Chapter 14

It wasn't Rogue's voice. It was, but it wasn't . . . her soothing drawl was suddenly clipped into sharp Midwestern vowels. The eyes were her eyes, gray-green, but the expression in them was direct and blunt as Rogue's eyes could never be. There was a strange, warm undercurrent in her scent, as though Rogue's body were responding to thoughts and emotions it had never been called upon to handle before. Logan had never before known that body and soul had different scents. He'd never had occasion to learn it.

No two women ever smelled alike to him. And the body that had collapsed in Japan belonging to Rogue had awakened in New York belonging to someone else. Logan knew. He always knew.

"Who are you?" he demanded, staring straight through Rogue's eyes at whatever was looking through them.

The stranger's eyes blazed defiantly at him, and her jaw set as she braced herself. Even lying on her back in a hospital bed, she still managed to make it clear that she wasn't going to let him scare her. "Carol Susan Danvers, second lieutenant, three seven five three one four four seven."

Carol Susan Danvers. Rogue's Carol. That's what that warmth was in her scent: she smelled like a blonde. "Where in the name of all that's holy did you come from?"

"Carol Susan Danvers, second lieutenant, three seven five three one four four seven," she repeated, snapping her mouth shut after the last number.

Logan sighed. Yelling at her wasn't helping. "At ease, Lieutenant. You're nobody's prisoner. Not anymore, at least. Just sit up and calm down." They couldn't afford to have her panic; she could hurt Rogue. Heck, she could hurt all of them if she decided to.

Her eyes darting suspiciously between Logan and Gambit, she shoved herself up so she was sitting against the headboard. "Where am I?" she demanded. "What happened to me? How did I get here?"

"That's what we'd all like to know, but panicking ain't gonna help anything."

"J'n'comprends pas," Gambit insisted, his eyes flaring scarlet with stress. "Where's Rogue?"

"Let's deal with one problem at a time, okay, Cajun?" Logan suggested calmly. "Somebody'd better tell the Professor. We're gonna need his help."

"Elle est qui, elle?" Gambit demanded.

"I think," Logan told him, with one deep sigh for the exquisite difficulty of life in general, "that she's Rogue's nightmare. The blonde woman who was dying."

"Rogue," repeated the person who was not Rogue. "I know that name. I know her."

"You'd better, 'cause you're sitting in her skin right now."

She glanced down at herself, then yanked off her gloves to see her hands and seized handfuls of her heavy, curly red hair. "What happened to me?"

"Short answer? You died."

"I died?"

"At least, it looks like that was the plan. What seems to have happened is that you woke up in the wrong body."

"How did I get here?"

"Well, that's the question."

"Non," Gambit snapped. "De question is Where's Rogue?"

Carol turned Rogue's head and looked at him. "I think I know you, too," she observed, pursing her lips as she tried to remember. "I flew with you."

Gambit managed a twitch of a smile, but it wasn't a friendly smile. "I appreciate de compliment, ma'am, but I don't fly wid just anybody."

A meeting was convened in Professor Xavier's office.

In attendance were Professor Xavier himself, Beast, Wolverine, Gambit, and the person who was undeniably not Rogue. She was wearing a pair of Rogue's most conservative jeans and a plain, pale blue t-shirt that no one remembered Rogue owning. Short sleeves, no gloves, hair tied matter-of-factly at the base of her neck. It was like a new actress had taken over Rogue's part in the surrealist play that their lives had become, but she wasn't doing justice to the role.

Gambit hated her. He couldn't help it. He knew that this mess was much more his fault than hers, knew that she had suffered horribly, knew that she didn't want to be in that body, but none of it mattered. She wasn't Rogue, and her very presence was hurting Rogue, and that was more than enough for him to hate. He could hardly stand to look at her, but at the same time he couldn't bring himself to leave any room that she was in. Rogue was in danger, somewhere inside, and he had to be nearby to help when the opportunity came. He remembered how she'd screamed when this Carol had taken over her mind—that fierce, grating, primal shriek of soul-ripping agony. The memory made his blood run cold. And somewhere inside that body, she was shrieking to get out. He couldn't turn his back on her now.

"I don't remember very much," Carol informed the assembled group. "The last thing that's really clear is being on the base, and seeing this girl," she gestured rather uncomfortably to the body she wore, "and her mother walking toward me. I took her hand . . ." She trailed off, shaking her head. "Then everything's a bit of a mess. There are bits and fragments . . . I remember lying by a fire, waking up in straw, something about a train, a boxcar . . ."

