He made it all the way to New Jersey. He just had one more state line to cross and he would have found her. He knew he would have. How hard could it have been to find a girl with a Southern accent and white stripes in her hair?
But he didn't even make it to see the sign welcoming him to the great state of New York.
He knew he should have fixed that broken tail-light before he left but he needed to make up for lost time. He had waited too long. He should have chased after her the moment he realized she was gone. But instead, he chose to brood, to mope around in the half-empty apartment and stare at that fucking map on the kitchen wall, drinking every bottle of alcohol available in Savannah.
Then one day, after finding himself facedown in a puddle of tears and spilt vodka, he knew that he had to stop this. Stop this stupid fucking one-man pity party. He got off his sorry ass, got his shit together, and headed toward where she would be.
Just when he thought he was going to see her again, it was just his luck two overly attentive policemen spotted his broken tail-light. They pulled him over and ran his name – the one time he didn't have a fake ID on him. They saw the variety warrants for a variety of offenses in a variety states that had his name written all over it and now here he was, sitting in a fucking tiny little jail cell in some no-name town while attorneys and lawyers bicker over which one got to try him first.
"LeBeau! Get up! You got visitors!"
Remy slowly got to his feet and stood as patiently as possible while one of the guards handcuffed roughly. They escorted him to an empty meeting room where they uncuffed him. He thought briefly that he was going to meet his harried and over-worked court-appointed lawyer again. But instead, when the metal door creaked open, two men, both wearing matching black suits but different colored ties, came in. Neither men looked particularly friendly and Remy tensed noticeably.
"No need to be nervous, Mr LeBeau. We're actually here to help you with your…um…how should I put it? Inability to follow the law?" One of the men, the one wearing the green tie, stood quietly in the corner with his arms crossed, while the other man, the one wearing the pink tie, put the briefcase he had been carrying on the table that was in the middle of the room. He opened the briefcase with a snap and pulled out a few manila folders. He slid them to where Remy was standing on the opposite side. "Go ahead. Open them. It's information you want to know, the reason you came all the way up north."
Remy looked at the man skeptically but opened the folders anyways, his curiosity getting the better of him. His eyes widened as he realized one of the folders contained what looked to be surveillance pictures. Pictures of…Rogue. Of her at a clothing store, getting out of a car, entering a building, just walking down the street…
"Wha…what… How did you…" he sputtered out.
"It's my business to know things, Mr LeBeau," the pink tied man said simply. "In the other folder, you'll find some information about her employer, a school for the 'gifted.'" Remy didn't know what to make of the man's tone of voice when he said that last word. But before he could dwell on it any further, the man continued on, calm and cool like before. "Now, my partner and I work for a very important agency...an agency that can and will wipe your entire record clean if, that is, you are willing to help us."
"What is it that you want?"
The pink tied man smiled serenely. Remy got chills up his spine. "Well, since you seem to be heading that way, we just need you to gather some information for us about that school…and about a particular resident there."
Remy was silent for a moment. "Remy is no spy, especially not her."
"Oh no, Mr LeBeau, you misunderstand…we're not interested in her. Well…not anymore, anyways… There's another resident. A man. We'd like to…ah…learn more about him and his movements." He pulled out another folder and laid it on the table. "Have you been watching the news, Mr LeBeau?"
"Been busy…" Remy shrugged. He had no use for such things.
"Yes, of course. Good…excellent…" The pink tied man smiled again and Remy couldn't help thinking that this was not a man who should be smiling so often.
Remy took the folder from off the table to take his attention away from that creepy smile. He saw more surveillance pictures but these were of a light-haired man – walking two dogs, coming out of a grocery store, moving boxes… It was the last picture that made Remy's heart stop. He'd recognize those white streaks ten million miles away but what he didn't recognize was the way she was smiling at this man like…like he was some kind of long-lost lover. She never looked at him like that…
"His name is John Allerdyce."
John…
He could still remember how she had breathed out that name in her sleep. Was this the same man?
