PART FIVE

GAMBIT


Abandoned, he withdrew into a dark spot and thought.

Days passed.

He remembered.

The time she had, laughing, dunked him, fully clothed into the pool. When she had gone blind as a result of absorbing Cyke's power, and how he had been determined to earn her trust by becoming her guide. The betrayal in her eyes as she flew away from him, leaving him so very alone in Seattle. In Antarctica.

Suddenly, he felt a little less than friendly toward his mind-mate. Things had occurred for which they forgave each other with words, but he wondered how much absolving either one of them had done in their hearts. Truthfully, he'd been a part of something brutally and ferociously wrong, but he would carry the burden of that guilt with him for the rest of his life as punishment, while she Her sins, her former alliance with Mystique's mutant terrorists, had been all but washed away in the following years until she had reached a kind of absolution -

Nevertheless, wasn't that something of a moot point now? They had wronged each other, yes; but they had gotten past it to the truth of the situation, which was that they loved each other. Right? Still a little hostile, Remy brooded over that fine point for a moment.

Why the hell would we torture each ot'er so much otherwise, neh? I love her, she love me, we all one big happy fam'ly

And if you b'lieve dat one, ami, I got a great bridge I'd love to sell you. He blew out a gust of air. What's the matter wi' me? When am I gonna stop questionin' everythin' I know is beyond question?

Remy looked out through her awareness. Now, she was lying quietly in her bed, her face to the window, absorbing the last rays of sunset. Out of the corner of her eye, he could just glimpse a creamy, lightly muscled arm and the light blue sheet she had pulled up to her chin. Her thoughts were sleepy and disjointed, and over everything was a pall of weariness from which she seemed unable to rouse herself.

This trial of jumping into and out of personas, while taking its toll on his battered id, had clearly begun to destroy hers thoroughly. No longer could she distinguish when she was, much less where or which role she played. Sometimes when Scott came to her, she thought he was Bobby, which confused everyone a whole lot, and nearly caused the Iceman in this time to be fried by a well-aimed optic blast. Fortunately, Remy had been able to wrench Rogue's consciousness back to the present in time to prevent that catastrophe. Secretly he wondered what the result would be if she ever mentioned Magnus - somehow, he thought that would make for a very entertaining night indeed.

Only that afternoon, Rogue had awakened vague and confused after a friend of Storm's had brought her baby son to visit. Half of the team had been lazing around the pool on a rare day of quiet, Rogue included, trying to soak up some kind of sustenance from the early autumn sun. She claimed the sunshine healed her, that her head was clearer outside than in; it was a phenomenon that Ororo attested to, and Moira reluctantly admitted might help. So, although the summer days had barely faded into early fall, Rogue had lain weakly in her lounge chair, wrapped in blankets to fight off the chill that seemed to wrack her body.

Asleep upon Ororo and Meggan's arrival, the baby's cooing and laughter had quickly invaded her dreams. Scott was away on a mission, but Logan was there by her side to monitor her - so that at her first whimper, he reached over and grasped a gloved hand in his own.

"Rogue, what is it?"

Across the pool, Ororo and Meggan chatted gaily on, unaware of Rogue's plight. The baby gurgled and squealed as Ororo tickled his tummy, but at the happy noise, tears began to run down from beneath Rogue's closed eyelids. Logan brushed them away carefully, attempting to wake his friend.

Lowering his voice further, he murmured into her ear, "What is it, darlin'? What do you see?"

She seemed to strain against her emotions, still wrapped in her dreams, moaning softly, "Baby boywhere are you? Where's my baby?"

Logan started in surprise and sat back on his heels. What was she mumbling about? He had no recollection of her ever mentioning family or children – where was this coming from?

From inside, Remy watched the foul play of events repeating within her dreams – the shattering impact of the loss of her child, their reunion, the end of that world. Helpless behind the walls barring him from interference, he nonetheless reached out with all of his heart to try to calm her but her anguish was too overwhelming.

As she fell deeper, Logan began to slap her face gently, trying to bring her out of it. By this time, Ororo had realized that there was a problem, and rushed over to help. Together they attempted every method of waking her they could think of, but to no avail. Trapped in her nightmares, Rogue sank deeper into the pseudo-reality, crying for her child, her Charles –

Suddenly, Meggan appeared at Ororo's side and moved past her to set her son on Rogue's lap. Abruptly, the torrent of pain smoothed away from her face and she cuddled the little boy, who cooed happily up at her. All at once, her eyes flashed open and she blinked in confusion, unable to place her surroundings.