Gambit pressed his tongue between his teeth and bit down to keep himself from snarling. Those memories were private. They belonged to him and to Rogue.

"Then there's a really clear one of flying over a coast road, and after that . . . everything goes dark. For a long time."

"That will be the psychic blocks I placed in Rogue's mind after her breakdown," Professor Xavier added. "I couldn't think of any other way to keep her safe. The two minds were too much for her system to handle. You would both have died if I hadn't acted."

"I'm not blaming you, sir," Carol assured him. "But after that, the next thing I remember is talking to Rogue."

"She told me she had a dream about you," Logan put in. "She'd been working all summer to get control of her powers and break down the psychic blocks. She felt she owed it to you to remember what she'd done."

"Well," Carol sighed, "I appreciate the thought. Then I woke up in your infirmary and here I am. In a manner of speaking."

"With Rogue's personality displaced into her own subconscious," said Professor Xavier. "The shock of Gambit's attack—"

"I didn' attack her," Gambit snapped.

"I apologize for my choice of words. When she was absorbed, the strain broke down the blocks that she'd already weakened. Carol's personality was released, and she took over."

"Another poor choice of words," Carol protested. "I didn't mean to."

"Can we stop wasting breath on whose fault this is?" Logan requested. "It's Mystique's fault. So now that we've got that settled, how are we going to get Rogue back?"

"Whatever we're going to do, we'd better do it quickly," Hank added. "Rogue's psychic markers are fading. Her genetic sequence is in flux. If we don't have this matter resolved within the next three days, I can't make any guarantee there'll be a Rogue for us to get back at all."

"I don't know if this is important right now," Carol interjected, "but does anyone here know what happened to my body? My own body?"

The Professor took that one. "Yes. It's in long-term intensive care at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida. You're comatose, and you have been for over a year."

Carol raised her . . . Rogue's . . . eyebrows. "That's impressive. I thought the Air Force would have pulled the plug on me long before this. I must be more valuable than I thought."

"They had some encouragement," Xavier admitted. "I didn't want to let your body die while there was still a chance, however slim, of returning your mind to it."

"Then let's go to Florida! The sooner I get back into my own body, the happier I'll be."

"And how do you figure on getting into it?" Logan asked. "Jumping?"

"You . . . you have psychics here. Surely they can do it."

The Professor shook his head. "If I could, I would have, a long time ago. It simply doesn't work that way. Rogue's absorbing ability is primarily physical, and thus not something I can control or duplicate."

Gambit spoke up, but he didn't move from his sprawled posture across half of the sofa, as though this whole conversation were deeply boring. "It can be duplicated. Wid drugs."

"Gambit, even if we had more of whatever it is that you took, I don't think it would be the best solution. We have enough leeches already. And I don't want to burden Carol with that permanent ability unless we absolutely have to."

"Wouldn't have to. Dey's a temporary serum. Well-tested, effective. I've taken it before. If we implanted Rogue's ability in Carol's body, it could absorb Carol back where she came from."

"And what if Rogue got absorbed, too?" Hank demanded. "What if the personality transfer isn't permanent?"

"What if the sky falls and we all forget to wear our helmets?" Logan asked. "Rogue's dying, and I haven't heard a better idea for saving her so far. If this drug has a chance of working, let's go for it."

Gambit sighed and sat up. "Dat's gonna be de trick."

"Why? Where is this drug?"

"Muir Island."

"With Moira?" asked Professor Xavier. "It's a long way, but the Jet can certainly make the trip in plenty of time. I'll call."

"Dat's not de problem. De problem is dat Dr. MacTaggart may not take y'call. She's gonna be a bit out of humor wid me right now."

Everyone stared at him.

"And what, pray tell," Hank asked at last, "did you do to infuriate such a fair-minded and sympathetic scientist?"

Gambit took a deep breath, sat up perfectly straight, and looked Professor Xavier straight in the eye. Remember you are a thief. You take responsibility for your own actions and you never let yourself be ashamed of what you are. "I broke into her lab and stole the drug I used t'give myself Rogue's powers. She'd forbidden me t'touch de stuff. I took it anyway."

Silence stretched through the room, like rubber bands ready to snap. Remy gritted his teeth and refused to flinch, to back down. I am a thief. What's done is done.

"Oh, Gambit, you foolish boy," Hank sighed, shaking his head. "What on earth possessed you to do something so stupid?"

