A/N: This is set after Scott's death, probably within a month or so after the Prof left. Just ramblings in a blank notepad that were rotting on my desktop, figured someone may as well read it.
Take note that the idea for this was blatently stolen from a ST: DS9 episode.. if you know DS9 you'll know the ep I'm talking about when you read the ending. No copyright infringment intended... on either side.
Definition of Reality
She shivered to the core of her soul as she sat in the dark, dirty cell that had recently become her home. The collar around her neck confined her breathing, caged her more so than the brick walls surrounding her. It denied her the use of the powers she had relied upon so deeply for the last half of her life.
She was not alone in her confinement; next to her, breathing shallow, lay the heavy form of the man she had once loved so deeply it hurt her to stand next to him. Now there was nothing between them, not their world, not their lives, and above all else not her powers. Here, she was not the leader of the X-Men, and here he was not the leader of the Thieves Guild. They were no longer Rogue and Gambit, reluctant super heroes, they were Rogue and Remy, far more reluctant prisoners.
She laid her hand lightly on his shoulder, allowing her bare fingers to gently stroke the protruding form of his collar bone. "Remy? Remy, hun, wake up."
He turned his head, his eyes cracking ever so slightly open. "Wha' it be, Chere?"
"Guards are comin', Sugah. We'd best be on our guard."
"Wha' good it do, Roguie, when we no powers to fight?"
Rogue sighed and moved towards the back of their cell, her back pressing against the hard walls, cutting into her flesh as she slid downwards once again. They'd been here less than two weeks and already he was giving up hope. He was a swamp rat, he needed his freedom, he had to be able to roam, come and go when he pleased or he would die. He was already starting to die inside, and Rogue found herself helpless to do anything. Her head lowered further as the guard came to their cell door.
"Food, muties. Don't know why we bother feeding ya, waste of fucking resources if ya ask me, but what the boss says goes, so eat."
The guard tossed pieces of meat and vegetables into the cell, landing them on the dirty floor, beside the ever running stream of silt filled water that trickled through. He laughed roughly before moving off towards the next cages, filled with mutants Rogue and Gambit would never get to see.
Rogue waited until the guard was out of distance before crawling forward once more, picking up the pieces of food off the floor and washing them off as best she could. She carried the food over to where Remy still lay, and broke up the pieces to hand to him.
"Eat, Sugah. Ya'll gotta keep up yoah strength or we'll nevah get outta heah."
"Don' matter, Chere. Don' matter 't'all." He turned away from her. "Remy'd die now an' t'ain't no one give a damn."
"Ah'd care, Remy. Y'all know that well as Ah do!"
"C'est ça? Really, petite? You no care 'bout Remy when Remy not caged, why you care now?"
Rogue reached out towards him, only to have the large man pull away once more. "Ah never stopped carin', Remy! Things couldn't be out theah.. heah we've gotta live with each othah. Ah need ya, Swamp Rat. Ah cain't live heah without ya."
Remy LeBeau, his heart breaking, still kept turned away. There was no sense getting the girl's hopes up for what never could be.
*************
They'd been on a routine mission. Take the smaller plane and fly over Genosha, make sure the mutant camps were not being re-established. Every two or three months two X-Men performed this check, and this time around Rogue and Gambit drew the short straws. So they packed their gear. They'd only be gone maybe four days. A day down, two days there, a day back. Just to make sure everything was still running smoothly.
They'd hardly spoken on the plane trip over. Ever since Gambit took it upon himself to accept leadership of the Thieves Guild, their relationship had been strained to say the least. It didn't help with everything they'd been through recently with the High Evolutionary, with Scott dying, with the professor leaving. They hadn't had the time they needed to talk, and now it was just too late for either of them.
So they bore the ride in silence. They examined Genosha in silence. From all appearances the island was as quiet as ever; the mutant camps all remained destroyed, nothing appeared out of the ordinary. Until the back end of the jet blew out from under them, and they were left trying to control the nose dive of what was left of the plane. There was no hope and Remy would have died if Rogue hadn't grabbed him from behind, flying out the hole of the wreckage and into the less than warm night air.
Mid-flight, Rogue stopped and turned, peering about in circles, trying to find what had struck them, but the black skies revealed nothing of their secrets. She dove for the ground, steering clear of the ever descending ruins of the small plane, and was a mere two hundred feet off the ground when she herself was struck from behind. Whatever hit her bore the weight of an airplane itself, and she was forced to drop Remy, sending up a slight prayer that he would land all right. She turned, only to be hit once more, but not by a dud. A nuclear warhead stared her in the face moments before it exploded, driving the now extremely weakened girl head first into the rocky cliffs below.