"Where – what -?" she began to ask, but the baby had grasped for a tendril of her hair and she stopped in surprise at the tiny burbling figure clinging to her. Automatically, she brushed a gloved finger against his face and he smiled, his toothless, chubby face delighting her and crushing her at the same time.

"You were dreamin' girl – so deep we couldn't wake ya up, til Meggan put Mikey there in your lap," Logan informed her. He put a hand on her shoulder. "You were cryin' for a baby, Rogue – do you remember?"

Rogue froze. "I what?" she asked softly.

Ororo touched her forehead. "Your mind is so confused – you were looking for your son, but Rogue- " she broke off and bit her lip.

"I don't have a baby," Rogue finished softly. She looked down at little Michael whose sunny disposition had clouded at all of the heaviness emitting from the grown-ups. To reassure him, Rogue touched his cheek again and gave him a last cuddle before handing him back to his mother. He watched her with curious eyes, but gave a sleepy smile and drifted off on his mother's shoulder.

"I remember having a baby, Ro. I remember holdin' him in my arms for the first time, I remember that someone stole him from meI remember these things like they were real, but they couldn't have been"

Rogue trailed off, lines of bittersweet joy etching into her face. Suddenly she looked older than her twenty-five years, older and hard-worn. "I had a husband and a lover once, and the sweetest baby boy there ever was, but something killed them, killed all of us –" Her head drooped and she raised herself slowly from her chair, gathering her blankets around her like a shroud. "I'm sorry t'cause such a commotion. I think I need to be alone for a bit."

Her teammates had watched with troubled eyes as she made her way haltingly the few feet to the patio door and vanished inside of the mansion.

Now she lay drifting in and out of a grey netherworld, assaulted by visions of things that had never occurred to her in this place, this portion of reality. As the last rays of sun faded, Remy came to a decision. Bringing her to him had not proved all that effective. It was time to go to her. He waited as the torment began, reluctant to interfere unless absolutely necessary this time. Gradually, her mind fled from them, and moved to a place he had not witnessed before. Cautiously, he took a step out into her repose and then stopped to gain his bearings.

She dreamed of a summer evening, watching dusk fall by the stream that ran across the mansion's property. Sitting on its bank, she had withdrawn deeply away from the nightmares that plagued her, to this, her last refuge from insanity. He hated to break her illusions, and he hesitated, wondering how to approach her without tipping her over the brink.

Absently, she trailed a hand in the brook, relishing its cool, smooth feeling. A warm breeze ruffled her hair, whipping long wavy tendrils across her face. He remembered the day she had chopped off the heavy mass to her shoulders, her enjoyment at the look of shock on his face. "Y'all want it, y'all can take care of it. Me, I can do without that tangle for awhile," she had informed him, a mischievous smile playing about the corners of her mouth.

Of course, he thought she looked beautiful no matter what she did to herself, and the shortened locks were an attractive frame for her strong-featured face. Still, sometimes he missed running his fingers through that glorious mass, and now here it all was again. With considerable effort, he stopped himself from reaching out to do just that.

Now she brushed the offending hair out of her eyes and rested her chin on her hand, staring out into the dusky woods beyond the stream. Remy took a step out of the woods and cleared his throat. She glanced over at him, her eyes widening. Quickly, she scrambled to her feet, uncertainly backing a few steps away from him.

"What's going on? Who are you?" she blurted, her face pale. He stopped moving immediately and stood quietly, loosely, his hands palms-up.

"Chere, you remember me?" he asked slowly.

At the sound of his voice, she relaxed a little. "You're the man in the dreams, the voice in my head."

"Dat'd be me."

She sat down again. "So you are real?" He nodded. "And you're really here?" Again, he assented, chancing a step closer to her.

"I don' mean t'scare you, but I needed t'talk to you and I've had a hell of a time gettin' to you."

She frowned. "What do you mean?"

"I got stuck b'hind some kind o' mental walls someone erected in here, but they allowed me t'break through. They wanted t'help me help you." While speaking, he had moved to within a few feet of her; now he crouched a little ways away.

"They who?" she wanted to know.

Remy took a deep breath, inhaling the scents of the stream, the meadow, and the forest across from them. It was a wild, earthy smell, and a part of him marveled at the precision of her sense memory. He looked down at his hands, freed from their gloves for the first time in a long while. Blinking, he realized that while he had imagined himself to be in uniform, here, he was dressed merely in a pair of faded blue jeans and a worn green T-shirt. His fiddlin' clothes, he called them – the clothing he wore to mess with his motorcycle, or play basketball, or just to laze around the house in. Some part of her remembered, then, for she had seen him dressed so on many occasions.

