: TWIST OF FATE :
PART TWO: RACHEL
(10) - Lost & Found -
May 2013
This is the rhythm of the world.
It is the beat of her feet on the pavement, the staccato rasp of her breath, the thundering percussion of her heartbeat in her ears.
By day it's the sirens, the people, the traffic, the soundless hollow of sleep if she can get it. It is the movement of a city that has no name, it is the purring of vehicles on the road, the scream of the trains and the hostile looks. It is the slow march of the Sentinels and the babble of the radio. It is an alien world with alien pastimes, which she watches with the dread fascination of a foreigner in a strange and frightening new country.
The people scare her most – the sound of a hundred voices in her head, their thoughts invading her thoughts until she thinks she'll die with it. It'd taken her several hours to figure out how to turn them off completely, how to keep them out and save herself the descent into madness.
The night is more familiar to her. It is an acappella of human voices punctuated by crawling silences – the howl of the Hounds, the shouts of the drunks, the wolf whistles of the lecherous men, the dull thud of heels and fists on flesh and bone.
And there is the beat of her feet on the pavement, the staccato rasp of her breath, the thundering percussion of her heartbeat in her ears.
At the centre of this dissonant symphony is Rachel Summers and precious little else. She has a name and the clothes upon her back. Everything else comes to her in bits and pieces, in nightmares. It's why she tries not to sleep. It's why she doesn't understand the names people call her, and why she's hunted every night. It's why she runs and doesn't stop.
Tonight is no exception.
Rachel had stopped questioning why it was; it just was. They chased. She ran. They threatened. She hid. Cast adrift in a life without any memories, it hardly seemed strange to her that every town was the same, that every person was there to take advantage, that every man should be as ugly and wicked as Bluebeard and that she should run as fast she she could from them.
She was doing it now.
She could hear the chorus of her hunter's boot heels on the sidewalk behind her. She had one natural advantage compared to most of her pursuers and that was agility. It was something she always made good use of. She leapt over trashcans and fire hydrants like a gazelle, putting anything she could find between her and her hunter – the contents of those trashcans, a broken trolley. She could hear her pursuer swearing behind her as he fell foul to most of the traps she'd laid. This man, she thought, was stupider than most. It bought her enough time to slip inside a filthy alleyway and hope against hope that he hadn't seen her.
Rachel crept into the corner, on tiptoe, as quiet as the mice at her feet; and despite the will of her mind she couldn't stop, she couldn't stop herself from breathing and she felt sure the whole world could hear her terror.
She slipped into the shadow of a dumpster and prayed he wouldn't find her. She couldn't count the number of times she'd done this before, but it didn't get better, because she'd never know what she would find in her would-be assailants. Even if she reached out with those strange powers of hers, what she found in other people's minds scared her more than being their prey. It was their thoughts, or their lack of thoughts – there was nothing coherent or rational in what she found there. Usually it was a babbling stream of angry voices, a red mist of hate. Most times, she would withdraw from them long before they had found her or given up the chase.
Catcalls sounded from the street beyond, hollers for her body, her blood. She shuddered in the darkness. It was so cold, and she felt so sick, so worn. How much longer would this go on, dear God? How much longer could she wander like this, being hunted from day to day, without even a past to hang on to? There were no sweet, comforting memories, only the nightmares of a life she could barely remember. And how could she face a future that was no better than her past?
She coughed, clearing the gritty substance that had been in her throat for days now. Even covering her mouth did not entirely muffle the sound, but she couldn't help it, even if she knew it could cost her.
Crunch.
Rachel froze, raising her other hand to her mouth now, trying desperately to still her breathing.
Crunch.
There it was again. The faint sound of a boot sole on broken glass. Somebody was there. Somebody had found her.
She was holding onto her mouth so hard she was trembling; how far was he from her now? She couldn't tell. Usually they'd broadcast their presence to her with their taunts and their jibes – but this one said nothing, nothing at all. And she didn't dare cast out with her mind for fear of those terrible, frightening, all-consuming thoughts…
…And she scoots backwards into the corner, scrabbling to get away with both her legs, the shadow advancing on her step by awful step, and her back hits the wall, she can't go any further, she's trapped here and she knows what'll come next…
"Resist would you, girl?" Bluebeard hisses above her, face and body blacked out by the blinding white lab lights illuminating him from behind. "You are the feisty one – always have been. But I can't allow you to get away with this. I made you, and I will remake you yet!"
And he raises the spear in his hand to plunge it in, and she can't bear it, not anymore, not the pain, not again, she'd rather die, and it all crashes in on her, what he has done to her, what he has turned her into, something she knows isn't her, not really…
But she can't remember anything else but this – all she has known is the pain and the hate and the fight – and she realises – Bluebeard is right – he has made her in his own image, it is all she is and ever will be. A monster. A killer.