Dragging herself up with her last precious moments of strength, Rogue scanned the horizon for Gambit, calling out to him in a weak voice. One small explosion caught her attention, and she turned in its direction, only to see Gambit going down under the control of newly designed Sentinels. A long metal cord wrapped around her waist. Too weakened to fight, Rogue let the sentinel draw her up into the air, and crush the oxygen out of her ravaged body.
Mercifully, she blacked out, only to wake up powerless, and trapped with no hope of escape.
**************
Rogue refused to think of how they'd been captured, taken by surprise when they were supposed to be professionals. She knew she was too wrapped up in trying to make Remy feel miserable to have been paying attention to her entire surroundings. This was supposed to have been routine, and now they were trapped. They had held out hope that the remainder of the X-Men team would come for them, but after two weeks hope began to dim. Jean knew where they were, everyone knew where they were and yet no rescue appeared in the skies, and they were still here.
She was becoming pacified now, her thoughts turning to Remy more than rescue. He had moved, now leaning against the walls of their confinement, staring out the barred windows of their door. She sat down beside him and laid a hand on his leg.
"Y'all figure they'll let us outta here anytime soon, hun?"
"Don' play coy wit' me, Roguie. You know well's me dat dey no let us out here never."
"Cain't blame a girl for tryin' to make conversation, Sugah. It gets real lonely in heah when yoah cell mate hardly speaks a word."
Finally, Gambit turned and looked into Rogue's eyes. "Why you care, Chere? Why you care in here an' not out dere?"
Rogue sighed. "Out theah, yoah you and Ah'm me. We have duties and trusts to keep. In heah, maybe we can be the people we weah before life got in the way."
"You wan' be Remy's lover, girl, dat what you tryin' say?"
She shrugged. "Ah don't know, Remy. Ah really don't."
"Den you tell Remy when you made up your mind, Rogue. Till den, we be friends. Remy can' keep bein' mean to you. You been my worl' for far too long."
Rogue's dirt streaked face broke into the first smile to cross it in what seemed like forever. Without warning she wrapped her arms around Gambit's neck, and pressed her lips to his cheek. "Ah love ya, Swamp Rat. Ya know that don't ya?"
Remy gave her a small, sad smile. "Som'times, Chere, som'times."
She lowered her head down to rest on his chest, and together they watched the sky dim from bright blue, to orange, to black. And still they sat. The guards wouldn't return until the next day, perhaps not even then. They would be alone for a while.
Rogue had often wondered what it would be like to be powerless. She had been once or twice in the past, once actually here in Genosha.. something she preferred to forget and had until the Professor dragged Carol's memories out of her mind. She'd known the feel of men's hands upon her, just not by choice. As she continued thinking, her eyes trailed to the doorway once more. She paused.
"Remy?"
"Yea, Chere?"
"Ah don't think we're in Genosha anymoah."
"What you mean, Rogue?"
"Look outside. Does it look to you like Genosha looked? And this cell. Ah didn't think of it befoah.. but it's not the same."
"Den da question becomes, Chere, where are we?"
"Ah don't know, but Ah sure wish we knew why we'ah bein' held."
Without warning the door to their cell opened and two humans stood before them with four sentinels behind.
"You are to appear for trial. Now."
"Trial? Monsieur, what we do?"
"You will find out at trial, mutie, now move. And no funny business. The sentinels have orders to kill if you get out of line."
"We come, we come. Dere no need for t'reats, mon ami."
Rogue helped Gambit to his feet, and together they walked side by side in front of the humans, the sentinels no more than a few feet behind. The thunderous steps of the large robots shook the ground, defying any possibility of escape either of the two could come up with. Within twenty minutes, they were standing in a large room before a board of humans, staring down at the two with undisguised disgust.
"Mutants. You are charged with invading the space of normal human beings. You are charged with destructive use of mutant abilities, and destruction of private property. How do you plead."
"Homme, we don' know what we did to deserve this, but dem charges you lay, dey not de truth!"
"That's right, Sugah. There ain't nothin' we did wrong!"
"Silence. You have said enough. We have proof of the charges against you and you have been found guilty."
"What proof, ami? An' dis here ain' no trial! Dis a pers'cution!"
"You are sentenced to twenty years of cell confinement. You will not be removed from that cell. Should you die in that cell your body will be buried without ceremony. Guards, Sentinels, return the prisoners to their cell." The head human brought down a gavel, and the guards came forth, one's hands circling Rogue's upper arms.
Gambit turned slowly. "You take dem hands off her, *ami*, or you be regrettin' it, non?"
"You threatening me, mutie?"
"Only if you insist."
