Years since Rogue's powers returned: 6-7

Chapter 10: Breaking Point

Rogue opened her eyes.

The rifle lay before her, part on her body and part on the bottom of the tub between her legs. The back of her head was feeling a bit sticky, and she had a headache but it was passing quickly.

Slowly she rose and looked back at where she had been sitting. There was some blood on the wall and the back of the tub, but the part that stood out was how the tile wall had cracked. Rogue touched the back of her head, and pulled it back around to see the sticky blood on her fingers. She leaned forward and inspected the point of impact and found the bullet stuck in the wall.

"Well, I didn't imagine shooting myself," she said.

Perhaps she didn't do something right. She had heard that people could survive shots to the head, after all. Aside from that headache (which had now passed completely) she wasn't in any pain, but the human body was pretty remarkable. She could be injured and be in too much shock to really know. Rogue pulled out a hand mirror and used it to try to see the back of her head in the large wall mirror. She couldn't see anything helpful, so she decided to have a shower, wash all the blood out, and then have another look, Perhaps then she'd find something.

A shower and another inspection later and Rogue could find no sign whatsoever that she's been shot. If it wasn't for the blood, the bullet, and the damage to the wall she'd be prepared to doubt that she'd even been shot at all.

Confused and no closer to any answers, Rogue retrieved the rifle and headed back out to the living room. She put the rifle away and as she looked back into the room, her eyes landed on her fish. She caught her breath, realising that she was the only one that knew how to look after them properly. Perhaps it was a good thing her attempt didn't work; this way she could write up instructions on looking after her fish after she was gone. And she should probably have a Will written up too, for that matter. There were just so many people, and they were already so busy. No need to burden everyone with such details when their lives were already so busy.

With this in mind, Rogue went about her business as normal, and when a moment came up (as one inevitably would), she wrote up a set of instructions for looking after her fish and sought out an appropriate solicitor. She decided that most of her things and assets would go to the school, but she also wanted to leave specific things for those she was closest to, and she definitely want to make sure that Gambit got something. She decided to write them all letters too. Maybe she'd even admit her crush in her letter to Gambit.

She was certain to make sure that a few select people knew she was writing her Will, though inevitably word spread. Some of her friends were quite uncomfortable about it, while others thought she was being smart.

"It's actually a really good idea, especially in our line of work," Kitty said thoughtfully. "Petey and I probably should have written one ages ago. Need to make sure that Meredith and Hunter are taken care of, if nothing else. Who are you using?"

While her preparations were going on, Rogue also tried to get some answers concerning her failed attempt. A thought came to her when she was looking at her weights and tried lifting the heaviest one again, noting that it was still quite light to her. She ran a mental catalogue of the powers she had absorbed during her visit to the S.H.I.E.L.D. prison, trying to remember them all. There were six powersets in all: Pulse's electrical disruption pulses. Two of the super-strong, durable, and agile variety. A telekinetic (Rogue had a vague idea that their method of keeping the telekinetic prisoner involved a visor that prevented them from being able to see anything; they couldn't move what they couldn't see). An assassin who could walk through walls (they kept him prisoner with a cell made with highly charged forcefields that would electrocute him if he tried to phase through). And someone called Rust who could oxidise metal.

Since none of them had any healing factors—and the only one she'd ever absorbed was Logan's, which had worn off years ago—the only theory Rogue could come up with was maybe she'd phased at the last second as some kind of flinch. There hadn't been that much blood; it could have been ricochet from the broken tiles or something. Sure she hadn't seen any cuts on the back of her head or anything, but maybe they were just little and with all her hair it would be easy to miss something like that. The more Rogue thought about it, the more sense it made. And really, what other possible explanation could there possibly be?

Rogue's next attempt came on a whim the day all her preparations were finalised. She was about to head off to bed when she spotted a container of painkillers she kept in the fridge. She never used them so the packet was still full.

"Why not?" she asked herself.

So she took a large handful, swallowed the lot of them, and headed off to bed. She had expected to die in her sleep, but she woke up as normal in the morning, and if it hadn't been for the fact that she'd left the container out on the kitchen bench she might have quite forgotten her attempt. Well, those tablets were long expired. Perhaps they'd lost their potency and that's why they didn't work. She thought nothing of it and went about her next attempt.