And the voice that comes out of her throat is inhuman as both her hands grasp the spear even as it drives down towards her. She takes the pain even as the electric field that surrounds the spear jolts through her, and she wrenches it from his grasp, casts it aside… She lunges for him with only one thought on her mind…
Kill. Kill.
"Kill!" Rachel screamed, leaping out from behind the dumpster and bowling into the body of her attacker, and suddenly they were both wrestling on the garbage-strewn ground, in the dirt and filth and muck, and Rachel realised it was a woman, a woman she was grappling with and not a man…
And in that moment of hesitation, the two stared at each other, green eyes on green, and the woman's mouth opened, a look of surprise and wonder and;
"Rachel!" she breathed in a voice that seemed so familiar and…
…She's back in the snow with her prey broken and helpless beneath her, and she's going to kill, and that hand comes up, the pattern of five, long fingers ascending to meet her, and then – soft, warm flesh, and indescribable pain and – darkness…
"No!" she screamed in a voice full of anguish, and she swung back with a claw-like hand, ready to impale, barely seeing the glint of metal flashing out of the corner of her eye, the staff whizzing in from out of nowhere, connecting with the pressure point in the side of her neck, and…
The lights went out.
-oOo-
She came to an indeterminable amount of time later, her consciousness swimming to the surface from a dreamless sleep.
She did not open her eyes. Instead she unfolded the tendrils of her psyche, slow, deliberate, testing the room for any sense of presence, reaching outward with her mind and hitting…
There were two people in the room. The first one a female mind, tempered as steel yet soft and fragile as a butterfly… And then the other, a man… and a wall. A wall of static, beneath the cracks a whole mess of emotions she couldn't even begin to read.
"You shouldn't've hurt her," came the woman's voice, a low murmur in a soft, Southern lilt.
"She could've killed you," said the man in a voice that was soft and dark and warm and strong and so many things that she was no longer surprised she couldn't read him.
"Ah had things under control," replied the woman and—
"I wasn' willin' t' take de risk," said the man.
There was a pause; suddenly she felt the wall around the man intensify, every chink snapping shut, blocking her out, making her tendrils instinctively recoil, and – "She's awake," said the man's voice in sharp warning, and she realised she'd been holding her breath, that he'd noticed, that he'd known then that she wasn't sleeping. No time to kick herself for being so stupid. Slowly she opened her eyes, the world unfolding before her dark and grey and blurry, and she blinked, seeing… seeing…
The woman first. Kneeling beside her, open and unguarded… Her face becoming clearer… A pale face, pink-lipped, framed by a torrent of cinnamon-coloured hair shot through with white… Green eyes that were familiar, oh so familiar…
"It's okay, Rae," the pink lips crooned softly, soothingly, "You're safe, sugah, you're safe."
"Safe?" Rachel whispered, as if daring herself to believe it… And the woman was emanating such warmth and kindness and trust that all of a sudden she felt tears spring to her eyes, that she wanted to cry…
"Yes," replied the woman, softly. "Yes, I promise…"
So saying she reached out to place a hand on Rachel's shoulder, the comforting gesture triggering a sudden train of memory, a hand coming, the impression of fingers, fingers and flesh on her cheek, and somehow the pattern of the fingers had dragged her in under the –
"NO!" she screamed, bolting upright before the woman's hand could connect, and in another moment she had her hands round her throat as she shook with horror and tears of rage spilled from her eyes…
"What did you do to me?!" she shrieked, her hands squeezing, involuntarily, her whole body convulsing with fear and terror. "What did you do to me?!"
The woman was scrabbling, trying to pry apart her fingers, and Rachel could feel her own fear, her own terror, bleeding from this stranger, bleeding so hard that it almost startled her, that suddenly she let go…
And before she could come to herself she heard a whiz and a shuck, and the next moment something had slammed into her solar plexus, taking the wind out of her and pinning her back against a wall. For the first time she saw the man, the man standing above her, his face quiet and taut, angular features sharp with barely suppressed anger. In his hand he held a bo-staff, the weapon that now pinned her to the wall, glowing in the eerie pink light of his energy signature; his eyes, dark and red, were flaming, spurting a cold fire and he bared his teeth, the static crackling around him as he growled, "Pull dat again and so help me God I will fuckin' kill you."
He jabbed the bo-staff into her rib-cage and she gasped, feeling the energy thrumming inside the titanium shaft, spilling into her flesh, her bones, ready to explode…
"Remy, no!" came the woman's voice, hoarse but urgent, and he didn't take those blazing eyes from Rachel, didn't take the charge away at all, replying through gritted teeth, "She's testin' me, chere, she is fuckin' testin' me…!"