"Guard, get those mutants out of my courtroom!"
"Yessir!" With a jerk of his head towards the door, the guards moved Rogue and Gambit once more back to their cell.
"We got a chance, Sugah?"
"Not wit' dose sentinels hangin' 'round. Wit'out our powers, we don' have not'in'."
"What are we goin' to do?" Rogue's head hung as she walked, rapidly losing hope in everything.
"Bide our time, Chere, an' hope Jeannie's got sum't'ing up her sleeve."
"Lord, Swamp Rat, it's gonna be a long stay."
Neither one was pushed into their cell. A hand had come up to rest against Rogue's back and was promptly broken by Gambit's swift strike. Even lacking mutant powers, Gambit was quick and agile. The guard never saw what was coming.
"Remy warn you, non? Don' touch da girl!"
In place of the hand he broke, Gambit placed his hand on Rogue's back and led her gently forward before either of the guards could react. Once safely within the cell, he turned, prepared to do battle, but thankfully neither guard was up for the fight. They had other mutants to try and convict that day.
Rogue looked over at Gambit and shook her head slowly. "Y'all're a dogged gone fool, ya know that, Sugah?
Gambit shrugged, "Pour vous, Chere? Anytime."
************
Hank McCoy shook his head slowly, pouring over the readings before him.
"I am afraid, my dear girl, that I have no answers to your problem."
"Do you know at least how long it will take to get them out of this?" Jean Summers rested her head in her hands, sighing. She had a headache from an extended period within Cerebro, trying to reach their two lost teammates.
"I have no clue, Jean. I am really quite sorry."
Jean sighed. "It's not your fault, Hank. The entire team is left helpless on this one. All we can do is hope that Rogue and Gambit find a way to reach us.. wherever they are."
She turned and walked out of the medical laboratory, making her way slowly through the mansion and towards the kitchen. She was unsurprised to find Wolverine puttering around in the refrigerator.
"Hey, Jeannie."
"Logan."
"Any luck with our would be love birds?"
"No, nothing. I've tried every level of psionic resonance, Hank has tried every test he can think of, and we are still unable to contact them. They're simply.. beyond our reach."
Wolverine shrugged slowly, turning to look at Jean as he stood in the doorway. "If it makes ya feel better, Jeannie, at least they're together. Between the two of them watching after the other, ain't nothing gonna happen to them worse than already."
Jean sighed and leaned against the counter, her head lowering and falling into her hands. "Oh, Scott. Why couldn't you be here?"
As much as the team surrounded her, Scott Summers, her husband and psionic link partner was dead and gone, and she was left alone. For the first time in a long time, Jean was helpless and at a loss for action.
**********
Another month had passed for Rogue and Gambit. His hair had begun to grow out of its generally styled form; his beard had grown in thick and ragged. Rogue bathed quietly in the corner, the silt strewn water doing nothing to cleanse her skin, but for sanity's sake she had to make the effort.
She was not completely oblivious to the glances Remy kept throwing in her direction, sizing up her increasingly naked body as she rubbed water into her skin and hair. In fact, she was slowly beginning to enjoy his watching her. Without her powers, trapped in this hole in some forgotten region of the world, everything she had always desired to do with the man sitting before her was a definite option. So she turned slightly, allowing him complete visual access to her full breasts as she sluiced water down her body. She closed her eyes and smiled as his gasp of rising interest reached her ears.
For now they were playing look but don't touch. Remy watched her openly during each morning's bath, sitting on the edge of the stream, his eyes tracking every droplet of water that fell from her flesh. In the evenings she watched him, but less openly. She sat on the far side of their cell, the dim light shadowing his body mysteriously, but she saw enough to keep her muscles tense and her breathing sharp. It wasn't until the mark of two months confinement passed that they shared their first, real moment.
That evening Remy rose from his bath, standing before her dripping onto their dirt floor as he watched her with his head cocked slightly to the side.
"You like what you be seein', Chere?" he asked, with a slightly crooked smile.
Rogue blushed deeply, but couldn't stop her lips from curling to match his grin. "Maybe," she answered, her voice almost a whisper.
"You 'ave an answer to my question yet, Roguie? You wan' be Remy's lover?"
Almost beyond her control, Rogue's head nodded forward.
"You tell Remy what you want."
"Ah.. Ah'd like for ya to kiss me."
"Ah, Chere, I t'ought you'd never ask."