Rogue didn't have any rope, but she had plenty of cables and thanks to the recent upgrades to her home allowing another air system, she had plenty of places from the ceiling she could tie it to. She chose to use the workshop for this and tied the noose to the roof with her tallest ladder. After that it was a simple matter to loop the noose around her neck and step off the ladder.

One hour later she was still dangling by her neck, cursing herself for not remembering that she still had those powers she'd absorbed from the prisoners, which included two doses of enhanced durability. Rogue waited it out for as long as she could stand it, but clearly the enhanced durability was really durable. She gave up in disgust and used the phasing ability she'd picked up to release herself and drop to the floor.

To say that Rogue was angry that all three of her attempts to end her life had failed miserably would be putting it mildly. She had hoped that she'd be able to end things as quickly and painlessly as possible. Wasn't her life painful enough? Apparently not! She really could not deal with this. She just wanted it to be over.

Gambit kissed his girlfriend of two weeks, Celeste, while they lay wrapped up in each others arms on her bed. Just as things were getting to the good part, his phone rang.

"Merde, I thought I turned that thing off," he grumbled.

Celeste giggled as he rolled over to grab his phone. He was going to turn it straight off, but Rogue's name appeared on the screen. If it had been anyone else...

"Ah, I'd better take this one," he said, and answered it quickly: "Bonjour ma chère, to what do I owe this delightful pleasure?"

Celeste raised her eyebrows. He wasn't flirting with another woman right in front of her, was he?

"I just wanted to hear your voice," Rogue replied.

"Oh? Well, I can't say I blame you. I do have a very sexy voice," Gambit said. "It's so silky smooth you could make your bed and go to sleep in it."

Celeste glared at him. "Remy, who's on the phone?"

Gambit glanced at Celeste as Rogue said: "Oh, I'm sorry, is this a bad time?"

"It's never a bad time for you to call," Gambit said with a pointed look at Celeste, while inwardly wishing that Rogue hadn't chosen this time to call. "In fact my day just isn't complete unless I've had a call from you, so it's a good thing you did call, because the day is going to be over in about..." he glanced at a clock, "three hours."

"Okay now I know you're just talking out your ass," Rogue replied.

"I assure you, that is not so. My ass isn't nearly as eloquent or articulate as my tongue," Gambit responded cheerfully, ignoring the glare from Celeste. "How are you doing, ma chère? Everything okay?"

"Oh, sure everything's fine. I'm just a little frustrated with something at the moment, but I think I have a solution, so I'm gonna try that after we hang up," Rogue said, hesitated, and went on. "Anyway, I won't intrude on your evening any longer. I just want... I just wanted you to know that I have always really valued your friendship."

Gambit sat up, alarm bells going off in his mind. "And I've always valued yours... You're not going to do anything stupid, are you?"

"Stupid? No, not stupid."

"Rogue—"

"You have no idea how much you've meant to me. I..." she wanted to tell him she loved him, but the words stuck in her throat. "Good bye, Remy."

"Rogue don't..." Gambit began urgently, then cursed as she hung up. Quickly he dialled another number. "Logan? You need to go to Rogue's place right now. I think she's going to kill herself."

Celeste's eyes widened.

"Because she all but outright said 'hey I'm going to go kill myself'," Gambit said. There was a long silence and then "Appreciated," and he hung up.

Slowly Celeste slid over to him.

"Désolé, ma chère," Gambit said before she could open her mouth. "I am no longer in the mood for our previous plans for tonight."

"It's okay," Celeste replied softly. "I'm not sure I am either. I'm sorry about... I didn't know your friend was depressed. I just thought... Well, you were flirting."

"'Course not. I never told you about her."

Silence fell, and Celeste realised she wasn't going to learn anything more about this mysterious Rogue person. She cleared her throat.

"I suppose you'll be staying up until your friend calls back with an update?" she asked, and when Gambit nodded, inquired: "Would you like some coffee?"

"Please."

Logan hated having to put the hazmat suit on, not just because he hated the things it did to his sense of smell, but also because of the delay it caused getting into Rogue's place. He was also irritated because his enhanced senses were a big part of his being able to determine how badly someone was injured—or worse—quickly, and the hazmat suit limited that.