"No," and the woman came into view again, her expression earnest, and Rachel saw her own handiwork, the dark and angry marks she had left round her throat. "She's scared, can't you see that? She doesn't remember us, she doesn't know who we are. What she's been through… all that pain, all that terror… Everyone must be an enemy to her." She paused, placed a small, white hand upon the man's, the one that held the bo-staff. "Please," she breathed softly. "Stop."
The man was still looking at her, but the fire in his eyes was fading, the charge in the staff was dissipating and…
"Please," the woman repeated, and in a split second, just a single split second, he had pulled back, releasing Rachel, switching off his power, turning away from the woman, stepping out of sight. The pink glow flickered out, leaving the room back in semi-darkness.
Rachel scooted back into a corner, her rib cage aching, her body shuddering from the memories, from the shock. She sat there and shivered, hid her face, wrapped herself into a ball and tried to hide, tried to hide from them, from the darkness, from everything, trembling so hard she thought she might shatter.
But there was the hand again, connecting, curling around her shoulder, no hurt, no pain, so gentle, so reassuring… How could she have thought that that hand could have harmed her?
"It's okay," said the kind voice behind the hand. "It's okay, Rae."
"You promised me—" Rachel whimpered, wanting to cry again in the face of that kindness.
"Ah know. Ah'm sorry. It won't happen again."
The voice, the touch was too soothing to be ignored. Rachel heaved a dry sob and peeked from between her fingers. She saw the woman for real this time. Her face was so gentle, so beautiful, so understanding… and yet filled with so much hurt and so much pain that she thought, she really thought, that maybe this stranger would understand… …
She couldn't help it.
She fell into the woman's arms and wept.
For a long while they stayed like that, Rachel weeping, the woman rocking her gently in her arms. It was the first human comfort Rachel could ever remember having received, the first shred of humanity. And she clung to it. She clung to it until she felt drunk, and she broke away, wiped her eyes with the heels of her hands and said, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, please believe me, I'm sorry… I'm just so scared… So alone and so scared…"
The woman said nothing, laid a warm hand on her knee until her sobs had stopped and her eyes were dry. When she lifted her gaze she saw the woman kneeling before her, her expression one of patience, and even more, of friendship; the man stood at the far end of the room, watching. His face was unreadable.
"Where- where are we?" she finally deigned to ask, her voice cracking, hoarse with disuse.
"An old warehouse," the woman answered calmly. "We're safe. For now."
Rachel looked at her. The green eyes, their inherent sadness… that lock of white hair…
"I know you," she murmured haltingly. She paused; neither the man nor the woman said anything and she began again, said, "You knew my name. How did you know my name?"
At the back of the room, the man stirred.
"She remembers her name," he commented softly, yet not without a tinge of sarcasm. "Dat's a start."
The woman – Chere – or whatever he called her – ignored him.
"We were friends once," she explained gently. "Comrades."
Rachel weighed that up.
"Him too?" she asked somewhat sceptically, glancing over the woman's shoulder at the man.
"Him too," she nodded.
Rachel inhaled deeply, let out a breath, fell back onto her haunches.
"We… fought together?" she questioned after a moment. All she had known was fighting. The word 'comrade' only meant those she fought with. The word 'friend'… that held an alien meaning to her. Alien, but strangely comforting. She didn't quite know how to translate it yet.
"Yes," returned the woman.
Rachel nodded. Mostly to herself. If they were comrades she thought maybe she could trust them. Well, the woman anyway. The man she wasn't so sure of.
"Do you… Do you remember anything?" the woman asked at length. "Anything at all?"
It was the question Rachel had asked herself many a time before. Again she searched it. The recesses of her mind. The depths of her psyche. Something was there… moving. Swimming. Hiding just below the surface. Completely out of reach.
"I remember hurting," she said at last, with a certain earnestness that seemed like a child searching for approval from an adult. "And I remember running in the snow." She paused. "And something touching me, and the world going black." She faltered, not knowing what else to say. The man and the woman shared a look. There was communication in that look, subtle but strong – not telepathy. Rachel sensed it, but she didn't think they were even aware of it.
"I remember Bluebeard," she added decidedly.
"Bluebeard?" the woman repeated quizzically, looking back at Rachel.
"The bad man." She shuddered. "The one who made me forget everything. The one who gave me the hurting."
The man and the woman exchanged a look again. Rachel could sense it – the communication between them. She couldn't describe it, didn't know what it was. But it made her hungry. It made her feel awkward and empty and alone. She shuddered again, wrapped her arms around herself, held herself tight, wanting to keep herself together, anchor herself, keep herself from being lost.
"You must be hungry," the woman broke the silence, placing that gentle hand on her knee again. "Thirsty too."