He moved forward slowly, reaching out a hand to slowly touch her flesh, first with one finger against her collar bone, then two fingers against her neck, moving to trace the pattern of her collar, then his entire hand against her cheek. The tips of his fingers caressed her soft skin before moving around to slowly touch her lips. The both sighed together, as he moved closer still, his hand traveling to the back of her head, moving her towards him. Ever so lightly he brushed his lips across hers, his eyes closing in pure reaction before deepening the kiss, feeling her body wilt against his. His free hand moved instantly to her lower back drawing her flush against him, his tongue prying open her lips and thrusting inside.
***********
"Something's happening with Rogue and Gambit, Hank, we have to get them out of there now!"
"I heartily concur. But I am afraid that there is little to nothing we can do at this point. We will have to continue our tests, and hope that sometime in the near future we will be able to determine how to get them out."
"How could this have happened? We tested everything so many times! It should have gone perfectly!"
"Jean, you know as well as I that there was no way to test every possibility. They took their chances going under, now it is up to us to get them out. We'll figure out what happened later, for now, they are counting on us."
Jean pushed her mind towards Rogue and Gambit once more, feeling their rising heart beats, their fogged covered minds. Something was familiar about the rising emotions that were blaring from her friends' bodies, but the distance between her mind and theirs made it nearly impossible to put her finger on. With every ounce of power she owned, she sent a comforting signal towards the two. She hoped that no matter what was happening to them, they'd hear her call and know that the X-Men were coming for them.
**********
It was hard to make a home out of their dingy cell. They never left; they never were allowed the feel of the air outside; never allowed the basic freedom offered to mankind. Instead they sat curled up together on the floor, sometimes dressed, sometimes not. Periodically they'd watch the sun rise and fall, and every so often a guard would come by and offer them a bit of food, but in the end, there was only the two of them.
Once past the initial trial and error, love making became the rule to pass the time, but never did it become boring. Instead they used their time to learn each other's bodies perfectly, discovering the planes that would bring the other to an orgasm of perfect harmony. Again and again they played, and yet still were ever mindful of their surroundings.
A year passed for them, then two years. A child was born; a little girl with red hair, green and black eyes, and a tiny little white streak over each of her ears. They named her Jacqueline.
Although their cell was not the place for a child to grow, no place to play, no chance to live, they still made the best of it. Their family of three grew to four within the next three years, and still they made space. When the guards cursed at them, screaming about bloody breeding mutants, they shrugged it off. No matter where they were, life still had to go on.
All hopes of the X-Men coming to their rescue had faded from their minds after the first year had passed. That life appeared to them only in the land of dreams. No more were they the super heroes they had once been, now they were just a small family in an even smaller place. Their second child, a boy, was called Pierre, in honor of the past lives and good old friends. He was a spunky little red headed rough and tumble boy, constantly tormenting his older sister. Neither of them realized that life was supposed to be different, and neither of them suffered as the years continued to pass them by.
***************
Time dragged as still Hank and Jean worked tirelessly to bring Rogue and Gambit back to them. Off and on they'd have to leave med lab to run their various missions. Sometimes they slept. Here and there they ate. Through it all they remained determined to bring their two lost members home.
"Jean, I do believe I've found the answer!"
Her head had been drooping towards the desk when Hanks excited voice startled her. She jumped to her feet.
"Show me!"
"If we just cross this wire here, and send a signal coded directly to each of their neural centers, we should be able to contact them. Once we have established a permanent link, we should be able to set the recall for two hours. We won't even have to go in after them! Once we have freed them from their confinements from here, they'll be able to do the rest of the work on their own."
Jean blinked rapidly as the relatively simple procedure became clear in her mind. "My God, Hank, how could have it taken us so long to find this?"
Hank sighed. "I am afraid that would be a miscalculation on my part. I was unaware of the wire having been set aside from my parameters. The area of differential was enough to, well, as Jubilee would say, stump the hell out of me."
"Show me what to do. Let's get our people home."
Together they began the process of, at long last, bringing Rogue and Remy back home.
************
Twelve years had passed since they had been confined to that cell. Jacqui was coming up on her tenth birthday; Pierre had just turned seven. The guards' visits to them were less and less frequent now, but each time they left larger amounts of food. Though Rogue and Remy had begun to worry whether their captors were going to continue caring for them as they had in the past, neither expressed their concerns to the other. They both merely slipped extra amounts of food into their children's dishes. The food left from what they absolutely didn't need to eat was tucked away and stored. They would be prepared for when the time came that the guards no longer visited.
They weren't prepared for the day their children got sick. It started out with a mild stomach cramp, turning rapidly into doubled up pain. They each held a child in desperation as their screams rattled off the walls of the cell, their faces red and screwed up in agony as if their very insides were eating away at them. Mercifully for the children, it didn't take long for them to die.