He changed as quickly as possible, and then headed inside Rogue's home, pleased that she'd left the vestibule door unlocked. He didn't see her in the living room, but the bathroom door was open, so that was the next room he checked, and that was the room he found her.

She was lying in the tub with blood—too much blood—over her arms, torso, and neck. A knife was in her hand. Before any worry that he was too late set in, Rogue lifted her head and looked at him.

"Hi Logan," she said. "Can you give me a hand? I keep healing before I lose enough blood."

"Sure, kid," Logan replied cautiously as he made his way over.

"Oh good. I tried going for the jugular after slitting my arms didn't work, but well, obviously I'm still here," Rogue said. "It's very irritating."

"Uh huh," Logan said.

He took the knife away and she closed her eyes and settled back into the tub. "Thanks Logan. I really appreciate this."

There was no response, and when she didn't feel the pain of being cut open, she opened her eyes again. Logan wasn't in the bathroom any more, and neither was the knife. Rogue huffed in irritation. Great, just great.

"Why?" Rogue demanded while sitting in the medlab with Logan, waiting for Hank to arrive. "Why couldn't you have just killed me?"

For once Logan was actually glad he was stuck in the hazmat suit. Rogue had showered and washed off all the blood, but he was pretty sure he'd still be able to smell it under normal circumstances.

"Because I ain't killing you darlin'," Logan replied determinedly, keeping a hard watch on her. "I ain't killing you, and I ain't burying you either. The Rogue I know doesn't just give up without a fight."

"I've been fighting," Rogue insisted. "I've been fighting this whole damn time. I've been in this damn hellhole almost seven years, and for what? Nothing. I have no control, and I think it's pretty obvious that I'm never going to get control. I've been sucking the life out of plants every single day without a single sign of progress. Definition of insanity, Logan: doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."

"Your definition is wrong," Logan replied. "Doing the same thing over and over is called practicing, and we all have to do it if we want to get better at things."

"Oh yeah? Well, in that case I must be a real killing machine then," Rogue replied sarcastically. "I should change my name to something more appropriate. How does Reaper sound to you?"

"No one's going to call you that, Rogue."

"You should have just killed me," Rogue snapped at him. "You killed Jean when she was out slaughtering people."

Logan clenched his jaw, feeling the proverbial knife twisting in his heart at that little reminder.

"You're not killing people," he said stiffly.

"I could be. It's not like I'm much good for anything else. One ripped hazmat suit. Another kidnapping. Someone taking out one of the walls of even this little fortress," Rogue said. "I could be the death of us all. It has to be done, Logan. I'm too dangerous."

"Kid, at least a third of the people at this school can say the same thing. I'm not killing them for what they might do, and I'm sure not gonna kill you because of what might happen either," Logan replied firmly. "And contrary to popular opinion, just because I have killed and am prepared to kill when it needs to be done, doesn't mean I just go around killing anyone for the fun of it."

"Logan, I'm telling you. It needs to be done. You're all better off and far safer without me."

"If you actually believe that, Rogue, you need more help than I thought."

Gambit had never been more relieved to see Logan's name pop up on his phone in his life.

"Is she okay?" were his opening words.

"If by 'okay' you mean 'alive', then yeah, she's okay," Logan replied gruffly. "Found her in the bathroom trying to slice herself up with a blunt knife."

"A blunt knife?" Gambit repeated. "What? Was she trying to punish herself too?"

"Nope. Turns out she still has the powers of everyone she's ever absorbed, even people she absorbed before she took the Cure," Logan said. "That includes my healing factor, which is why she's still alive. She blunted the knife trying to use it on her own skin because she's also picked up enhanced durability. She insists it was the sharpest knife in her kitchen when she took it out."

"When they say she's a class five, they're not kidding," Gambit said, not really knowing whether he should be impressed, relieved, or nervous.

"My main concern right now is that she hasn't been deterred," Logan went on. "She's insisting there are ways around healing factors and made it perfectly clear she intends to try again."

"Merde."

"Yeah, that's what I thought. We're gonna keep a good close eye on her from now on. I'll keep you posted."

"Merci."

As they hung up, Celeste sat down beside him. "Is your friend okay?"

"She's alive," Gambit replied dully. "Still wants to kill herself, but alive."