"I vouched for you to her," Xavier told him, and the soft, sad words landed on Remy like strokes of a whip. "I assured her that I trusted you and that she needed have no qualms about inviting you into her home. What you have done reflects upon me, and upon the Institute. Moira and Sean have been my friends for decades, and the Muir Island Research Center has been our ally from the instant both establishments were founded. Your one foolish decision may have destroyed all of that."

"I did it for Rogue."

"For Rogue, you insulted and alienated the only people who could help us?" Carol asked, her voice flat with sarcasm. "I'm sure she appreciates it."

"Ferme-la," Gambit snapped at her. "An' would it kill you t'put on some sleeves? Dat ain't your body t'be showin' off."

"Cajun, if you don't shut your mouth, I will shut it for you," Logan snarled.

"I need to call Moira." The Professor pulled his chair back from the conference circle and headed for the phone on his desk. "Could I have the room, please?"

Everyone else stood up and left the office.

Logan snagged Gambit by the coat sleeve on the way out the door. "Get out of the house, Gumbo," he ordered. "Just for today. You're not fit for company, and that call's gonna be awkward enough without the Professor having to make it while you're still under his roof."

Gambit's gaze flicked to Carol, who was watching them both with wary, suspicious eyes.

"We'll keep an eye on her. Go on; get out."

Gambit went.

He was in Manhattan three hours later, recovering his bike from the high-security no-questions-asked garage where he'd left it. It had taken him a long time to hitch rides all the way down here, but he didn't feel like going straight back. He didn't want to stay away from Rogue, but he also didn't want to have to hear how that phone call ended up going.

He found a pay phone.

"Voilà Bobby, leave a message."

"Bobby, it's me. Pick up." He hung up the phone, waited thirty seconds, and called again.

This time, it was answered on the first ring. "'Allo?"

Over the phone line, Remy could hear his father's voice. "Qui est?"

"Personne. Just a sec."

Remy sighed. If that didn't add insult to injury, discovering on today of all days that your family's code name for you was 'nobody.' Well, at least he had a code name. It was better than making Bobby lie.

He heard the creak of the screen door as Bobby headed outside. "Hey, DB. What's up in de world of N'Awlins' very own Master-T'ief-in-trainin?"

"Oh, nothin' much," Remy sighed, leaning back against the side of the phone booth. "Just brought my life crashin' down around my ears."

"So . . . business as usual, huh?"

"Yeah, pretty much." In as few words as possible, Remy summarized the mess he'd made. Bobby listened to the whole thing, not saying anything beyond the occasional noise to let Remy know he was still listening. Remy could hear the creak of the porch swing.

Finally, Bobby concluded, "You screwed up big time, little brother."

"I know."

"Don'you know better dan t'steal from somebody dat took y'in outta de rain?"

"I do. I wasn't t'inkin' straight."

"No kiddin'."

"T'anks for de sympathy, Bobby. I feel loads better. So glad I got family t'turn to in my hour'a need."

"What'd you want me to tell you, Remy? Dat I'm worried? 'Course I'm worried—Rogue's like my sister. But you're gonna have to suck it up now, an' you know it. Beg if you have to. Your bullheadedness got you both inta dis mess, and no amount'a t'ievin' or pride is gonna get you out."

"Yeah, I know.

"And don't you forget about the Guilds, either. Whether you like it or not, you're still on de hunt for your Mark, and if you stay wid Rogue too long people are gonna start to ask questions. You're global news, mon frère. You've declared, an'dey's no backin' out now. Master T'ief ain't somethin' you quit."

"Je le sais. I jus'can't go 'till I know she's gonna be all right."

"Just be careful. An'take good care of dat girl. Lan'knows y'ain't de only one dat cares about her. Memère already likes her better'n she likes you."

Against his better judgment, Gambit laughed. "Someday, when dis is all over, y'all are gonna have t'come up to New York an' meet de folks."

"I appreciate de invitation, DB, but I dunno what Marius would have t'say about dat." He paused, then announced, "Père's callin'. I gotta go."

"Yeah. I'm runnin' outta quarters up here anyway."

"We'll be prayin' fo' ya. Don't you roll yo'eyes at me."

"I ain't," said Remy, who was.

"Liar. Take care, mon gar. Watch yo'step."

Storm found Carol sitting on the roof of the house. "I rather thought I might find you up here," she observed, setting herself down gently on the tiles. "Rogue retreats here, too, when she's upset. So do I. Perhaps we who are airborne are never truly comfortable with roofs and walls."

