"Again Rogue!" Scott yelled from the observation deck of the Danger Room.
"Ah cain't Cyke." She yelled back from her knees, head down in the middle of the metal floor. "Ah can handle three Sentinels, but it's when you throw that fourth one in...I just get all messed up." She clenched her fists in frustration. She wanted to have it out again, but she was tired and she just couldn't do it.
Scott paced back and forth in front of the observation window, watching the figure huddled on the floor in front of him. "That's unacceptable Rogue!" He yelled down into the metal room. "Is that what you would say in combat? I can't?"
His tone urged her back to her feet, and she stared up to where she knew the window was in defiance. "This ain't combat!" She waved her arm around the room as if to accentuate the point. "This is a controlled battle environment. My life doesn't depend on it. AH CAN'T DO IT!"
Scott slammed his fists down on the back of the seat in front of him. "You will do it Rogue." He hissed into the microphone. "I am going to run the scenario again, and if you fail I'll run it again until you get it right." Typing in the scenario sequence he watched as the red warning lights flashed in the Danger Room for an instant before the scenario started. He watched as Rogue fought her way through a concrete jungle, taking out first one Sentinel, then another. It was the third and fourth ones that had been giving her problems. Sentinels usually attacked in groups, and Rogue had yet not been able to concentrate on more than one opponent at a time. This time he watched as she flew into the third Sentinel while the fourth aimed a laser beam at her and fired. Scott was about to shut the program down yet again when he saw the girl bank away from the beam, using her momentum to hurl herself into the attacking Sentinel, then changed angles to go underneath the last one. From behind she grabbed the oversized robot's head and removed it from its shoulders. The Sentinel fell to the ground deactivated as the scene in the room slowly faded back to normal. Rogue stood to one side of the room, hands on her hips staring up into the observation deck.
"How's that Scott? Or do ah gotta do it again." She almost spat up at him.
Cyclops just smiled into the microphone, "I knew you could do it."
* * * * *
"Jean, ah..." the girl started, then stopped, fidgeting on the end of the bench, absently pulling on her gloves. "It's her!" she blurt out at the telepath, holding a hand up to her head. Jean just sat patiently, waiting for Rogue to go into a better explanation of what was going on. "Ah went on that S.H.I.E.L.D. recon, remember." Jean nodded solemnly, and Rogue remembered how Jean had been one of the team to ream her for how stupid it had been. "The guy I was saving, he was an ex-boyfriend of hers or something. She just kept comin' out." Rogue anguished trying to explain. "Not tryin' to take over exactly," she corrected. "Just her memories...it was so...ah thought ah was her!" Rogue shouted in frustration. "This has to stop." Rogue almost whispered. "Ah want my own life, not hers."
Jean nodded sympathetically as she moved to sit down next to the girl, no woman she corrected herself. "I can't even begin to imagine what it must be like Rogue." Jean said as she took Rogue's gloved hand. "But you, I, and the Professor have gone over this before. I can't tell you what happened, but her memories are part of yours now. I can fade them, but that doesn't mean that they'll go away completely."
"Please." Rogue begged near tears. "Ah want my life back."
Jean nodded and stepped gingerly out onto the astral plane and into Rogue's mind.