Rachel found she had no words to return this unwarranted kindness. She nodded.
"We'll getcha somethin'," the woman replied, getting to her feet. "Give you somewhere to sleep too. You need some rest."
She moved to go, but Rachel raised her head, spat out on a sudden urge –
"Why're you being so kind?"
The woman paused, looked down at her, eyes sympathetic, said;
"B'cause, sugah, Ah know exactly where you've been."
-oOo-
The bed was not soft and it was not warm, but it was a bed and she couldn't remember the last time she'd slept on one.
Rachel pulled the thin comforter up to her chin and drew in a shaky breath. The mattress she lay on creaked and groaned, betraying her every move, unnerving her. She wanted the silence. She wanted to be invisible, hidden, anonymous. This room – her makeshift room – was dark, but not dark enough. The windows – large windows of an old, run-down warehouse – were dusty, stained, greasy, and let in little light. She was glad of that, at least.
She had slept a little, as much as her nightmares and fragmented memories would let her. She avoided sleep if she could – the nightmares were too visceral, too terrifying, and she would often wake up sweating and shuddering, chased by vestiges of the torment that had shaped her life for so long. Bluebeard. Every time she closed her eyes he was there.
She shifted onto her side, facing the door, seeing the crack of light underneath. It was second nature now for her to reach out with her mind, to track down potential danger before it could find her. She hated doing it, but it was automatic. A defence mechanism. It was to keep her safe.
The man and the woman were there. She could sense them, the woman's warmth, the man's white noise. Impossible to penetrate. She thought she could delve into the woman's mind, but she didn't want to. The woman was kind. She didn't believe that she could hurt her. She thought that she could trust her.
And that was the first person she had trusted since… well, ever since she could remember.
They were talking.
She could hear their voices, low and unintelligible, through the door. The man was… prickly. She could discern that much. The woman was… sad. Yes, sad. Sorry for her. Rachel frowned. She didn't want pity. She didn't want people to be sorry for her. She just didn't want to be lost anymore. Didn't want to be alone. She wanted what this couple had. Each other.
She heard footsteps on the other side of the door, coming closer. She froze, the sound of boot steps bringing a familiar surge of horror up inside her. She drew the comforter tighter against her chin with the vague feeling that if she screwed herself up and made herself as small as possible, no one would see her.
But they had always come for her.
She'd never been able to hide.
The footfalls stopped outside her door; there was a pause and the door creaked open, gently, quietly. Framed in the light from the room on the other side stood the silhouette of the man. He stopped and looked at her. He saw she was awake, but somehow she couldn't do anything but remain frozen, the way she had done all the times before when they had come for her and done their unspeakable things.
But he seemed to sense her fear. He stepped inside the room, pushed the door quietly behind him so that only a slat of light filled the nearest corner of the room. He seemed to know she didn't like the light.
"S'okay, petit," he greeted her in that soft, hard accent. "'M not here t' hurt y'."
He walked over, knelt down beside her, and placed a plate of titbits and a glass of water on the floor by the bed.
She allowed herself to release a pent-up breath. She still found him difficult to trust, but there was something in his voice, in his manner, that communicated to her that he meant her no harm. She let go of the comforter, sat up slowly.
"Thanks," she whispered. He nodded briefly in acknowledgement.
Until she ate she had no idea of how hungry she had been – she ate and drank everything he had put before her. He knelt and watched her silently. While the static wall was still around him, she sensed that he had dropped his guard a little, trying to earn her trust. She also sensed it was something he didn't normally do.
"Why d'you do it?" she asked at last, curiosity getting the better of her.
"Do what?"
"That. Put that wall up?" she drained the rest of the water in the glass and held his gaze, finding that his eyes were less scary than strange.
"Was born wit' it, petit," he answered after a short pause; but she shook her head.
"Part of it, yes. But some of it y'do consciously. I've never seen anyone who shields so hard."
A lop-sided and humourless smile touched the corner of his lip.
"It gets me by," was all he said.
She didn't push it. She still felt on thin ice with him. Instead she glanced at the jar in the door; the woman was somewhere on the other side – she could feel her.
"What's her name?" she asked on a sudden impulse. "Chere?"
He followed her gaze, this time a real smile touching his lips.
"No. Her name's Rogue."
Rachel turned that over in her head.
"I know her," she murmured at last.
"You know both of us," he told her.
"But I remember her." She stopped and looked back at him, the strange eyes that were somehow also beautiful in that chiselled, angular face… "I don't remember you."
The smile turned to a grin; he touched his chest, said: "Gambit."
No. She didn't recognise his name either.
"I'm Rachel," she returned awkwardly – it was her way of making peace. He seemed to sense it.
"I know," was all he said.
