Disclaimer: Marvel's by law, mine by right of conquest.

Rating: Rated M for strong language, sex and violence.

Author's note: I would just like to say thanks to my readers, and a special thanks to all those who take the time and effort to review on my work. Without your words of encouragement and kindness this would just be another Romy story floating around in the ether. Your words mean more to me than I can say. Thank you.

-oOo-

: ARROW OF TIME :

PART TWO : SINISTER

(10) - Decision -

Logan was pissed. More than pissed.

He was teetering on the edge of a berserker rage and the only thing keeping him from giving into it was the fact that Jubilee was still standing next to him alive and in one piece. Emma was near death, Synch was severely wounded, and Psylocke was in a coma. Rogue was missing, and had been for the better part of a day now.

"It was a set up," he growled between his teeth. "It was a fuckin' set up!"

"Of course it was!" Raven Darkhölme stormed. "I just can't believe you fucking fell for it!"

He bit back another expletive. She was pacing back and forth like a caged tiger, her face drained of all colour, her long, thin fingers working agitatedly at her sides. Irene, on the other hand, sat motionless in a chair, staring at the floor with blind eyes. If Logan had had a choice, he would have gone to hell in a fast car rather than let either of them on his turf. But times like these made for strange bedfellows. Considering the circumstances, old enmities were the last thing on his mind. And with the state his crew was in, he figured he might even be needing Raven's help in all this. Even if, in actual fact, the only thing he'd gained out of this so far was Forge's strictly technical expertise and the Brotherhood's tentative knowledge as to where Sinister's base actually was.

"You mean we nearly lost Emma just because those douchebags wanted Rogue?" Jubilee exclaimed incredulously, and Raven whipped round on her.

"Those were Sinister's Marauders! Do you know what the fuck that means?!"

"Yeah," Logan interrupted gruffly, deflecting Raven's wrath from the girl. "It means Sinister wants her for something; and that means Rogue's still alive. For now."

"For now," Raven repeated on an acid laugh. "For now isn't damn good enough! If she's in the hands of that twisted fuck, God knows what he could do to her without ever having to lay a finger on her!"

Logan barely heard her tirade. Something else had occurred to him. It was a train of thought he didn't like at all.

"Gambit," he spoke on an impulse. The name stopped Raven in her tracks. She went very still and glared at him.

"What did you say?"

"Gambit," he echoed, more loudly this time. "Don't you see the fit? Rogue. Sinister and his Marauders. Gambit's gotta be in there somewhere."

Raven stared at him through viper-like eyes. The next moment she'd slammed her fist into a wall, leaving a sizeable dent in the plaster work.

"I'll kill him!" she barked in an explosion of rage and hate. "And he swore he would protect her!"

"And you believed him?" Logan asked disbelievingly.

"Not me." She gestured to the old woman sitting silently in her corner. "Irene." She turned to her, railed at her with mingled fury and despair: "You told me to let him go! You said it would be for the best!"

Irene said nothing, but her wrinkled hands were clasped, vice-like, in her lap, tight as a drawstring. Logan saw it. Whatever façade of equanimity she displayed now, inside she was a seething mass of controlled fear and doubt.

"Oh shit," Jubilee suddenly muttered to herself. He looked at her sideways.

"What?"

"Rogue. She got a text the other night," the younger woman explained in a rush, her face flushed. "It was from Gambit. I thought it was like, y'know, somethin' private. She left soon after."

For Logan it was pretty much proof enough that the Cajun was involved.

"Shit," he groaned, knowing he should've gutted the snake the moment he'd laid eyes on him again that time back in Chicago, Rogue in tow.

Mystique was pacing again, hardly listening to anything that was being said around her. The way she was walking up and down like a trammelled beast was seriously starting to tick him off.

"This is bad," she was muttering to herself. "Really bad. Essex cannot have her. Not at any cost." She stopped again, spinning round to face Irene, who was still staring impassively at the ground. "What do you see, Irene?" she questioned with an undisguised strain of desperation. "What do you see?"