"They make a cute couple, don't you think?" the green tied man said from his corner. Remy looked up sharply at him and the green tied man just grinned. Another man who shouldn't be smiling so often.
"Don't mind him. He's just trying to get a rise out of you. Now…do we have a deal?"
Remy was still a little hesitant. This just seemed a little too much of a good thing. "Information? That all you need? And Remy get no jail time?"
"Your record will be wiped clean, Mr LeBeau. It'll be like none of it even happened. All we need is just a little bit of information."
Remy paused then nodded curtly. "Deal."
Both men smiled and Remy had the sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach that he had just signed away his soul to the devil.
--
Rogue sighed, rubbing a hand over her eyes.
Another sleepless night…
It was no use; it was obvious she wasn't going to fall asleep anytime soon. She got up from her bed and put on a robe over her nightgown. Making her way downstairs to the kitchen, she hoped silently that maybe another glass of warm milk would help her insomnia – not that it had in the past.
She stopped short of the threshold of the kitchen when she saw someone was already there…and it was somebody she had wanted to talk to for a very long time.
There he was, sitting in the breakfast nook of the kitchen, calmly drinking tea.
Magneto.
No, not Magneto…not anymore. Erik Lensherr.
Ever since he had arrived at the mansion, she had wanted to speak to him. Not because she wanted to gossip and be his BBF or anything of the sort but because he knew something that she wanted to know, something that had haunted her for the past ten years. But every time she had seen him, he was with someone or holed up in some conference with the Professor and the rest of the X-team.
Tonight, though, he was without his usual companions – Toad probably watching TV with Jones, Cypher probably messing around with the school's computer system.
Finally, this was her chance to get some information out of this man.
"Would you like a cup of tea, dear?" he asked, putting down his own cup in its matching saucer.
"Yes," she answered quietly, determined not to show this man any kind of fear – she wasn't the same little girl he knew from Ellis Island.
Then again, he wasn't the same man from Ellis Island either.
She took the seat across from him, watching as he reached for the teapot that had been sitting on the table and poured a cup for her.
His hand hovered over the bowl that held the sugar cubes. "How do you take your tea? One lump or two?"
"Just one, please."
"Milk?"
"No, thank you."
He dropped a sugar cube into her drink and stirred, then handed her the cup and saucer. She took a sip and had an overwhelming urge to laugh hysterically.
She couldn't believe she was doing this. She was having a cup of tea with the man who had tried to kill her. The entire situation was so wrong on so many levels.
Just as she opened her mouth to ask him her question, he beat her to the punch. How he knew just exactly what she wanted to know from him, she'll never figure out.
"He just needed a ride."
She looked up from her cup. "What?"
"That day…at Alkali Lake. Yes, he got on the helicopter with us but he made it crystal clear that he only wanted a ride and wasn't going to be joining us or our Brotherhood any time soon. Those, of course, weren't his exact words – the boy has a very colorful vocabulary. And don't get me wrong; I did my best to persuade him but all he kept saying was that he needed to get away for awhile, that he needed time to think. I believe once he was through with his…ah…'thinking,' he was going to return to this lovely school. He had so much anger that day though… I wouldn't want to have had that anger directed at me…"
She put down her cup abruptly, not noticing the tea sloshing over the sides and spilling onto the table. "Where…where did you leave him?"
"Just outside of Vancouver. After that…I don't know what happened to him." He picked up a sugar cookie from a plate and began delicately nibbling on it.
She stared out the big kitchen window behind him, ignoring the way he was picking up the cookie crumbs. It was a dark night, no moonlight to speak of. Her memory was drawn back to that other dark night, the night before he had gotten on that damn helicopter.
"Why are you so angry?"
"You had no right, Rogue! No fucking right!"
Her eyes widened, frightened at being, for the first time since she had known him, the target of his wrath. "You were out of control! You were going to kill someone! You were going to get yourself killed! Somebody had to stop you! Please, John, try to understand!"
He looked at her and she knew he was struggling within himself to listen, to not let this rage consume him.
Her mistake had been when she touched his arm while he was still in turmoil. "No, don't fucking touch me. Don't you touch me ever again."