"Well, that's good news and bad, I suppose. I'm really sorry, Remy."

Gambit nodded, then turned towards her and pulled her into his arms.

Rogue was annoyed, but not feeling all that hindered by her friends finding out about her suicide attempts. It would have been easier to continue had no one known, but over the weeks that followed she found that their so called "suicide watch" was somewhat lacking. They must have taken refuge in the idea that because she had Logan's healing factor (now that was annoying) they didn't actually need to come into her home and watch her. Most of the time they'd just contacted her over the internet so they could see her through the cameras, or just hang out in the visitor's lounge.

Surprisingly, Magneto was the one to watch her the most, and when they weren't playing chess or working on their space station, he was either marking papers or working on some engineering project of his own. Hank must have also informed Tony of her frame of mind, because she noticed her colleagues watching her carefully when they communicated over conference calls. Rogue thought little of it; they were on the other side of the country and she wasn't stupid enough to try anything in front of them. She wasn't stupid enough to try anything in front of anyone.

As the day of her seventh anniversary arrived, Rogue could feel the scrutiny intensify, as if they were expecting her to use the anniversary as an appropriate date to try again. She let the day pass. She wouldn't do something that obvious. No, the real reason for the delay was constructing the equipment she needed to make her next attempt work: a super charged forcefield to place over the top of her tub.

Drowning herself. She wasn't looking forward to it. She knew that her body would try to fight it, which was the reason for the forcefield; supercharged, just like in the S.H.I.E.L.D. prison, to prevent herself from being able to escape, phased or not. And with any luck, electrocution would help the process along.

She filled up the tub, submerged herself and set up the forcefield with the flick of a finger. The forcefield would turn itself off in half an hour and Rogue figured that would be plenty of time for a proper drowning.

Trying to fight the natural urge to breathe was horrendous, but the burning pain in her lungs soon subsided, and earlier than she thought too. This relief was quickly followed by the realisation that she was no longer in human form, rather she and the bathwater was now one big solid block of ice.

"You have to be kidding me," she thought to herself. "I figure out a fool-proof way around Logan's healing factor, and I end up hindered by Bobby's stupid cryokinesis!"

All attempts to retake her human form failed, mostly because every time she tried to reform she was encased in a block of ice, and so her body automatically reverted to ice to prevent herself from freezing to death. She formed a hand and punched at the forcefield. She felt the electricity run through her, and although it was unpleasant and some of her melted, it didn't exactly hurt, not in the conventional sense. She phased her hand through the forcefield, and for the briefest moment she thought she had succeeded... and then one of Pulse's pulses triggered and shorted it out.

With a cry of anguish, Rogue partially reverted to human form and sat up in the ice. She screamed and yelled, and finally wept and wondered what in the world it was going to take.

Tony pressed a button and Rogue appeared on the screen, working on a display on the design computer.

"Rogue," he said, and she jumped, pressing her hand to her chest as she turned to look at the screen on her end. "Sorry to startle you. I just finished reading your proposal."

Rogue got over her fright quickly, and her face brightened with interest and nervousness. "Yes?"

"I'm not sure whether to hail you as brilliant or be a little worried about what... other... things you might try to use this for," Tony told her. "I think I'll be both. I had no idea you knew so much about electromagnetism."

"Well, I had a slight advantage in that I absorbed Magneto once," Rogue replied awkwardly. "Still have his powers, and his intimate knowledge of how it all works."

"Ah, yes," Tony said, remembering that Magneto now lived with the X-Men. The former terrorist had managed to do a fairly decent job of keeping his head down the last few years. "And how is Magneto these days?"

Rogue shrugged. "He seems fine to me. It's hard to decipher how he's feeling about anything, really."

"Hmm. Well, that does explain some of the theories in your proposal. I imagine it's a little hard to beat that kind of intimate knowledge," Tony said, and eyed her cautiously. "But really, Rogue? You're serious about a weight lifting machine for the super-strong?"

"I know it's a niche market, but you did hire me in part for my insight on mutants and mutant powers."

"True. There isn't something else you're planning to do with it?"

"What?" Rogue asked. "Like building said weight machine, and then setting the weight to maximum and letting it fall on my throat or chest with the intent to crush? Thought of that. If my dual dose of phasing ability didn't save me, then my healing factor would just kick in. I appreciate your...misdirected concern, Tony, but this is just a weight machine."