"What I've always seen," Irene spoke for the first time, her voice barely audible. "Nothing has changed."

"How can that be?!" Mystique raved. "How is that possible?! We've taken every precaution against this! Every precaution! For years! And yet you let her fall into the hands of that thief, a man we both knew was in the employ of Sinister!"

"I trusted him," Irene spoke, and Logan saw that despite the calm confidence of her words, she was still wringing her hands – that she had not stopped. "I still do."

"Trust him?" Again, Logan was incredulous. "Why?"

Raven didn't give her time to reply; she answered for her.

"She believed he was playing Sinister. Playing him to keep Rogue protected. But if that was the case," and she glanced daggers in Irene's direction, "why would he give her up to him? Why?"

"Perhaps Fate is not to be denied," Irene said quietly, and Raven stared at her as if she'd been slapped in the face. Her eyes went wide.

"What have you seen?" she repeated, and this time her voice shook with emotion. Irene made no reply, but turned slightly to face them, opening a small bag at her side, pulling out a thick, leather-bound book. Mystique's eyes grew even wider; there was a terrible kind of dread in them, the look of a woman going to her own execution.

Irene saw none of this. She flicked through the pages as she had done so many times before; at last she reached a certain page – she spread it open with both hands, ran her palms over the paper as though reading its texture, as though it spoke to her in a way words could not. Logan saw that as she did so her face grew pale and drawn – there was an expression on her features that was almost like agony.

And Raven was trembling, shaking visibly as Irene lifted the book and turned it to show them.

There was a picture of Rogue, drawn in pencil, painted in watercolour; a crude image, Logan thought, yet not without a certain amateur skill. It might almost have been charming, had there not been a knife blade in her breast. And on the other end of that knife was the unmistakeable figure of Sinister.

An animal sound came from Raven's mouth, something between a shriek and a gasp. Logan sucked in a breath. Jubilee looked confused, scared.

"Why didn't you tell me?!" Raven screamed when she had finally found her tongue. "Why didn't you tell me?!"

Irene did not answer. She snapped the book shut as if it were a cursed thing. Her face was like stone.

"What the hell was that?" Jubilee whispered to Logan beside her.

"The Libris Veritatus," he replied, not bothering to lower his voice. "Destiny's prophecies. The future history of mutantkind." His tone was stern, unforgiving as he addressed the older woman. "So you knew this would happen, huh? And you didn't even try to stop it?"

Irene's mouth was a hard, straight line, making no excuses. He was half glad – if she had, it might have tipped him over into the rage he was still teetering precariously on the edge of.

"I can't believe it," Raven said, and for the first time Logan heard real vulnerability in her voice. "I can't believe you would hide this from me, Irene. I can't believe you've allowed this to happen." She turned; a tear streaked down a cheek as she did so. And that was it. The only tear Logan ever saw her shed.

In another moment that look was gone and that inscrutable hardness had returned. She swept past them towards the door with a look of steely determination. It was as if no else in the room existed at all.

"Where're you goin'?" Logan growled at her, and she stopped at the door, her hand hovering over the handle like a moment stopped in time.

"There's only one way to stop all this," she spoke gravely. "And that's to kill Essex before he kills her."

"What the hell— By yourself?" Jubilee cried, just as Logan cut in right over her: "You're out of your fuckin' mind, Mystique. What we need is to take stock and figure out a way of getting Rogue out alive. Look at what happened to my team – we're gonna need everyone we can get to infiltrate Sinister's base, which means we're gonna haveta wait for some serious injuries to be healed."

"You think I'm going to sit here and wait for you to figure out a way to rescue my daughter?!" Raven snarled at him.

"You can go get yourself killed if you want to," he retorted coolly. "Which is what you're gonna do if you go chargin' into Sinister's lair without a plan or a backup. Either way, you ain't gonna do Rogue any favours by turnin' up on her doorstep dead."

She turned to look at him; he didn't at all like the animal smile that lit her face.

"That's why you're going to come with me, Logan."

"No," he retorted. "I'm needed here."