She was pulled back when she heard the rattling of dishes. Erik Lensherr was putting the dishes into the sink, his back to her.
She blinked back her tears and left the kitchen without another word.
Let the great Magneto clean up the mess on the table.
--
John sighed with relief when he heard Maggie's soft breathing. She was finally asleep after hours of reading every single book they owned out loud together and playing shadow puppets against the bedroom wall.
He slowly rolled off of the small bed and tucked the young girl under the blankets.
He checked on Jack who was still sleeping peacefully. He had moved Jack's crib into Maggie's smaller room when he had come back from Phoenix. They did seem to sleep better when they were together.
His attention was then turned to the two dogs. Logan (the dog) lifted his head momentarily but laid back down again, closing his eyes. Scottie was curled up next to him.
Safety in numbers, he thought to himself.
John closed the door connecting the two rooms and sat on his own bed, rubbing a hand over his face. He was tired. He just wanted to sleep.
But that was just another excuse to put off what he knew was an eventuality. One way or another, he was going to have to watch that tape. He had been putting it off for far too long.
Jess's last words to him.
He took the tape from where he had hidden it from between the mattress and box spring and pushed the tape into the VCR he had set up in his room. Before he pressed play though, he made sure again that the door was firmly shut and the TV volume was set low. He didn't want Maggie bursting into the room with the false hope of hearing her mother's voice.
He took a deep breath, sitting down heavily in one of the chairs in the room. He pressed the button on the remote and waited.
At first, the screen was just blank and he thought maybe there was a wire disconnected somewhere. But then, there appeared onscreen a blurred picture of a room…
This wasn't what I was expecting…
The picture came into focus and he realized it was a hospital room. There was someone lying on an operating table, hooked up to various machines that were making a symphony of noises. A man, his face covered by a surgical mask, stepped in front of the camera.
"This is test subject 425-96784. Today, we will be making our preliminary incisions."
The camera zoomed onto the person on the operating table and John didn't know what the hell to think.
What the…
Before he could process and comprehend what was going on, the tape cut and then jumped to the same hospital room with the same man in front of the camera, only this time he was without the surgical mask.
Wait a minute…that's… What is going on here?
"Test subject 425-96784. Final injection was given at 0900 hour. Test subject has not responded well to this latest injection. Complications have arose. Surgical intervention may be needed."
The tape cut to a large operating room. People were all huddled around the table where someone was bleeding profusely. Blood was everywhere.
"We're losing him!"
"More blood! We need more blood!"
"Where the hell is the gauze?"
"Suction! Suction!"
"Starting compressions!"
"We need to shock him! Set to 400!"
"Clear!"
"Again!"
"Clear!"
"Again!"
"Clear!"
The tape cut again.
"Test subject 425-96784 is stabilized. We have put him in a medical-induced coma for the time being…"
The tape cut but this time did not jump to a hospital room or an operating room. Instead, it looked to be an office where a man and a woman were having a heated argument.
"I am giving you an order. The Secretary has already signed off on it. It's a stop-loss order, Emily," the man said, waving a finger in the woman's face. "If you don't comply with it, all of your precious research, all of your government grants can be and will be taken away."
"Well, Ted, you can tell the Secretary he can shove that order right up his ass. I'm not going to kill him."
"You know very well that a stop-loss order is not…"
"Don't patronize me. I know exactly what a stop-loss order means and I am telling you now, it's not going to happen."
"When we gave you this test subject, Emily, you and Peter promised me that you wouldn't take this personally. He is not Ben."
The woman's eyes turned hard – even the camera picked up on that. "You don't know anything. And I'm telling you right here, right now, he's not going to die. Not if I have anything to say about it. And you know and I know that I do. You're not the only one, Ted, with friends in high places."
The video ends and John can only sit there as the tape rewound itself.
--
A/N: Long time, no see, right? I hope people are still reading this!
I'm also just getting over a bad case of bronchitis so…hoping this chapter makes sense since I'm under the influence of medication. :P