An uncomfortable silence followed, which was only broken by Rogue's soft and absent humming from the other side of the door. Something swelled in Rachel's heart – she couldn't remember the last time she'd heard anyone sing.
"I'm sorry," she suddenly said quietly, surprised to feel a lump in her throat. "For hurting her, I mean. I didn't mean to."
"S'okay," he replied, an attempt at nonchalance that didn't quite succeed. "I shouldn't have lost it wit' you de way I did."
"You were only trying to protect her," she whispered back.
On the other side of the door, the humming stopped. Gambit grabbed the glass and the plate, stood.
"Y'finished?" he asked her.
She nodded. Silent.
"Anyt'ing more I can getcha?"
She shook her head. Suddenly she was so tired…
"If'n you need anyt'ing," he offered gently, "jus' shout."
She nodded. He gave her a last, reassuring smile, turned and left.
When he had gone, she sank back onto the bed and slept.
-oOo-
She awoke to a grey morning, to a pallid light shining through the dirty windows, dust motes floating aimless in the pale rays.
Dawn had only just risen.
She pulled the comforter aside and slid out of bed.
She didn't remember much, but she remembered last night. She remembered the woman – Rogue – with her pretty, kind face. And the man, Gambit, with his dark, dark eyes.
Memories swam under the surface of her mind, formless and unarticulated. It was no use. If she knew them – had ever known them – she'd couldn't dredge them up from the depths of her psyche. She was too scared, too fragile. Her mind felt like it might break if she even touched it.
She tiptoed to the door, pulled it open just the tiniest crack.
Gambit was there, sitting on an old wooden chair, leaning over a portable stove boiling coffee.
"Mornin'," he greeted without looking up, and she took a wary step forward murmuring, "Hey…" back.
The aroma of coffee curled around her, bringing a warmth to her stomach that was strange but oddly comforting to her. She glanced around slowly, swallowing the new sensation, taking in the dank, unfurnished room. But for a few battered chairs, stacks of crumbling cardboard boxes, a stained table littered with rusty tools… there was nothing. No real evidence of habitation. In a corner, on a low pallet, lay Rogue, asleep. Gambit's trench coat had been placed carefully over her.
"Is she… Is she still sleeping?" Rachel asked in a murmur; for the first time Gambit raised his eyes, looked at the woman on the pallet.
"Heh. Dat girl could sleep forever an' a day," he quipped humorously, but not without a certain affection.
He said nothing more, but busied himself with the coffee; Rachel watched him for a minute, trying to gather her thoughts, trying to draw together everything that had been said the previous night.
"You…you said you knew me," she finally managed. Again he lifted those dark eyes, stared right at her. His gaze was neutral, not hostile like it had been the night before.
"Oui," he nodded.
"Where… how… did we know each other?" she asked, somehow afraid of the answer.
He paused, looked back down at the stove.
"We were X-Men, p'tit," he stated simply.
The name stirred something in her, slight, subtle – but there was nothing to hold on to, and she didn't know that she'd even expected there would be.
"I don't remember," she said at last, unable to hide the disappointment in her voice.
"'Course you don't, chere."
"Then… how come I remember her?" she questioned earnestly, gazing at the woman on the pallet. That got his attention. He looked up at her again, sharply this time.
"How much do you remember?" he asked her quietly. She sensed more behind the question than was recognisable in his tone.
"I… well, I don't know… Impressions… her voice… her face…" She trailed off, closing her eyes, trying to pinpoint what it was and unable to. "I… I don't know," she repeated again in sudden frustration. When she looked back at him, she saw that the gravity of his expression had disappeared, the thin line of his lips now betraying a wry smile.
"P'tit, when we were X-Men, I wasn' exactly the kind of guy you'd want t' remember…" He let out a soft laugh; the coffee had boiled, and he took it off the stove. "Don't t'ink you really liked me much, chere…" he added deprecatingly. "Rogue… She was more of a friend t' you."
She nodded slightly; in the corner, Rogue stirred into wakefulness.
"Do you guys mind?" she ground out in annoyance, in a voice that was deep and honeyed; again that wry, affectionate smile curled Gambit's lips.
"Good mornin' t' you too, chere."
From behind the lapel of his trenchcoat, Rogue's green eyes and upturned nose emerged.
"You could at least gimme a coffee," she remonstrated him petulantly.
"Starbucks ain't open for another hour, chere," he bantered back whilst pouring out the coffee into two tin cups.
"Screw you, Cajun," she muttered belligerently, nevertheless pulling the coat aside and emerging fully from under it. "Hey, sugah," she added in a soft tone when she saw Rachel standing there.
"Hey…" Rachel whispered again, feeling overwhelmed once more, lost in the casual familiarity of their exchanges when everything felt so strange and foreign and just so plain scary to her…
She turned away, her head spinning.