He looked up to meet her curious eyes and remembered the question. "You don't know me at all?" he asked softly.

A frown creased her forehead as she studied him for a long moment. "I – I do, but I can't place you."

"Think, chere. Concentrate." He watched her labor to sift through a miasma of tangled memories before giving up with a cry.

"I don't know! I can't tell. I see more than one of you, and I don't know what's real!" She turned her face away, panting slightly from exertion. "I can't make anything make sense, d'you understand? I see so many things, horrible things – and I see glimpses of lives that I remember, that aren't possible. There are so many versions of – of everyone, and I can't remember what's real here and now – " Hugging her knees to her chest, she halted, lost for words.

He waited in silence for her to calm herself and put the pieces together. After a moment, her face cleared and she looked up. "Remy?" she asked, drawing the name out cautiously. "Is your name Remy?"

Nodding, he kept his expression carefully blank, trying to ignore the sudden clenching of excitement in his stomach. Again she concentrated, beads of perspiration gathering on her brow.

"You – we're X-Men? So that's true." Remy nodded confirmation. "But I knew you before – in the place that Apocalypse destroyed," she murmured in confusion.

"Rogue," he gently redirected her attention to himself. "Dat was another place. Dat person wasn't me. Not exactly. More like who I could've been, if t'ings hadn't turned out the way dey did." As her creased forehead smoothed, he congratulated himself silently in deflecting that memory. Of course, it had been that alter ego who had inadvertently lost Rogue's baby in that other time, betrayed by a teammate – and he didn't want her to connect that person with him. Ever.

Now, he leaned forward and tucked a finger under her chin. At his touch, her eyes widened. "For some reason, I think that this should be impossible," she told him weakly.

"Dat because it is, in our world. But I'm t'inkin' maybe it don't have to be – here, in dis place, you learned how to control yo' abilities, and maybe dat knowledge don't have to be lost, neh?"

"In our world?"

Remy winced. "Didn't mean it t'come out dat way - but yeah, in our world. Chere, dis ain't real. You dreamin' right now. Y'know dat, right?"

Rogue looked around, her face resigned. "I know."

"But what you don' know is dat the wakin' world you in ain't real either." Remy touched her forehead gently. "No matter how real it seem, it's not. You gotta believe me. Dat's why yo' head's all confused – you been manipulated into" he trailed off at the skepticism evident in her face.

"First y'all ask me to believe that you're the voice in my head, then you expect me to turn tail on the one piece of realness I get my hands on because it ain't real? How do I know you're real? What is real?" She stood abruptly and walked a few steps away. "It hurts all the time, Remy, not knowin' up from down, dreams from reality – I can't go on like this, my head'll explode!" She rubbed her temples, frowning.

"Please, listen t'me Rogue." At the sound of her name she turned in his direction, though she maintained her distance. "You got to trust me on dis, dey tol' me I have to make you trust me before we can get you out of here."

"Who?"

"I don' know – whoever trapped us here in – wherever we are." He cursed his own failing memory and struggled to draw forth at least one point to lay before her. Images flashed through his mind's eye, but all of them pertaining to their journey, and precious little before. Suddenly, he glimpsed a flash of lavender; then, a strong presence probed his mind. After a moment of rooting around, the psychic emanation flashed in front of his eyes, and he remembered piloting the rescue skip-boat millennia ago. He could feel the joystick in his hand, saw the control panels spark wildly and blink out one by one; he saw the asteroid swallowing his tiny ship as a great burst of green light enveloped him –

"Asteroid. Dere was a mission – rescue mission to the space shuttle – " he struggled. "You were tryin' to get information out o' the computer banks when the shuttle started to disintegrate, and the asteroid sucked you in." He paused, giving unspoken thanks to the lavender presence in his mind, which performed a mental bow before disappearing.
Across from him, Rogue stared off into the distance, assimilating his stuttered explanation and trying halfheartedly to correlate it with anything in her fractured mind. With a gasp, she clapped a hand over her mouth as an unexpected, brutal sensation of lying trapped beneath metal bonds and a strange helmet swept through her body. She stumbled forward a step, but Remy darted forward and caught her before she fell.

As he steadied her, he asked, "What did you see?"

"Metal bands a slab o' somethin' cold. I couldn't move a muscle, and there was this thing on my head that hurt my brain – And then there was a flash of light, and my whole body hurt." She spoke mechanically as if describing something that had happened to someone in another life - which was not entirely inaccurate.

"Dat's what we got to get you out of. "

"Oh no, I couldn't – it hurt so much," she moaned, rubbing her head again. Remy studied her in growing concern, wondering if this was presage to another bout of demons.

