A/N: I am really on a role now…

-Side Note: I have never been a waitress or a lumber jack and thus have no idea if I am doing this correctly or not. So please forgive me if you have ever worked in either profession. I will do my best to not screw it up to much!

Chapter 8: Future Delusions

"The Future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams." –Eleanor Roosevelt

"Marie order up!" The owner of Duckies Bar and Grill hollered out to me from across the softly lit bar room floor.

"I am a coming! Quit yelling at me for goodness sakes!" I hollered right back to Jacob, the bars owner and part time cook. He gave me a wry smile as I marched over to him and grabbed the plates and pitcher of beer for table four.

Jacob was a good man. He worked hard and gave back to the community when he could. He was still married to his High School sweetheart after fifteen years and they had a collection of little children running around Bethel, Alaska. They were the kind of people you tried your hardest to be when you were growing up.

I am working the lunch shift today. The two days of being locked up indoors has placed a lot of people behind in work and I am pretty sure at least two women got pregnant in those two long days. But that's just from the over heard gossip at the bar where Jackie Mason and Jacob's wife Leeann are clucking like chickens over grain as they discuss the ends and outs of everyone's lives. Nevertheless, they're right about ninety percent of the time. Most women like that are.

"Another cup of tea Mrs. Mason?" I ask Jackie whose husband runs the hardware store in town. Their oldest son Thomas works there after school so he can get a handle on the business.

"Yes please," she replies politely and I run off to get her another cup of hot tea.

It was during this time that I was getting Jackie her requested cup of hot tea that it started to happen. It wasn't like before when I was sixteen and I was sitting on my bed kissing Cody Robins for the first time. It was slow, a lot slower than any time before.

I had felt the buzzing tingle of my flesh even before I reached out to take the cup of tea from Jacob's hand. At first I thought it was just from Danny Godfrey opening the front door and letting in a cold breeze that had caused the slight shiver. But as my ungloved hand brushed against Jacob's I knew my little moment in paradise was over.

I had dropped the cup of tea and let out a loud scream as I received every bit of information from Jacob's head. Memories, thoughts, past discussions, it all entered my body in one large gush.

I pushed away from Jacob's body and tripped on to the hardwood floor as I clutched my head as new memories entered my mind. I tried my best to remember how to block off the assault but it had been so long.

"No, no, no, no, no….," I muttered over and over again as I rocked my body back and forth on the floor. I clawed as my long hair with my nails as I tried to re-assimilate my self.

"Marie, Marie," I heard someone calling to me, "come on honey pay attention to me. You have to block it out, remember what the Professor taught you. Remember how to find you're self."

"It's hard," I groaned out as I latched on the voice that I just knew was Scott's.

"I know honey but remember what I said, it would be harder when it comes back," he reminded me and I shook my head in acknowledgement. I began to focus again as I felt Scott's hands hover over my body, not touching, but there just in case.

"Scott," I cried out after a while as tears leaked down my face in rivers. "It hurts so much more than before."

"I know honey and I said we wouldn't know how it would come back," he reminded me and I finally opened my eyes to look up at his face. His eyes weren't that beautiful deep blue anymore. They were blue with swirls of red in them.

"Oh Scott," I moaned out as I looked at him, "your eyes."

"I know, Danny pointed it out to me at the yard. I figured your's had to becoming back fast. So we headed over here as quickly as possible. They haven't activated yet, so we still have sometime," Scott affirmed and I just shook my head.

"No Scott, we don't. It's supposed to come back slowly. That wasn't slow for me," I stated as I pointed off towards where I was sure Jacob would be laying.

"It is now," he said and I just shook my head. I couldn't and wouldn't believe that my life was already over that quickly.

"I don't want it to be over Scott," I cried out as I reached out to him and as my hand landed on his bare hand I was filled with Scott. I could feel his powers emerging within him and the feeling and thoughts he has had for me.