"No. You're not. Let Jubilee stay here and nurse the children to health. You've grown soft in your old age, Logan. This is what you were made for. To fight. And the both of us know one thing for certain – we should've killed Essex long ago. Now we have an excuse neither of us can pass up."

The silence that followed was enough to leave no doubt that he was tempted. Jubilee read him loud and clear.

"No, Wolvie," she begged him. "No way."

Yet still he remained silent.

"You won't stop me from going," Raven declared defiantly. "And I'm wasting enough time standing here talking to you as it is. I've spent a lifetime trying to keep Rogue out of Sinister's clutches. Now, more than ever, I cannot allow it to happen. So maybe there'll be hell to pay. That's a price worth paying for Rogue. It always has been. It always will be."

And with that she pushed open the door and charged out.

Logan stared after her with the claws itching to pop out of his knuckles. Jubilee turned and looked him right in the eye.

"No, Logan," she said again sternly. "You're not going."

"She don't stand a chance by herself," he growled back. "With me, she stands at least half a chance of gettin' Rogue out."

"Half a chance," Jubilee agreed pointedly. "And that is nowhere close enough to being good odds, Wolvie."

"Not unless Irene is actually right," Logan replied. "Not unless Gambit is actually on our side."

"And you believe that?"

They both threw a look at Irene, whose eyes were now cast back to a floor she could not see. The diary lay closed in her lap.

"No," he said at last. "But I ain't sure I believe in those damn prophecies either." He took Jubilee by the shoulders, continued: "You'll take care of things while I'm away, right?"

"Aw, hell!" she exhaled sulkily. "This sucks major balls, Wolvie. If you die, we're all toast. You do know that, right?"

"Didn't you hear, kid? I'm real hard to kill." He grinned. "Don't wait up."

And the next moment he had brushed past her and out the door.

Jubilee was left with the silence and an old woman who seemed to have started the mutant answer to World War III.

"Couldn't you stop them?" she demanded accusingly. Irene did not even turn to her.

"No," she said in an almost dreamy tone. "Let them go. It's for the best."

"Yeah?" Jubilee muttered under her breath, kicking aside a loose stub of cigar Logan had left lying on the floor. "Well I sure as hell don't like your idea of what's for the best. Seems like all it does is get people killed."

-oOo-

There wasn't much to it.

Just a small sliver of organic material floating in a glass tube. That was how much lay between him and the person he was supposed to be – a person of unstoppable power.

Remy lay back in the surgical pod and watched it. This insignificant piece of him in the hands of another – in the hands of Sinister. And he thought, perhaps, that he had always been right there. In Sinister's hands, from the moment of his birth.

There was something poetic in this. A sense of coming home, a sense of completion. The righting of a wrong; and the promise of something new and frightening.

Remy wasn't a poetic man, not in that sense. But this he felt keenly – that this was the first time in his life that he would be whole.

He didn't know what it meant, exactly. This was a gamble, he had no illusions about that. But gambles were what he did. He wasn't afraid of them. He was more afraid of what he would be capable of once this operation was over. He was afraid of losing that carefully crafted control. It was that control that made him the man he was as opposed to the man that everyone saw. Losing hold of that control meant losing himself.

Debating all this now was a moot point. He wasn't backing out of this, and in fact, he'd never even considered it. This was all just the culmination of several months' work, doing everything that was asked of him, making sure that Essex knew he was in for the duration. Despite everything, Essex had never fully trusted him. It'd taken a lot of work to convince him that, yes, he knew now that hiding Rogue from him had been a mistake. Besides, what he was worth to Sinister was more than just the price of a prized asset. He had to believe he was worth all the years that Essex had spent watching him, cultivating him, from the sidelines.

"No changes of heart, LeBeau?" Essex said from the bedside, each word faintly mocking. "No lingering doubts?"

He held the small vial up to the light between thumb and forefinger. That tiny piece of brain matter bobbed in liquid the colour of chartreuse. It occurred to Remy that anything could be in that vial; that it was entirely possible that Essex was playing him. But it was too late to think about that too.