Taking her arm, he guided her to the stream and knelt down. "Look in the water," he ordered. A little dazed, she complied, and Remy placed his hands on either side of her head and concentrated. While his telepathy was primitive at best, sharing her mind as he had for so long, he thought he be able to make similar illusory alterations to her as she had with his clothing. Focusing, he grabbed hold of the last time he had seen her in the outside world, and imposed that image onto the figure beside him. Hearing a quick intake of breath, he opened his eyes and was not disappointed.

Rogue knelt beside him, her hair now shoulder-length and straight, arrayed in her uniform: a dark green bodysuit with a gold X criss-cossing her front and back. Completing the garb were long gold gloves, knee-high gold boots, and a metal plated neck guard that rose from the bisection of the X on her chest and ended under her chin. She touched the guard in wonder, and then raised a hand to her radically changed hairstyle.

"What the hell did I do to myself?"

"You thought it was time fo' a change. Not dat I minded," he commented.

Cocking an eyebrow, she turned to look at him. "Am I suppose to care?"

With a broad grin, Remy replied, "Now dat's soundin' like the girl I –" He cut himself off. Getting into the nuts and bolts of their sticky relationship would only complicate matters. "– the girl I know," he amended a little lamely.

She didn't look as though she was quite buying it, but she let it go. "Y'know, this feels right, but I can't really get a good handle on it."

"I t'ink all you gotta do is believe. You gotta trust me dat what I'm tellin' you is the truth, and den you gotta convince your mind dat it's gotta wake up. It not gon' be easy, but I'll try t'help from up here."

She acquiesced with a dip of her head, her body shimmering slightly. "I feel so disoriented – I think I'm startin' t'wake up."

Hastily, he clutched her arms. "You remember dis, chere – you remember everyt'ing we talk about, hein?"

Her eyelids drooping, she shook her head,. "'M tryin', sugar. It's all getting' so hazy, though"

Frantically racking his brains, Remy swiftly hit upon the one thing he did that always made a lasting impression. With more speed than grace, he pulled Rogue to him, looked deeply into her dazed eyes, and then quickly covered her mouth with his own. Had they had more time, the kiss could have reached into the depths of the zeal with which she responded - but suddenly, she faded out of his arms, and he was left in a dark place, his arms empty.


ROGUE

At first, she was so groggy with sleep that she could not immediately identify what had awakened her. She sat rubbing her eyes, thinking about the odd memory of a kiss lingering on her lips. With a shake of her head, she looked around the shadowed room. Beside her, Scott turned restlessly, mumbling something about motorcycles. Quietly and with a minimum of movement, she slid from beneath the bedclothes and stood, feeling her way through the dark for her robe.

In the distance, a rumble of voices seemed to approach her room. The fine hair on the back of her neck stood up suddenly – she couldn't put a finger on it, but she had the intense urge to alert the mansion. Stumbling over to the phone, she picked it up – no dial tone.

Fully awake and alarmed, she leaned over and shook her slumbering boyfriend. "Scott – wake up! Something's wrong."

He grumbled sleepily and asked, "What?"

"Someone's here. The phone isn't working. My sixth sense is goin' nuts. Wake up!" She pulled at his arm. After a moment, her comments finally registered, and he shot to his feet, heading toward the closet and his uniform. She followed him, reaching for her own, but he put out a hand to stop her.

"Rogue, no. You're not even at half-strength these days. I can't put you in danger," he told her.

For once, she didn't lose her temper; she merely stared him down. "Scott, lover – I appreciate that, I really do. Now get out of my way."

With an unusual show of force, she yanked her arm away easily and slipped into the navy blue body suit, strapping on gauntlets and body armor as she went. With a sigh, he pulled on his own uniform, and tossed her a golden communications badge emblazoned with the familiar black and red team logo.

As she moved to open the door, though, he grabbed her hand and pulled her to him, kissing her fiercely.

She blinked, taken aback. "What was that for?"

"I want you to stay here until I call you. Will you do that for me? Please, Rogue – you can't waste your strength- "

Rogue glared. "Listen, bub, I'm goin' with you. What's the point of stayin' here and waitin' t'get fried by whatever's in this house with us?"

She was right, of course – and more than that, he knew it was an argument she would win by sheer stubbornness. "When you start sounding like Wolverine, I know I can't win." He sighed. "At least take a pistol, please? And no hand-to-hand if you can absolutely avoid it. That's an order."

Stalking back to the closet, she reached up to the top shelf and withdrew her energy pistol and holster, checking to make sure the weapon was fully charged. In a moment, she rejoined him, gun strapped firmly to her leg.