"There is nothing misdirected about my concern. No one wants to see you dead," Tony said firmly, and went on before she could reply: "And this is not 'just' a weight machine. This is a weight machine with its own personal artificial gravity machine. Artificial gravity. And there's merit to these theories, Rogue; if this pans out, this could be the key to actually producing Earth gravity in space."

Rogue frowned. "You think so? Because I wasn't thinking of anything quite that scale. You'd have to increase the proportions significantly, and there's the power issues to deal with. I would have thought it would be too resource heavy to be feasible for something like that."

"I never said overnight. This is a good starting point. Besides, this thing's intended to surpass 1 g-force, whereas in space we'd only need to go from 0 to 1," Tony said, paused and added: "You're not intending to crush yourself with high g-force are you, by standing in the area of effect yourself?"

"No. Between the dual doses of super-strength, durability, phasing, and the healing factor I'm pretty sure I'd survive," Rogue replied in amusement. "Not to mention the electronic disruption pulses, which could just turn the thing off. No, actually I came up with this before I started trying to kill myself. Well the weight machine idea anyway. I was still figuring the other details out."

Tony nodded. "Very well then. But, really, Rogue, a mind like yours is too valuable to waste. You should be thinking about more stuff like this and less on ways to kill yourself."

Rogue restrained the urge to roll her eyes and say "spare me."

"I'll see to it that you get the supplies you need to start building," Tony went on. "And you should probably do this thing, it's called 'writing a paper and getting it published'."

Rogue laughed. "I'll do that."

Rogue ignored the hunger pangs as she concentrated on her work. She needed to focus. She wanted to get as much of her artificial gravity machine done as possible. Her latest ploy to take her life was in motion and it would take some time to come to fruition, so she planned to use the time she had left to best effect.

Magneto, who was on the screen in her workshop, cleared his throat to get her attention, and Rogue looked up from her bench.

"I read your paper," he said. "I believe it might actually work."

Rogue smiled. "I'd hoped you'd say that. I'd like to put your name on the paper too. I don't think I ever would have figured this out without what I absorbed from you."

Magneto shook his head. "The use of my powers may have given you valuable insight, but I assure you, Rogue, I never would have come up with this."

Rogue blinked in surprise. She never would have expected him to admit such a thing.

"Oh, you're pretty smart, Erik," Rogue said. "I'm sure you would have—"

"I've had my powers a lot longer than you," he interrupted. "This very paper demonstrates that you have a different perspective from myself. You've put together pieces that I would not have considered. As far as I'm concerned, the full credit belongs to you. Now, do you have a working prototype yet?"

"Working on it even as we speak."

"Good."

Rogue eyed her naked form critically in the full-length mirror in her bedroom. Parts of her had started to go a little flabby from the lack of a proper workout over the past year (these physical enhancement powers really sucked), but overall she still appeared to be in pretty good shape.

Clearly something was wrong.

Irritably, Rogue dressed and headed out into the living room. She grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and tried not to look at the amount of food building up in there. She had to continue getting food, otherwise people might cotton onto the fact that she was trying to starve herself to death. Yet after two whole months—when most people only lasted three to six weeks—she was still fine. Hungry and irritable, but otherwise fine. No drawn features, not feeling any more tired than usual, her weight was quite stable. The only thing she'd been consuming at all was water, and that was only because she suspected that Bobby's powers would kick in and draw water from the air or something if she tried to deny herself that.

To make matters worse, Hank, who was coming around on a semi-regular basis, hadn't found any reason to be concerned either. That had been her biggest concern; that Hank would notice and do something about it. Her scheme was looking to be a dud but she had no explanation at all for this one. There were no powers in her artillery at all which could compensate for a lack of food. Help her endure for longer, maybe, but not forever. The worst part was that Rogue couldn't even probe Hank for possible answers to a "hypothetical" question.

Hank arrived a few hours later, this being his usual day for dropping by and seeing how Rogue was doing. Officially, this was just to see how she was coming along with her practice, but since making her intention to commit suicide clear, Hank also used it to make sure she didn't succeed in that particular endeavour.