"Non," he replied in that same deadpan voice. Essex grinned that same expansive smile, all teeth and no lips.

"Excellent." He turned aside, began to prepare the injection of anaesthetic. "I must admit," he continued reflectively, "I am quite interested to finally see the results of this particular experiment. After a delay of some thirty years, it does give one a certain thrill to finally complete what was meant to be one's crowning accomplishment. You will be as you were always intended to be. My greatest masterpiece. My son."

Remy felt a wave of unease, of disgust, at those two awful words – my son. When Sinister turned back the syringe was full in his hand. Remy felt it go in, a pinprick followed by the icy sensation of the anaesthetic coursing through his vein. Essex stared down at him with the glowing red eyes that he now realised so resembled his own.

"Do you remember, Gambit?" he spoke in that velvet voice. "When you first came to me?"

The drug was already taking effect, the coldness giving way to a prickling warmth. His mind was suddenly sluggish, forming no reply.

"You were damaged goods," Sinister continued, in a voice that began to sound increasingly far away. "And I was forced to degrade you further. But now – finally – the failure shall be corrected. When you wake up, you shall have returned to the fold, LeBeau. In every way imaginable."

There was that laughter, floating thinner and thinner in the space between waking and consciousness, until there was nothing left but silence.

-oOo-

Gambit had gone.

At least his psyche had gone.

Rogue had stood outside that plain white door in that plain white corridor and knocked, more than once. And when there had been no answer she had opened the door. She had stepped inside, and shut the door behind her.

He hadn't been in there either, but she hadn't left.

She had stood just inside the doorway for what felt like an age, before moving slowly to the mattress and sitting heavily on the edge.

And now her stomach was churning horribly. Churning with all the memories encapsulated in this space, this place that now seemed so terribly tainted.

She sighed and rubbed her face wearily with both hands.

It was always either dawn or dusk in the safe house, and she didn't know why that was, but it was nice that way. Peaceful. When by rights her psyche should be breaking apart at the seams and everything here should be in chaos. But it wasn't. Everything was calm, tranquil. A shaft of dusty sunlight peeking in through half-closed curtains. The scent of the both of them curling about her like a safety blanket.

In this place him and her were still alive, even though on the outside they were deader than dead.

And it hurt.

Rogue took in a wavering breath and let it out slowly.

She wasn't sure why she had sought out his psyche at all. Maybe it was the fact that she needed a link to a past where things had been less complicated between them, where trust hadn't even come into the equation.

But being here… It wasn't a comfort.

Because even here, in the safe house, when their lives had overlapped so selfishly, so greedily, for so short a time… even here he had known. He had known that Essex had always wanted her, that she had always meant something to him. There had never been a time when Remy hadn't known. He had always been lingering on the edge of a betrayal where she was concerned. All he'd ever needed was a push.

She hugged her knees to her chest and held herself tight. There was a sour taste on her tongue and she swallowed it down but it didn't go. This was her place, this was her mind, it was her sanctuary and she was supposed to come here to heal. But everything hurt. Everything.

It's week 3 at the holiday home.

She doesn't want to leave and she's beginning to think maybe he doesn't want to either.

It's taken all this time and all this shit, but he's finally opened up to her. He laughs like he's happy here. He holds her hand without her having to take it first. Sometimes they spend hours in each other's company without having to say anything and it's nice. They're comfortable with one another. They can be in-love and not have to hide it.

It's early in the morning and she hasn't a clue what time it is, but Rachel is out. They heard her go out the front door about five minutes ago. She goes out every morning, to the lake, to the woods. Most days he gets up too and follows her. Watches her. Makes sure there's no trace of her Hound instincts coming back. But this morning he doesn't. He stays in bed.

"Ain'tcha gonna go spy on her?" she asks him, and there's a hard little edge to her voice because she doesn't approve of him treating the girl like an enemy and he knows it. But he lies there, eyes closed with the sun shining on his olive skin and he curls a smile and says, "Nope."