I felt the blinding light that was normally associated with Scott's power. I felt my eyes burn red with the heat of it and had to use every once of strength to close my lids tightly over my eyes.

"Scott get me out side right now," I told him.

He didn't answer me verbally, but grabbed me by the upper arm and hoisted me into a stand position. He had a firm grip on me and he lead me outside into the snow filled town I was grateful no one would be getting to terribly hurt this time around.

"Open them," Scott demanded of me. I was quick to oblige him.

I felt the rush of heat as it exploded from behind my eyes. Red streamed around me in a haze that was so surreal. I kept my eyes open until I could feel the affects of Scott's powers slowly fade away from me. When they finally did I felt completely exhausted.

"Better?" Scott asked me, his hand still gripping my arm.

"Yes, thank you," I replied with a depressed sigh.

"It always worked for me."

"I can't touch anymore," I whispered out as I looked down at my hands.

"We can find ways around it and it hasn't come back all the way yet. Maybe when it does you'll be able to control it better," Scott praised hopefully.

"I think its worse Scott, just like you said," I mutter back hopelessly.

"We can make it work," he stated firmly and I half hoped he was right.

I looked around me then and realized that half of the bar was staring at us in wonder. I bashfully looked away for a moment until I realized that they all probably deserved an explanation as to why the owner of Duckie's Bar and Grill would probably be in a coma for at least a few months.

"You're mutants," Danny Godfrey announced obviously from the front of the crowd and we both shook our heads.

"I took the cure last year;" I began to explain, "Scott was cured six months ago."

"They're coming back, slowly but no one knows what's changed. Some people are evolving more into their powers while other is just becoming more dangerous," Scott further elaborated.

"You were mutants why would you want to give that up?" Peter James another town local asked.

"My powers are uncontrollable. I couldn't touch a soul without hurting them. I absorbed their personalities, their memories and their lives. If they're mutants I absorb their powers and not to mention their life forces as well. At some points if I absorb too much I can either kill that person or leave them brain dead. And I always have a piece of them left inside my head. It's kind of like having schizophrenia, but instead of having different side of me; I have the people I touch. I even obtain some of their physical and mental traits for awhile if I am not careful," I explained.

"Well that sucks," Tina Murray my lunch relief chimed in from somewhere behind Boyd Wilson the town's local grocer owner.

"It wasn't a walk in the park, especially when it came to dating in High School," I said with a smile and a few people smiled back at my lack-luster joke.

"What about you Scott?" Danny asked and I looked at Scott and held my breath.

"I can shoot laser beams from my eyes. As you saw Rogue exhibit, I had an unfortunate encounter when I was younger and I could not control mine either. However I did have a special kind of glasses that helped hold them back," Scott simple explained.

"But why give them up? All you had to do was wear glasses," Robert Curry was my age and worked at the lumber yard with Scott he wasn't the brightest star in the sky either.

"I didn't want to give it up," Scott replied through clenched teeth. I could tell we were moving into murky waters.

"What do you mean?" Jackie Mason asked her gossiping brow arched in question.

"He means that the government was kind enough to kidnap him and try out their very own new cure product on him." I seethed out in anger at the people in front of me or for the government I am not sure.

"Calm down Rogue," Scott clipped out to me and I immediately shifted into my X-Men persona.

"Alright Cyclopes," I hissed out in reply. I could hear a few people murmur throughout the group all talking quietly about what was going on in their little home town. I know for a fact that they hadn't had a mutant in a few years. The last being a girl that turned into a dog, her parents moved to a more secure location after Alcatraz.

"Jacob's perfectly fine," Leeann confirmed as she came from inside the bar. She seemed short on breath from the adrenaline, but she seemed fine.

"He shouldn't be," I stated as I looked at her and noticed Jacob coming to stand behind her..

"Maybe it means something," Scott hoped and I shot him a look. He just shrugged and walked over to Jacob to assess the situation.

"You pack quite a punch girl," Jacob called out and without smiling I replied simple.

"You really have no idea."