"Hmm," he hummed as he glanced over the results of the proximity testing Rogue had been doing. "I see you're still terminating your proximity plants early."

Rogue shrugged. "They're going to die anyway."

"Rogue—"

"I know, I know. How am I supposed to know if I'm having any success in that area if I kill all of them after two weeks. Blah, blah, blah," Rogue replied. "Newsflash, Hank. I'm not having any success. They all still start withering and dying the moment they enter my presence, and the constant pressure of having eight of those little cretins being sucked into my skull isn't exactly a pleasant sensation!"

"Mmhmm. Oh," Hank said, snapping his fingers. "That's what I intended to ask you last time: Are you still doing your light therapy?"

"Yeah, yeah, sure, sure."

"And are you still taking those Vitamin D supplements?"

"Ugh, I hate trying to swallow those surfboards," Rogue muttered.

"Uh huh. Excuse me one moment, please."

At first Rogue didn't register Hank leaving the med bay, and when she did, she realised he went into her living room, not into the visitor's lounge. Hurriedly she pushed herself off the bed and followed. She found him in the kitchen, with the fridge door open, and the bottle of Vitamin D supplements in his hand.

"Planning a party, Rogue?" Hank asked mildly.

Rogue sighed. Why not? The plan was falling to pieces anyway.

"Fine. Juuuust fine," she snapped. "I've been trying to starve myself to death for the last two fucking months and I haven't dropped a pound. All I've been having is water."

Hank set the bottle down. "Very well, Rogue. Back into the med bay. Let's have a look at you."

More than enough tests to antagonise the quite already antagonised enough Rogue later:

"I have a theory for you," Hank said.

"'Bout time," Rogue muttered under her breath while drinking a smoothie through a straw. Hank ignored it, knowing she was just cranky for not eating in two months.

"We eat food because it provides us with energy; it's fuel to get us through the day," Hank said. "Your native ability is absorbing life energy. You still have plenty of energy to get you through each day because you've been drawing on the reserves of life energy you've been storing."

"That makes no sense," Rogue said. "If I'm storing massive amounts of life energy, how come I'm not as fat as all get out? That's what happens when we eat more food than we need."

"Different requirements. They're not the exact same type of energy. What you are suffering from right now is a slow form of malnutrition. The life energy you absorb doesn't provide you with necessary essential elements, but your healing factor can—up to a point—compensate for a lack of Vitamin C, for example."

"Malnutrition?" Rogue repeated. "So... it was working? Because I know that mutant powers do need energy in order to work. That's why Logan always eats big after he's gotten a lot of injuries. In fact, if I'd kept up a high rate of using all my mutant abilities—"

"You would slowly waste away over a long period of time," Hank cut in, determined to nip this in the bud. "And by a long period of time, I mean years, Rogue. Even if you were to stop absorbing anything at all, you have five years worth of life energy absorbed from plants alone to use up."

"That's even assuming you guys let me get away with trying to starve myself?" Rogue replied.

"Indeed."

"Hmph. I was trying to avoid the slow tortuous options anyway."

"Rogue—"

"I know, I know. No one wants me to kill myself. I'm being ridiculous. I'm blowing everything out of proportion. I'm being unreasonable. Blah, blah, blah," Rogue said, rolled her eyes and had another sip of her smoothie before continuing. "You know, this would be a lot easier if you guys would realise that I'm doing y'all a favour here."

"I assure you, that attempting to deny us your presence in our lives is not doing us a favour. And no, I do not care to hear your spiel about being a potential weapon of mass destruction again."

"Stormy," Gambit greeted warmly as he approached one of his dearest friends with arms outstretched in the gardens of the Xavier estate. "My oh my, aren't you looking radiant? How many months are you now?"

Storm smiled back at him. "Seven. It is good to see you, Remy."

Gambit hugged her, thinking it was incredibly weird to hug someone with a pregnant belly in the way.

"I have missed you," she said.

"Really? Even with Logan doing such a good job distracting you from my absence?"

Storm gave him a slight smile. "I am a little surprised you did not time your visit for October so you could be here when the baby is due."

"I'm already booked out for October," Gambit replied with a shrug. "Me and the girlfriend are going to the Bahamas. But I figure you'll probably be swamped with everyone here trying to get a look at the little tyke, so I'll probably come by after. Oh, and I got you guys a little present. It's still with my stuff though. Say, ah, where am I staying? You said something about my usual room being used now?"