Carol smiled at her. It was a strange expression on Rogue's mouth—it didn't quite match. "Maybe you're right. I do always feel a little safer with the sky over my head. But I just wanted to come up here to . . . breathe, I guess. Spending a year trapped in someone else's mind really makes you appreciate the virtues of having physical form. Breathing's at the top of the list. Blinking. Having hands." She held her hands up in front of her face, staring at them, then let them fall on her knees with a little sighing chuckle. "I just wish I could be experiencing it without it being at someone else's expense."

"I hear that soon you will be back in your own body," Storm assured her. "And you will both be fine."

"That's the theory." Carol leaned back and stuck her legs out in front of her, crossing her ankles. "But from what I understand, even if we do get the drug we're after, any number of things could still go wrong."

"They will not. Rogue is very strong, and so, it seems, are you. Jean and Professor Xavier are both powerful and competent telepaths, and Doctor MacTaggart is one of the best geneticists in the world. We have a better chance than anyone of making this work correctly."

"And if it does work correctly, what then? My body, lying unoccupied in that hospital bed for more than a year . . . this poor girl's awful powers . . ." She shook her head, the ponytail swinging across her back. "I just can't shake the feeling that this might be the last day of my life when I can fly."

Storm put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Then fly," she ordered gently. "Rogue will not mind."

"Me flying in her body? Why would she mind that? She'd be thrilled!"

"I trained her to fly, when first she acquired the ability. She was happier, and calmer, when she was in the air than she was anywhere else . . . except perhaps with Gambit." Storm smiled. "But I think Rogue would rather you fly."

"I think he'd rather that, too." Carol laughed. "His eyes! If looks could kill . . ." She rubbed one hand uncomfortably against the opposite arm. Though she hadn't conceded to Gambit's order to cover the body she occupied, Storm could see that his attack had stung her.

"When you are safely in your own body, Gambit will bear you no ill will. He does not bear grudges, talented though he may be at making others bear them against him. Don't concern yourself with Gambit. We are a strong team, and we take care of our own. You have not been in the air, where you belong, for more than a year. Go."

An astonishingly powerful gust of wind came whipping across the roof, ruffling Storm's hair and pitching Carol headlong into the sky.

If she was to have only this brief moment, it should at least be a good moment.

"Please, Moira—"

"I don't understand how ye even worked up the gall to call me, Charles. Your student broke into my laboratory and stole an impossibly dangerous serum. He's made himself powerful enough to destroy the world. He's nearly killed your Rogue. How could you have let this happen?"

"Yes, his actions were wrong. But we're setting that aside for now, and focusing on Rogue and Carol."

"You can't set aside the fact that you have in your house a career criminal potentially more powerful than your entire team!"

"To save Rogue's life, I will set aside quite a bit. Gambit's not dangerous to himself or anyone else right now. He's devastated at what he's done. But however ill-advised his actions, they've given us the opportunity to save a life I'd all but given up for lost. Please, Moira. I need your help. And if you wish me to pay for that help by throwing Gambit out of the Institute, neither he nor I will have the smallest objection."

Moira made a sound that was part sigh, part snort, part snarl, all frustrated Scotswoman. "For Rogue's sake, and yours, Charles, I'll come. We can talk about Gambit when I get there."

"I'll send the jet for you. Thank you so much, Moira."

"Don't thank me just yet." She cut the connection.

Carol stayed in the air a long time. It wasn't just the joy of flying again—though Storm had been right; she needed it. It was dread of going back into that strange house. She'd stolen someone's whole life right out from under her. Of course, Rogue had done the same to her, but that didn't make them even. How could two women who had never met manage to hurt one another so much?

She'd been out for more than a year. The attack had come in April; it was now the next September. What about her parents? Her brothers? Her C.O.? Her apartment? The projects she'd been working on, the birthday parties she'd been looking forward to? Her fish?

No one would have thought to feed her fish. Nobody worried about fish when their owner fell into an unexplained coma. If she got out of this thing, she was writing a living will that included provisions for her pets.

She was flying above New York in a body that she'd stolen against her will after a year and a half of oblivion, and she was worried about her fish. Life just got funnier and funnier.

Reluctantly, she altered her course and headed back the way she'd come. If she didn't stay close to the house, the red-eyed Cajun would probably hijack an airplane to come after her.

