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Author's notes: Thanks everybody for the feedback on the last chapter. Sometimes it's hard for me to let things go and just post them, so glad y'all liked it. The interlude for this chapter would have taken place just prior to X-Factor #71 (vol. 1). No Remy this time, I know, I'm such a jerk, but someone else near and dear gets a mention. Thanks again for reading!
Interlude: A Fresh Start
Two years before…
"You can flash those credentials all you want, Val, they don't impress me." Alex Summers didn't stop walking, and chuckled to himself as Valerie Cooper, the United States government's liaison to mutants, struggled to keep up. He was usually more the gallant, door opening type, but Val, a control freak used to giving orders, was fun to annoy.
Her pace nearly spilling her over onto the ground, Val maneuvered in front of him and halted him with raised hands. "This is a tremendous opportunity we're offering here, Alex. With this new team, you have the chance to work towards mutant civil rights without being directly beholden to Charles Xavier."
Scowling, Alex crossed his arms over his chest. "What makes you think I have a problem working directly for Charles Xavier?"
"She doesn't, Alex," The crunch of gravel drew their attention, and both swiveled their gaze to a just landing Carol. "Making educated guesses is just what Val does. It's why they pay her the big bucks." Carol stepped towards Alex and inclined her head. "Hello again, Val. Welcome to progress."
Val smiled a tight smile and nodded in return. "Major Danvers. Congratulations, by the way. What you two have accomplished in Genosha is truly impressive, but I'm offering the opportunity to achieve so much more…"
Holding up one hand, Carol grabbed Alex's arm with the other. "Can you excuse us for a moment, Val? There's something that requires Mr. Summers' attention." Carol hauled Alex away from the hurricane force that was Valerie Cooper.
"Thank you," he muttered. "I wasn't sure how I was gonna say no to her."
When they were out of earshot, Carol stopped her steps and turned to face him. "I'm not so sure you should," she said quietly.
Alex's mouth popped open. "Excuse me?"
Carol touched his shoulder. "You heard me. Val came to me first, and I think what she's offering could be really great. You've put your heart and soul into rebuilding this country, but there comes a time when its citizens need to stand on their own two feet." Alex sighed and ran a hand across his jaw. "You need to stop placing this all on your shoulders. You're still blaming yourself for what happened. You're suffocating here…"
He reached out and brushed her cheek with the backs of his fingers. "Is this what you want?" he whispered.
She grasped his hand in hers. "I don't know," she said softly, "but it's what you need, and that's good enough for me. Good enough for us."
He pulled her into his chest and rested his cheek against her hair. "All right. Val wins." He held her out and kissed her lips gently. "She'll be ecstatic," he murmured.
"Val doesn't win. We win. It's time for a change. It'll be good for us, a fresh start."
"Yeah, yeah…for better or worse, right?"
Chapter Eleven
Jean slipped the brass key into the lock and turned the knob. "The rooms on this floor all have their own bathrooms," she said pleasantly and pushed open the heavy oak door. "Not like the old days, right? I still have nightmares about fishing Hank's hair out of the bathtub." Her Shi'ar exoskeleton gave her smoother steps than mine, and she padded into the open bedroom. I leaned against the doorjamb to catch my breath and took a slow look around at my new digs. The walls were painted cream and the gauzy drapes that matched covered two large windows, the sunlight filtering pleasantly through and bathing the queen-sized bed in the warmth of the afternoon. I sunk my toes into the light, plush carpet, but refused to step forward.
"Bathroom's in here, tub and a shower," Jean opened another door and flipped on the light inside, then moved to open the closet, but I just stood frozen, my hand gripping the wooden doorframe. A cold, nagging feeling was crawling into my chest, but I couldn't bring myself to ask her the question I wanted to. "Not quite a walk-in, but…" Jean turned when she realized I hadn't answered her in a while, her mouth parted mid-sentence. "Rogue?" She stepped back to me, her delicate red eyebrows furrowed above grass-green eyes. "Are you all right? Was the walk up here too much? Do you need to sit down?" I shook my head, my mouth too dry for words. "What is it? What's wrong?" Her hand hovered above mine, and that look played out on her features, the look that I got from everybody, that look of whether they could touch me or not, if whether they should touch me, if it was safe. The look of fear that everybody gave me, the three feet of personal space that turned to more when they knew what I could do. Everybody except Gambit, who I couldn't seem to keep three feet away even when I tried, and believe me, since our last conversation, I had been trying.