"Yes, I thought I'd give you the choice. We have plenty of spare rooms in some of the new residential halls, or we can set up a bed in Rogue's lounge." Storm sighed. "Goddess knows she's been keeping us on our toes."

"More attempts to kill herself, hien?"

"She tried to phase various object through her body and then come out of phase while they were still through her," Storm replied. "The worst part about that one was that we literally could not stop her. Poor Kitty. The second phaser Rogue absorbed must operate on a slightly different frequency because Kitty could not touch Rogue any more than the rest of us could while she was in phase. The worst one—and thankfully the last one—was when she phased herself into a wall."

"Do I want to know?"

"Her body split in two and then put itself back together. Kitty is still in tears over it," Storm said sadly. "If it is not bad enough seeing your friend use your own powers to try to kill herself, it is seeing first hand the many ways your own powers could kill you if used improperly."

Gambit nodded slowly. "How many attempts is it now?"

"Seven. She also admitted to an attempt to drown herself."

Gambit gave a low whistle.

"I cannot believe I am saying this," Storm went on, "but I almost wish the cameras in her bed and bathroom had stayed active. Three of those attempts were done in the bathroom. We have been keeping an eye on her air systems, doing spot checks, making sure she continues to eat properly...and all that on top of our regular tasks for almost as long as I've been pregnant."

"I see. Well, I think I might help out with the suicide watch, then."

"That would be most appreciated."

When Gambit said those words, he was not expecting what happened next. His things were taken to the visitor's lounge, and a bet sed up, all without Rogue greeting them at all. Logan brushed that off, noting that Rogue had taken to ignoring people lately. They rang the doorbell a few times, but there was no response. After his things had been set up, Gambit put on his hazmat suit and headed inside while Logan waited.

"Rogue?" Gambit called.

There was no response and the lack thereof was making him nervous. Rogue knew he was coming. She always greeted him excitedly with a hug when he came to visit, always. He had a look in the bathroom, but it was empty, then moved onto the bedroom and smiled when he saw a lump in the bed.

"Still asleep, Roguey?" he said, but his cheerfulness faded into concern when he approached and saw that her skin was green. "Rogue?"

Her eyes were closed and she looked to be asleep, or dead. The hazmat suit prevented him from being able to check for a pulse and though he put his head on his side and watched her chest for a minute or two to see if it would rise with her breathing or not, he couldn't spy any movement. He swore under his breath and though he tried to rouse her he got no response.

Gambit quickly took a picture with his phone and then hurried out into the living room where he accessed Rogue's computer. Logan, waiting impatiently in the visitor's lounge, appeared on the screen.

"Something's wrong," Gambit reported before Logan could inquire. "She's in bed and isn't responding to me at all. I can't tell if she's breathing or not, and her skin is green."

Logan frowned. "Green?"

"Yeah."

Logan gave a frustrated sigh and rubbed his forehead.

"What has she gone and done this time?" he muttered to himself before going on louder: "Call Hank McCoy. Rogue should have him in her phone book. Hank's set up so that he treats any call from Rogue as urgent."

"Alright," Gambit said agreeably, already pulling up Rogue's contact list.

"I'll go let Storm know we should probably expect him to come," Logan said and headed out.

Gambit found Hank's name quickly, as he was one of the names at the top of the list, and dialled. A moment later, Hank appeared on the screen.

"Yes Ro—" Hank began and then realised who he was looking at. "You're not Rogue. Remy LeBeau?"

"You remember me," Gambit replied. "Look, Rogue's in the bedroom and I can't tell if she's breathing or not. But her skin is green."

"Green," Hank repeated. "How so?"

"I was hoping you'd tell me," Gambit said, tapping in Hank's number into his phone to send him the photo. He sent it to Logan at the same time.

"Oh my stars," Hank said as the image flashed up on his screen. "Well, that certainly is green."

The shade of green gave him pause. There was something important about that particular shade, something that he couldn't quite put his finger on at that moment.

"Yeah, it is. So what do we do?"

Hank paused a moment longer as he considered. "If you can move her into the med bay, I will be there as soon as possible."