls into a practice she's abandoned for months.
I'm Marie, I'm Rogue. I attend mutant high, and I am not a soldier in whatever the hell war that was. I'm Marie, I'm Rogue, I'm in Westchester, New York. I'm Marie –
Mostly abandoned, anyway. Since the Cure the nightmares had dropped off, she didn't wake needing to remind herself of who she was. A few weeks ago when the nightmares of battles she was much too young to have experienced had begun seeping back in, she had shrugged it off. Echoes of things she once knew, nothing to worry about.
Now?
Brushing hair out of her eyes, Rogue removes herself from the trappings of her bedclothes, leaving the green and yellow linens in a heap on the floor. Red on black LEDS of her alarm clock read 3:17 am. It's still dark outside.
She'd tried to go to sleep after returning from the Break Up Date and hearing that newscast. Locked herself in her room and tried desperately to deny what she'd heard. Tried to tell herself the chill that'd been following her all evening was a result of Bobby's lack of control, not something else.
Eventually the denial was over come by sleep. Sleep that was disturbed by nightmares not her own.
3:22 am.
Temporary. She should have anticipated it.
When Logan first started training her, the first fights left her bruised and sore well into the next day. Abrasions and matt-burn. Biting her lip, she tries to remember the last time a sparring session with her mentor left a mark on her body.
3:27 am.
In an hour her alarm will go off, and she'll dress. Dress and stretch and set her ipod before her morning run along the property's perimeter. A cool down and then into the gym for strength training followed by either fighting forms or yoga before a shower. A normal day, except. . .
Temporary.
Face in her hands, elbows on her knees as she sits on the edge of her rumpled bed, Rogue knows she should have expected the newscast. But the tells over the last couple months were so easy to brush off as something else, something unrelated.
It had been a late night of studying that time it took her multiple attempts to grasp her own door handle. Exhaustion can mess with coordination, make her eyes play tricks on her when it appeared her hand had gone through the silly thing. It was easy to dismiss it instead of remembering that Kitty had been part of the study group turn rough housing.
3:38 am.
And so what if after that day at the mall with Jubilee, everything she touched sparked? It had been really dry that week, and static electricity was bound to build up, right?
3:46 am.
Rogue frowns, focusing her eyes on the door, hands falling to her knees. No one's been complaining of lightheadedness, and there certainly hadn't been any comas. She'd have remembered a coma.
So. . . so if all the little incidents now lining up before her memory to be recognized weren't what she's been excusing them for. If those little incidents had been her powers pulling from casual skin to skin contact. . . there'd been no side effects. She hadn't pulled secrets, just occasional, minor spurts of powers. Hardly noticeable.
3:49 am.
Temporary.
Rogue stands, an idea taking shape. Slowly pulling on her running gear, she tests the edges of her theory. The professor had never made any progress with her control issues over her powers. Something about the echoes of absorbed psyches making it difficult for him to penetrate her mind to discover the root of it. Practical testing was too dangerous without some sort of plan going in, and then all that trouble with Jean, and the Cure and. . .progress had just never been made.
But then, her powers had been fully developed by time she reached the Institute right? Rogue bites her lip, sliding ear buds carefully into place. Before she slips out of her rooms, she grabs a pair of faded, worn gloves. By time she's outside, warming up for her run, she has the beginnings of a plan.