I cleared my throat. "Was this her room?" I managed, my voice rough and ragged.
Jean's face became sympathetic understanding, and her long white fingers closed around mine. "No, Rogue. We have plenty of space, and to me, putting you in her old room seemed unnecessary. You already shared enough, right?" Jean understood, I kept telling myself. The life she should have had was shattered by Madelyne Pryor and the Phoenix, and she was still picking up the pieces and trying to glue them back together. I let her take my gloved hand and she led me to the edge of the bed and plopped me down.
"On that note, however, there are a few things we should go through. Literally." I looked up at her and she crouched in front of me. "Carol's room. We've boxed up most of her personal belongings and I know it's weird, but there's an entire closet worth of clothing that's exactly your size. We were going to donate it, the rest of her effects are going to her next of kin, but I thought maybe you'd like to at least take a look at the clothes, see if there was anything you might want…" I scowled and she squeezed my knee. "Just until you have a chance to go shopping yourself. I assume your taste in clothing isn't the same, but it has to be better than scrub pants and t-shirts." Carol's hand-me-downs. But I didn't really have a right to be choosy, did I? Professor Xavier was giving me a free place to live, free food and medical care, he didn't need to foot the bill for a whole new wardrobe, not when there were perfectly good clothes that were just my size. Next of kin? My research had told me the real Carol, as Binary, was still somewhere in deep space playing pirate, but her parents were still alive and kicking in Boston. Wonder if they ever met the Carol that was in me?
"Yeah, I suppose I could take a look," I mumbled.
Jean stood and rolled up her sleeves. "Good. I'll start grabbing boxes."
I got up, too. "I'll help."
She held up a hand. "No, that's okay. I think most people are out, either on a mission or doing personal things, but I think I can find somebody to help me. If not, I'll grab my chair and make short work of it with my telekinesis instead." She waved airily and walked out the door. My door. I trailed my fingers along the stitching on the downy comforter draped over the bed. My eyes turned to the windows and I shuffled over and threw open the curtains and hauled up the sashes. I was so sick of the recycled air conditioned air of the lower levels, so unbelievably happy to be out of the infirmary. I took as deep of breath as I could muster and closed my eyes.
"Hope you like khakis." A grunting Jubilee dropped a cardboard box half her size into the middle of the floor. "Yuck." She wrinkled her nose and lifted a pale blue button down shirt from inside the box. "It's like Martha Stewart barfed in here."
Jean came in behind her, and sat her box down next to the first. "Jubilee, let's get another load and let Rogue take a look." The young girl rolled her eyes and Jean peeped down into the boxes. She looked up sheepishly. "Don't feel like you have to keep things, Rogue. If you really don't like them, we'll donate them."
"Is it that bad?" I teased.
The boxes kept coming and I started sorting, my big pile of 'no way' having to move to the floor by the time Jean and Jubilee were done bringing it all in.
"Lordy," I smiled at the girls as they entered, Jean hugging a small box crisscrossed with the remnants of ripped packing tape. "I thought y'all were joking! How many pairs of sensible slacks can one person own?"
Jubilee flopped onto the bed and shouldered into a leather bomber jacket I had definitely decided to keep. It swallowed her tiny frame, but she popped the collar and dropped her signature shades onto her nose. "Told ya'."
Jean laid her last box on the end of the bed. "Jubilee, why don't you start boxing up the donation pile?" The girl saluted and hopped off the bed, diving into the pile of taupe and tan.