"I need… Is there a bathroom round here?" she questioned softly.
There was a slight pause – again she felt that sense of communication pass between them.
"Go out de door and it'll be on de left," came Gambit's voice.
She didn't look back. Turning on her heel, she left.
x
The splash of water, cold and metallic, on her face.
Rachel raised her eyes to the streaky, stained mirror and looked at her face with a dispassionate gaze.
She didn't recognise herself. Dull, green eyes and a child-like face marred by something horribly adult – pain, agony, the unspeakable terror of untold years, things she could barely remember but knew were there. She had been scarred. Physically. He had branded her face when he'd taken her. Bluebeard. Black tattoos spiralled round her face in an angry pattern, engulfing her features in something less than human. Her red hair had been shorn roughly, almost to her scalp. It had grown a little since she had escaped, making her look like a used rag doll.
She thought she might have been pretty once. She wasn't sure.
With the palm of her hand she wiped the droplets of water from her face, feeling the tattoos like grooves on her skin. They weren't hers. They were his. She wanted them gone. She wanted every trace of him gone, but he was still there, his memory inside her head. She'd never be able to erase it.
She turned away from her reflection, quietly left the bathroom.
From the other room she could hear Rogue and Gambit's voices again, murmuring softly. She was tempted to mentally reach out for them again. Instead she went to the slightly ajar door and hovered by the crack, listening, watching.
"You don't trust her, do you?"
It was Rogue's voice, low and soft; Rachel shifted, squinted, and saw her standing next to Gambit, one of the tin cups in her hand; he was still sitting on the chair, hands on his knees, leaning forward, his hair hiding his expression.
"She was a Hound, chere."
"So?"
"So?" He pulled himself straight in his seat, looked up at Rogue with disbelieving eyes. "You know what it is Hounds do, chere. And we have no way of knowing just how much Hound there still is in her."
Rogue sank down onto her haunches beside him. When Rachel next heard her voice it was slow, measured.
"Did… Did Essex… Did he ever tell you how deep the brainwashin' went?"
Gambit said nothing for a moment. His face went very still, and Rachel saw his lips tighten and his eyes dart aside.
"Non," he returned at last. "I don't t'ink he really knew." Those strange, dark eyes moved back to Rogue's face. "De only t'ing he ever said was about de memories breakin' de brainwashin'."
Rogue's laugh was cold. "Heh. Didn't exactly work did it," she remarked sardonically. "You think he fed the Brotherhood false information?"
"Non." He shook his head decidedly. "Wasn't in his best interests. He wanted her too bad. I t'ink… I don't t'ink he realised how much of an asset de girl was t' Ahab… How deeply the brainwashin' ran…"
There was a short silence; Rogue set the cup on the floor beside her, said thoughtfully; "We have to trust her. The brainwashin' might not be broken, but it's breakin' at least. And she's in pain, Remy. Can't y' see? She needs help."
He looked unconvinced and she reached out a hand, laid it gently over his own.
"Remy, she needs us. She needs our trust if nothin' else. She's been through so much…"
There was that smile again – a crinkle, warm and open. He let out a small laugh, and she said, sadly, quietly; "Y' think Ah'm a fool, dontcha?"
He shook his head, twisted his hand so that her palm now lay in his own. "Non, chere. Not a fool. Just a child of Xavier, through an' through."
"That's what Raven said to me once," she said in a thin voice, almost inaudible, and he looked at her, his fingers curling around her hand, saying, "Really? Least she got somet'ing right den…" And he lifted her hand, pressed the fingers to his lips and kissed them with such unrestrained passion that Rachel held her breath and looked away, blushing, feeling she was intruding on something she wasn't meant to see without knowing exactly why…
Without thinking she pushed the door open, walked into the room.
Rogue stood quickly; Gambit lowered her hand but did not drop it, and she didn't take it back either.
"Feelin' better, sugah?" she asked Rachel in that same kind, motherly voice. Her tone formed such a thickness in Rachel's throat that she could only nod her head.
There was a silence, broken only when Gambit stood suddenly.
"I should go get de stuff," he murmured, half to Rogue, half to himself. He squeezed Rogue's hand once before finally relinquishing it. "Call me if'n you need me, chere."
"Will do," Rogue replied softly. He turned to go, stopped and looked back over his shoulder at Rachel, who was still fighting the lump in her throat.
"Made you a coffee, petit. Y'should drink up 'fore it gets cold."
And with that he was gone.
Rachel stood for a moment, getting used to the stillness of the atmosphere now that his static had gone. Until that moment she hadn't realised just how much her heart had been in her mouth trying to second guess him all that time.