He takes her hand. He kisses it. She rolls over to him, she covers him with kisses until he begs her for mercy, and they laugh and they gasp and they moan and…

And afterwards he lies with his head at her breast and she runs her fingers through his hair with the deepest feeling of contentment. It's what she feels with him, here, in this place. Contentment. When they first arrived here it'd been like paradise. Everything so free, so perfect. Like the dream home she'd never bothered to wish for. This comfort, this security, it had lulled them into something more than all those days spent on the road ever could have done. They had a bed to sleep in, a room to call their own. They'd made love every which way they could imagine, in almost every room of the house, anywhere they can get it… And it isn't even about lust anymore. It isn't even about want. It's about being close to someone. It's about knowing them inside and out, it's about trust and tenderness and give and take. It's about holding. It's about loving.

It's why, she thinks, they never get bored.

"Don'tcha ever get bored?" she asks him, and he says,"Non," and it's as if the word should speak for itself – he doesn't qualify his answer with anything more.

And she begins to think, maybe he wants this, maybe he wants this to last forever, him and her and Rachel; maybe he loves this more than this drive he has to be free…

She thinks about the length and breadth of their relationship; she thinks about their time with the X-Men and how, even then, even though he had been working for Sinister, there had always been something genuine and true about him whenever he was with her.

"Wouldja have done it?" she asks him on an impulse, and he runs his fingers down over her abdomen, making her shiver at his touch, and he answers in a murmur, "Done what?"

His breath is warm on her stomach and she suppresses another shudder, says, "Betrayed the X-Men to Sinister. You told Rachel you were confused about your loyalties by the time the military attacked. And Ah don't believe for a second that all the good stuff you did as an X-Man was ever just a pretence."

He's silent for a minute, his forefinger dipping into her navel and circling it gently.

"It wasn't," he replies shortly. He seems to be deep in thought.

"So you wouldn't have? Betrayed us, Ah mean?"

"I wouldn't have betrayed you. Or Stormy, I guess."

He props himself up on an elbow and looks at her. His shields are down. He's not lying.

"Don'tcha ever get worried, Remy?" she quizzes him curiously. "That Essex will call in a marker one day? We're headin' out t' find Logan and the other X-Men right now, aren't we. What if he decides he wants them again? What would you do?"

He considers her a long moment, his dark eyes caressing her face, his mouth caught in a frown that's almost… sad. And his fingers touch the butterfly pendant at her breast and he says, "I'd keep him from hurtin' you."

And she shoots him a nettled look, piqued by his answer.

"So you don't give a fuck about Logan or Rachel or any of the others that could still be alive…?"

And there is this look on his face, this expression that is sad and solemn and truthful and totally unguarded and he says, "You first, Anna. De others come a very distant second."

Rogue shook herself, strangely surprised to find that tears were smarting her eyes.

You idiot, she reprimanded herself bitterly. Fallin' for his lies, lettin' him sweet talk you into believin' that you were worth more to him than Sinister's hold, than his own self-interests. And look how that turned out, huh? Look at where it's gotten you, gal.

But she knew that when he'd said it, it hadn't just been lies, it hadn't been just sweet-talk. He'd meant it when he said it. And somehow that made everything worse.

She looked round the empty room, her eyes burning with an angry moisture.

It was better that his psyche wasn't here.

She didn't know what she might do to him, even if she couldn't physically connect with him here, even if he wasn't the man her fists were itching to dish the dirt out on.

She couldn't stand to be another moment in this traitorous place.

The revulsion she felt was almost tangible and she marched out of the room quickly, slamming the door shut behind her.

It had been a foolish grasp for comfort, she saw that now. What she needed was something she could work with, something that could actually help her whenever she woke up. She didn't care what Irene had said about letting this happen. Now that she knew the extent of Sinister's plans for her, her position was untenable. She wasn't going to take this, and she was ready to fight him to the death if she had to.

Even if it meant it was Remy she had to fight instead.

But yet again Irene's door was closed tight shut. No amount of pulling, shoving or banging would get it to open. It hardly seemed fair, Rogue thought. This was her head after all.

"Still no joy?"