The second floor of the house was divided into a girls' wing and a boys' wing. Since there were more male students than female, the girls' wing had a few empty rooms, one of which had been set aside for her use 'while she was with them.' But Carol didn't head for it. The body she occupied went automatically to one of the first doors on the hallway, and she let it go, following its habit. She'd been in here before, to find something to wear, but she'd left as quickly as she could. She was invading someone's privacy.

This was Rogue's room. It was easy to tell what part of the space belonged to which roommate: all of Kitty's things were pastel, and all Rogue's were dark, in forest green or navy blue or burgundy or gray. Feeling like a criminal, Carol drifted to the dressing table, where a few framed photographs rested among the cosmetics and hairbrushes. There was a picture of Rogue, with a couple of her classmates, laughing at an amusement park; one of the entire team next to a Christmas tree; one of Rogue and Gambit, oblivious to the camera, standing in the gazebo in the late afternoon with their eyes silently fixed on one another. Whoever had taken the picture knew them well, and had a good photographic eye—it was more art than snapshot.

After studying the picture, she set it down and turned her attention to the mirror. There were postcards stuck all around the frame, each from a different city: Cairo, Frankfurt, Istanbul. She selected one at random and flipped it over. The only message was a sketch of two playing cards.

She put the card back where she'd found it and picked up a half-empty bottle of liquid foundation. Even though her own skin was quite fair, she would never have dreamed of wearing anything so pale. She tipped the bottle onto her finger and experimentally rubbed a little of the stuff on her cheek. It was too light for the skin now.

The door opened. Carol dropped the bottle, spilling foundation over the mahogany table. "I'm sorry—"

"No, I'm sorry," protested the black-haired boy who'd poked his head inside. "I guess I forgot I'm supposed to knock. Rogue and Kitty don't mind. I just wanted to . . . I dunno . . . say hi, or something. I'm Kurt."

Carol glanced down at the photographs. "You're in this picture," she murmured. "Here with Rogue."

Kurt crossed the room to look at it. "Yeah, that was two summers ago, at MGM Studios. Ze professor let us fly down for the day."

"So it was before . . ."

"Before she met you, yeah. She couldn't fly, but she was the best hand-to-hand fighter on the team. And she was a huge roller coaster junkie."

"I am, too," Carol admitted. "Kurt, I'm so sorry about what's happened to your friend—"

"My sister," Kurt corrected.

Carol glanced in the mirror at the face she wore. No particular resemblance, really, but siblings were like that sometimes. "Your sister," she repeated obediently. "I never meant to take her life away from her. I can't imagine how hard this must be for you."

"It's okay," Kurt insisted. "Rogue always felt awful about what happened to you, even when she couldn't remember much of it. So awful she wouldn't even talk about it. I know she would have chosen all this, to give you a chance to get your life back."

Carol shook her head, her eyes straying ashamedly down to the puddle of spilled makeup. "She could die if this experiment goes wrong. Not even die properly, in her own body . . . just fade away into nothing. Forget herself."

"Doesn't matter, to Rogue. I've seen her risk her life before. And I know she'd try all sorts of crazy before she'd let Mystique beat her."

"Mystique," Carol repeated. "I've heard that name before. In the meeting, they said that this was Mystique's fault. But I don't know anyone named Mystique. Not a soul."

"Oh, you probably knew her," Kurt insisted, his voice weary and resigned. "She vas a shape-shifter, so she could have been anybody. Anybody you ever knew who had a reason to hate you. She vas good at keeping grudges. But so is Rogue, and she's got a bigger grudge against Mystique zan you could even believe."

Outside, Carol heard the rumble of a large jet engine, flying low and approaching fast. Kurt turned towards the window, a smile erasing the discomfort and sadness on his face. "Zat's the X-Jet. Logan's back."

"That's your jet?" Carol demanded, her well-trained Air Force ear trying frantically to identify the sound. "What is that, a Blackbird?"

"Yep," Kurt told her proudly. "But zat's nothing. You should see ze plastic helicopter."

Author's Notes:

Wow, now the French is coming thick and fast.

J'n'comprends pas: I don't understand.

Elle est qui, elle?: Who is she?

Ferme-la: This is an extremely rude way to tell somebody to shut up.

'Allo: This is how French people say Hello on the phone. Just on the phone. I don't know why.

Qui est: Who is it? Actually, it should be qui est-ce que c'est? but when you're actually talking it streamlines down to qui est.

Mon frère: My brother.

Je le sais: I know it.

Mon gar: Dude; man. A casual form of address amongst guys.