"He doesn't like me, does he," she stated after a long moment. Rogue bent over, picked up the other cup of coffee sitting by the stove and handed it to her.
"It's not that he don't like you, sugah," she explained as Rachel gratefully took the warm cup between her aching fingers. "It's just that trust don't exactly come naturally to him."
Rachel mulled on that, lifting the cup to her lips and tasting the rich beverage for the first time she could remember. Bitter, but… She decided she liked it.
"He trusts you," she noted a little defensively. Rogue smiled.
"He's had time to learn to trust me."
"But… if he doesn't trust me… there must be a reason for that," Rachel reasoned testily. "You said we all knew each other… Was I… was I a bad person?" she queried in a sudden rush. Rogue looked at her, her eyes never leaving her, and said evenly, seriously; "No, sugah. Y' weren't a bad person."
There was sincerity in those words, and whatever her own doubts, Rachel knew that Rogue believed them.
"But …" Rachel began uncertainly, "but if I wasn't a bad person, why is he finding it so hard to trust me? Last night he said… he said he would kill me. And even though he said he didn't mean it, he did mean it, I know he did – even if it was only for a split second…"
Rogue was silent. Rachel sensed that even if she could have given an answer, it was too complicated for her even to know where to begin.
"You were never a bad person, Rae," she answered at last, quietly. "Never. But somethin' happened to you. Someone – someone called Ahab – hurt you, twisted your mind, forced you to do bad things against your will. But it wasn't your fault."
Suddenly there it was, a little bit falling into place…
"Bluebeard…" Rachel whispered, and Rogue nodded.
"You remember."
"No," Rachel shook her head. "Not really. I… I have vague impressions… Images in my head… I know things happened, I see flashes sometimes, links, connections… But I don't really remember."
Rogue nodded absently to herself, turned and pulled up a couple of chairs.
"Here. Take a seat." She indicated to the nearest stool, and Rachel sank down on it slowly, still nursing her cup of coffee as Rogue sat down opposite her. There was a gravity in her expression that Rachel hadn't seen before.
"Rae, Ah'm gonna say a few words to yah. Ah wantcha to tell me if they mean anythin' to yah; whether you get anything in your head when you hear them. Think y' can do that?"
She swallowed, nodded.
"Okay," Rogue began. "If you want me to stop, just let me know, okay?"
"Okay."
Rogue's gaze never left her own. It was unnerving, it was daunting, but Rachel felt that she could not but return that unwavering gaze with all the trust that she could muster. And then the first word came.
"Hounds."
Nothing.
"Ahab."
A flash, something…
"I don't know," she whispered.
"X-Men."
She shook her head.
"Xavier."
A stirring, but nothing more.
"Jean Grey."
This time the stirring in her mind was subtle, almost imperceptible, but profound; a key turning in the rusty lock of a door that was dustier and creakier than the rest. She looked at Rogue sharply, feeling as if the ground had suddenly moved beneath her, feeling a sudden and inexplicable shift in her mind. Rogue saw the look, the sudden light behind her eyes.
"Do you remember her?" she asked quickly.
"No," Rachel shook her head almost violently; it was only until that moment that she realised she had been holding in a breath, and she exhaled it in a sudden, quivering torrent. There was no revelation, no sense of enlightenment… Just a feeling, a certainty, that something was there… "No," she breathed again, disappointed despite herself.
Rogue looked agitated at that, her brow creased, her teeth tugging at her lower lip.
"I'm sorry," Rachel mumbled, wishing she had been able to please this ally, this…friend… as much as her own self.
"Don't be," Rogue comforted her, her face suddenly breaking into that soft, reassuring smile. "These things take time."
She stood to pour more coffee for herself – Rachel watched her, marvelling at her simple beauty. In the months since her escape from Ahab – the man she called Bluebeard – she had seen beauty. On billboards, on magazine stands, on the displays of television stores. But here she was in the presence of real beauty. No makeup, no fancy clothes, no Photoshopped skin or fake smiles. Real beauty was this – unaffected and unadorned. Not for the first time Rachel felt the scars on her face and wondered what lay beneath.
"Want some more?" Rogue asked, turning with the coffee pot in her hand, and Rachel nodded, thinking she could get used to the taste of this.
"So…" she began, once she had the heat of the cup wrapped once more in her hands. "What is it that you two do? Why are you here?"
Rogue raised the cup to her lips and grimaced.
"That ain't an easy question to answer, sugah. Ah could tell you a lot of things, but Ah get the feelin' you wouldn't understand." She paused, measuring the earnestness in Rachel's eyes, continued: "We're lookin' for X-Men."
"You keep talking about X-Men," Rachel noted. "Gambit said we were all X-Men. What are X-Men?"
"Mutants."
"Mutants?"