Tears clouding their vision, Rogue and Remy laid their son and daughter next to the ever flowing stream, covering them with one of the precious blankets left to warm them in the winter.
They never even had the time to mourn. Not more than an hour after Jacqui, the stronger of the two children, had finally succumbed, both Rogue and Remy began to feel dizzy.
"Wha' you t'ink, Chere? Dis de end for us, too?"
"Y'all don't think it was poison, do ya? Ah mean, they couldn't be that cruel! They was just children!"
Remy moved over to Rogue's side, drawing her down against his chest, sitting them both down against the wall.
"Non, Chere, it not be pois'n. Remy don' know wha' it be, but it not be pois'n."
They both quieted after that, sitting together and watching in a semi state of awe as the cell around them began to shimmer. It was fading in and out as if a hologram. The stronger the fading grew, the closer they held one another.
"You 'friad, Chere?"
"No. Ah know we'll be with Jacqui and Petey soon, Sugah. And we'll be together."
"Still, Remy hold you close if you don' mind."
"Ah'll never mind ya holdin' me, Remy. Ah love ya, Sugah."
"Remy love ya, too, Roguie. I always have."
He lowered his lips to hers, a final kiss in their final moments, glorying in the feel of her soft flesh against him. He had hoped it would make for his last moment of feeling, but even that was stolen from him as he felt her lips peel away from his. Her entire body shimmered and waved with the cell around them. He never even had the time to call out her name before the cell and Rogue disappeared together.
He cried out a strangled sound, but the black enveloped him so swiftly that it never reached his ears.
***********
"Hank?"
"They are awakening."
"How are they holding up?"
"Better than I would be in their situations."
"Can they hear us?"
"You'd be a better judge of that than I, dear girl. You are, after all, the telepath in our misfit family."
"Hank."
"Ah, here we are now. Welcome home Rogue, Remy."
Rogue tried to speak, and found her throat and mouth too dry. She peeked a dry tongue out to wet her lips before trying again. "How long've we been gone?"
"You've been out about two days, Rogue."
"Two days?" She shook her head weakly.
"You mis'taken, Jeannie. We gone a decade'r more!"
Hank put his hand reassuringly upon Remy's shoulder. "Do you not remember? This was a virtual reality experiment; we created it as a form of keeping our enemies confined justly rather than unjustly. You and Rogue, you both volunteered to test the machine 63 hours and 15 minutes ago. Contrary to what you may believe, you have never left med lab."
"But.. Ah remember it all! My children! Y'all cain't tell me they weren't real!"
Hank raised one furry eyebrow, but wisely kept his mouth shut. Jean moved to Rogue's bedside and sat next to her, resting a hand on her covered arm.
"Once you've had time to recover, we'll talk, Rogue. You and I alone. I'll do the same with Remy. When you're ready, we can talk it all through together. We had not intended to leave you under as long as you were, and I have no doubt you will have some psychological ramifications, but together we'll help you get through them."
"What if Ah don't wanna?"
"What do you mean?"
"Ah mean, in there Ah had mah children! Ah had Remy! Ah had a life! Sure it wasn't the nicest of lives and Ah had to live in a prison, but it was MAH life! You killed mah kids bringing us back heah!"
Remy closed his heart against the pain welling up at the memory of his children's agony in their last moments, and he rose out of his bed. Hank moved to push him back down onto the bed, and Remy raised a hand in warning.
"Beastie, you be my frien', and I don' wan' hurt you, but you let Remy be now, comprens?"
Blinking in a mild moment of shock, Hank withdrew his hand, and instead helped Remy rise. With the Beast's big, blue hand on his shoulder, Remy made his way slowly towards Rogue's bedside, settling down against her.
"You go on an' let us be now, mes amis. We be fine, Roguie an' me, you see."
Left with nothing to argue, Jean and Hank made their way slowly from med lab, allowing Rogue and Gambit the time alone they needed. Some feelings needed sorting out with only the people involved.
"Remy.. they killed Jacqui.. and Petey.."
"Non, Chere. Dey never ex'st but for here." He placed his hand over Rogue's heart, his other hand over his own. "Dey always be in our hearts, Roguie. An' maybe.. maybe som'day dey be born t'us, 'gain, non?"
"Ah.. Ah miss them. Ah miss us."
"We don' have t'stop being jus' cause we be here an' not dere. We know how we feel. Remy know how he feel 'bout you. Dat will never change."
They lay back together, encased in an embrace that was so familiar and yet so strange at the same time. Twelve years had passed and yet had not. They were back where they started now, but maybe.. just maybe.. Rogue and Gambit could have the future of which they had dreamed.
"Chere?"
"Ya, Sugah?"
"Will you marry me?"
END.