It was Rachel, leaning outside her own door a little way down the white corridor, arms crossed. Rogue decided to give up. It was clear to her that where Irene was concerned, there was only one person that was boss and it wasn't her.

"Ah dunno," Rogue sighed, turning away from the door and walking towards the younger woman. "With Irene, if there's nothin' more to be said, there's nothin' more to be said. She won't come out till there is." She paused, looked around her. "Where's Gambit?"

Rachel shrugged.

"Dunno. Haven't seen him for a while now. That's kinda weird, huh? Did you two have a fight or something?"

Rogue thought about it. In all honesty she wasn't sure. Things had been left hanging since the last time she'd been in here. She remembered the look on his face when he'd confessed to her just how deep and longstanding his treachery had been. Maybe he was avoiding her, too ashamed to face her again, certain that she would want nothing more to do with him. It wasn't like Remy, but then, this Remy wasn't exactly like the Remy on the outside anyway.

Not that she was entirely sure what the Remy on the outside was like anymore.

"We didn't argue," Rogue spoke awkwardly. "Just… things have got kinda complicated on the outside…"

Rachel nodded.

"I kinda guessed. What with Gambit gone and you banging on the old lady's door… Anything I can do to help?"

Rogue was almost surprised at that; she had to remind herself that this Rachel was not the Rachel she had parted from, the one who had made it clear they were no longer friends and probably wouldn't ever be again. She held back her own swell of shame.

"Nah. It's okay. Ah'd ask yah to call me if y' see Gambit around, but Ah don't even know if you'll be able to get hold of me the way things are goin' on out there."

There was concern on Rachel's face.

"It's bad, isn't it," she said. "I mean… I saw the other two coming in. They weren't even moving. I thought they were dead, but then, they're psyches, right? How can they be dead? Anyway," she frowned, and Rogue realised she was talking about Leech and Sage, "they freaked me out some. I went back inside. When I came out again, they were gone."

"Gone?"

"Uh-huh. Like they'd never been here. Thought maybe I was going crazy, but, well… this is a weird place. I guess weird things happen all the time…"

Rogue looked about her again. It was too difficult to tell right now where the psyches of Sage and Leech might be hidden; but their disappearance would account for the fact that she hadn't experienced much of the after effects of absorbing them.

"You think Remy put them away for me?" she wondered out loud. Rachel shrugged again.

"Possible. Like I said, I haven't seen or spoken to him in a while…" She halted, and Rogue chewed on her lip. This was the first time in a long time that she'd felt totally out of control. Irene had told her to sit tight, let this all happen around her. But for how long? She'd come here with the intention of getting one last word of reassurance from her, but that wasn't happening. And Rogue didn't like just sitting back and letting things happen, not when she was as vulnerable as this. She needed something as a failsafe, as backup. Gambit was usually good at providing that. But now he was nowhere in sight.

"Actually," she began again thoughtfully, "I do have a favour to ask."

"What?" Rachel asked. "If I can help…"

"Just… Ah need to have access to your powers, if you can do that. Truth is, Ah don't even know if Ah'll be able to access my own powers when Ah wake up, but if Ah do…"

"Sure." Rachel shrugged again casually; Rogue realised it had been a habit of hers as a child, but something the older Rachel – the Rachel she'd spent that time with at the vacation house with Remy – had never really done. "It's all yours, Rogue. If there's anything more I can do to help…"

"Ah'll let you know," Rogue assured her. She paused. There was a strange sensation coming over her; an impression of something tugging lightly at her skin in quick, teasing pinpricks. "It may haveta come to that."

The feeling was getting more and more insistent, and suddenly she realised what it meant. She was waking up; but this was no easy, natural transition into consciousness. This was entirely against her will.

"Damn," she muttered. The pull was all over her now, rough and unrelenting. The world around her was going choppy, like a digital signal breaking up. She saw Rachel's face in frames per second, alarm growing on her features moment by moment. "Ah gotta go now," Rogue told her, but she only heard the words as if they were in her own head – she had no idea if she'd said them or not. There was no point in fighting this.

So she spread out her arms and let whatever it was take her.

-oOo-