"The powers we have. They're what makes us mutants."
"And what's your power?"
Rogue hesitated a moment.
"Ah can borrow people's mem'ries just by touchin' them."
She seemed to find something uncomfortable in talking about it. Rachel decided not to push it.
"They don't like us, do they? Because we're mutants," she spoke up in a low voice, remembering the way she'd been hunted, the names she'd been called. Mutie. Scum. The hate and the disgust with which she was looked upon.
"No," Rogue agreed. "And it's because of that hate that things are the way they are. We – the X-Men… We used our powers to help people, but the people still didn't trust us. One day, a man named Senator Edward Kelly was killed by a group of outlaw mutants. After that, the people who didn't like us wanted to stamp out all of us. They killed most of the super-powered mutants, including the X-Men. Most others got sent to internment camps. The rest of us hide."
"So… you're looking for the X-Men who made it out?" Rachel asked.
"Yes."
"Isn't that like looking for a needle in a haystack?"
Rogue's smile was faint.
"We found you, didn't we?"
Rachel nodded slowly, letting it sink in, understanding but not remembering.
"And this place?" she questioned further, looking about her.
"We holed up here after we found you. Wouldn't have been easy takin' you into a hotel with those marks on your face. No offence but pretty much nobody takes kindly to Hounds."
"Hounds?"
"It's what you were, sugah," Rogue replied sympathetically. "It's what Ahab made you become. Hounds hunt mutants, sometimes turn them over to the government for processing." She paused, continued quietly; "Sometimes kill them."
Rachel frowned. Somehow, a part of her had known. How else could she account for the nightmares, the shreds of memories where blood and bone had been so prevalent, the raw instinct inside her for the fight?
"I see," was all she said, her tone hoarse.
Any further conversation was interrupted by Gambit's return.
"Got us some breakfast," he announced, emptying a brown paper bag of assorted foodstuffs on the crate that was serving as a coffee table. "Help yourself."
He stood up and threw something at Rogue that Rachel couldn't see – she was too busy going through the food to care. Rogue caught it, stuffed it in her pocket wordlessly.
"I have an idea," Gambit stated, going for the nearly empty coffee pot on the stove.
"And what's that?" Rogue asked, joining Rachel in the scrum for food.
"Dere's dat lake just west of us. Lots of summer vacation homes down dere. Figured we could make use of de fact it ain't summer yet."
"You mean we break in, right." Rogue gave him a look. He shrugged, as if the idea spoke for itself. "But it's somebody's home!" Rogue protested, and he shrugged again.
"Yeah, probably some rich asshole's home… probably don't even stay dere for more den a few weeks a year…"
"That don't make it right!"
"Yeah, but t'ink about it. We need a place to figure out what we're going t' do next. A base of operations. Things have got… a little complicated, what with, y'know…" He nodded in Rachel's direction, and Rachel let it slide. She was too busy enjoying the fact that she wasn't eating a stolen apple, or a half rotten sandwich from a trashcan.
"It's not like she's a kid or somethin'!" Rogue huffed at him.
"She looks like a Hound," Gambit insisted. "Dat sure ain't gonna go down well wit' anyone, chere. Not to mention figurin' out rooms… Beds… Three's a crowd an' all dat…" He shot Rogue a meaningful look and she returned a look that half said shut up and half said you've got a point. Rachel chewed on a croissant, understanding the words but little else.
"All I'm sayin' is," Gambit continued after a long pause, "is dat dat girl needs to be somewhere she gonna be safe. I don't t'ink anywhere where dere's gonna be people around is gonna cut it."
"Oh, Ah suppose so!" Rogue exploded on a breath. "But don't you think we should be askin' her before we make any decisions? She is right here, yah know!"
They both looked at her. Rachel stopped, mid chew, already working on her second pastry with relish.
"You're askin' me?" she said in surprise, her mouth still full. No one had ever asked her opinion of anything before.
"Sure," Gambit returned. "We get outta town, hunker down for a few days in some holiday home down by de lake. Whaddaya t'ink?"
Rachel swallowed down the rest of her mouthful.
"You mean there'll be no people there?" she queried eagerly.
"Well… nowhere near as many as dere are here…"
It sounded like a dream come true. She didn't even have to think.
"Let's go!" She thought a moment, added: "Please."
Gambit laughed out loud. It was short and shallow, as if laughter was the sort of thing that didn't come easily to him.
"No pleases, p'tit. No thank yous neither. Not till we're somewhere safe, leastways."
"But I've never felt this safe before…" she protested, saying the most honest words she could remember; but he shook his head.
"Don't get complacent. It won't last. Not in dis world. You're a mutant, p'tit. One t'ing's for sure – someone will always be out t' kill you."
-oOo-