I had kept some things, t-shirts and blue jeans, boots, workout clothes, the things that were closer to my typical style, but anything that had screamed Cape Cod was going straight to Goodwill. It was a strange task, going through clothes that had graced my body while I wasn't using it. I didn't want to make light of the fact that Carol was dead, but there were practical concerns. Did I keep underwear? Socks? It was weird, these things were my body's, but they weren't mine. I had enough clothing for a decent start of a wardrobe, at any rate, but it would be nice to go shopping and get a few things of my own as soon as I got clearance from McCoy. I didn't want to think of Carol Danvers every time I got dressed, not any more than I already did. I knew Jean was keeping me out of Carol's old room on purpose, I just wasn't sure why. Yet. I hadn't pushed to look at my former head-mate's personal belongings, but maybe it was time I did. The things she had left behind would maybe fill in some of the remaining gaps in my timeline.
"Rogue," Jean drew my attention to the box she was still holding. "We found this in the back of her closet…" She set it on the bed and lifted the flap, and I couldn't help but gasp. ROGUE, upside down from my vantage point, was scrawled across the box top in big black letters. "I know they went back to Australia to gather what they could of everyone's belongings." I stepped hesitantly towards her. My former life, its meaning and worth distilled down to the contents of one small box. "We'll give you a few minutes." Jean touched my shoulder, then grabbed Jubilee on her way out the door.
"But," the teenager sputtered, "I want to see what's in the box!"
I did, too, but my hands trembled as I opened up the flaps. I stared down, my eyes blurring behind tears. This was all I was, all that was left of the me before…The first thing I pulled out was a bent photograph of me and my foster mothers from before the Brotherhood, from that brief time when things had been good, when we had been a real family. I had to sit on the edge of the bed, suddenly short of breath, sobs crushing my aching chest. My mothers were smiling, and I was a scrawny flat-chested eleven year old. I knew even then what they were to each other, and I knew why they had felt the need to hide it in small town Mississippi, though I wished they hadn't. Our house practically originated 'don't ask, don't tell', but I wasn't blind, Raven had a separate bedroom she never slept in for God's sake. I wished the world had been kinder to them and their love, maybe things would have turned out so much different if it had been. Irene, murdered by Legion, Raven who knew where. I had asked to find her, but after what I had learned, I wasn't sure if that was such a good idea anymore. My mother had stabbed me through the chest, left me to die. Granted, it wasn't me, but what had happened to Mystique that she could see my body as little more than a shell that needed to be eliminated?
Bending over, I yanked open a drawer in the nightstand and laid the photo inside. I scrubbed the tears from my eyes with the heels of my palms and inhaled sharply. I was never gonna get through this if I bawled like a baby over every scrap in that box. Rummaging through it, I pulled out my last costume, a black bodysuit with a green strapless swimsuit-style leotard worn over the top, opera gloves and thigh high boots to match. I got up and held it in front of me, gazing in the mirror. It felt to me like it had only been a couple of months since I had last worn it, but the truth was still too painful to comprehend. I had always felt so beautiful in that costume, so strong. It had been my favorite, the high-flying, brash Rogue, but I wasn't that girl anymore. Trouble was, I didn't know who I was, or who I wanted to be.
Disgusted, I threw the costume in the donation pile. The powers I had stolen from Carol still hadn't resurfaced and more than likely never would, the death of her mind had erased any traces she had ever been in mine. As for my own powers, I hadn't tried to use them yet despite pressure from the Professor and Hank, and didn't really want to. When I healed, did I still even want to be an X-Man? Were my own powers, the ability to steal someone else's, enough to make me valuable to the team, to make me a hero?
Back in the box, buried in the bottom, my fingers closed on a sheaf of papers. I pulled them free and my heart throbbed a rapid fire drumbeat inside my chest. I flipped through them frantically. Admission papers, doctor's reports, outdated receipts of payment, all from a convalescent home in Caldecott County, Mississippi. Oh, Jesus H. Christ, how could I have forgotten about him? I was such a selfish bitch…what had happened to him with me gone? How had I not even checked to make sure he was okay? I didn't fight the tears this time and dissolved into a sobbing heap on the thick carpet.
"Oh, Cody…"