"Happy?" she asked, trying to fight the growing weariness already threatening to sneak through the adrenaline rush.

"It'll do. Come on."

He opened the door silently and peeked an eye around the corner. The hallway
looked dark and empty, but there were plenty of hiding spaces in the shadows. One hand to his visor, he stepped cautiously out into the hall, flattening himself against the wall. Behind him, Rogue crouched, straining to see through the gloom.

The nearest room to theirs belonged to Logan, so they edged their way with a minimum of noise in that direction. At his door, they realized someone had beaten them to the punch. The frame was mangled, and the interior looked as though a hurricane had descended. Not a stick of furniture was whole, and shredded fabric fluttered everywhere. Most disturbingly, there was no sign of Logan. No claw marks, no eviscerated enemies, nothing.

From out of nowhere sailed a glowing pink object that exploded as it hit the floor. The impact threw both of them back into the wall, but they were able to rebound and twist away without suffering any damage. From behind the shattered doorway, Scott let loose with a couple of optic blasts in the direction of the missile. More glowing objects rained down towards them, but Rogue was able to shoot down most before they got too close.

As Scott returned fire, Rogue slapped her combadge. "Blue team report in."

After a long moment, Logan replied, "Rogue, where are you?"

"Scott and I are stuck in your room, pinned down. Whoever's out there's turnin' everything into bombs," she shouted over the noise.

She heard the sounds of combat over the badge as he grunted and apparently swung at something. After a startled cry, there was silence, and Logan replied, "On my way. I'll come up behind them."

Moments later, the bombing stopped abruptly with the trademarked SNIKT of Logan's claws. They heard a strangled moan and a wet, dripping sound. Logan called an all clear, and Scott and Rogue appeared. She moved towards the still form on the floor and prodded it with a boot to turn it over.

"Anyone we know?" Logan asked, scanning the hallway for more unwelcome visitors. When he didn't get an answer, he focused on Rogue, whose face was rapidly draining of color. "You all right?"

Horrified, Rogue closed her eyes, trying to block out the almost-familiar face staring up at her, its red-on-black eyes already glazing over with death. With great effort, she regained control and stepped back, holding up a hand to forestall questions while she did a rapid body-check on herself. When she opened her eyes again, she was able to grate out an explanation.

"He was someone I knew - before -Not now...Not like this...I don't really know who he is, not here," she stuttered.

Scott gave her an odd look but let it go, withdrawing a small scanner from a pocket somewhere on his uniform. He ran it over the corpse and allowed it to take a reading. Finishing, he pocketed the device and asked, " Where are the others?"

Logan shrugged. "I don't know. I heard something from the front of the house -" He stopped and sniffed the air. "'Yana's there, with...Berto, I think."

"Go find them. Rogue and I are heading to the ready room to pinpoint the rest. I'll have Cerebro run the numbers on our dearly departed," here he nudged the body with the toe of his boot, "and see if it can turn up any information. Do you know who you took down?"

"Huge guy, some kind o' ruby in his helmet -"

"Juggernaut?" Scott frowned. "What's he doing here?"

"Makin' a mess, far as I c'n tell." Logan started off down the hall at a fast trot. "I'll get the rest of the team down to the ready room," he called over his shoulder.

Rogue and Scott exchanged a glance and moved on, heading now toward the ready room in the basement. As they crept swiftly down the stairs, they kept their senses on red alert, looking for intruders. They made it to the sub-basement with no interference, and approached the command center, tension high. On either side of the doorway, they shared another glance before Scott addressed the computer pad on his side.

"Cerebro, register Cyclops voice code recognition."

"Acknowledged," a disembodied voice informed them from a speaker in the panel. The door slid open, and Rogue rolled through, landing on her feet in a crouch, pistol at the ready. Scanning the room, it took a moment to realize that the room was empty. With a groan, she threw herself into a chair as Scott moved to the mainframe.

"Cerebro, list current locations of X-Men." The main viewscreen hummed to life, and a green-on-black floorplan of the mansion popped up. A few seconds later, blips appeared indicating the positions of Wolverine, Storm, Magik, Iceman, Psylocke, Quicksilver, and Sunspot. Neither Moira nor Mystique appeared anywhere on the display, but Rogue forced herself not to worry about their sole doctor and Charles' second-in-command. It was obvious that their teams were surrounded and on the defensive, and without hesitation they whirled out and pelted back the way they came, informing Logan of the change in plans as they ran.

They met up again with Logan in the main hall off the entrance. He was bloody and mad as hell, but his healing factor was already hard at work on the superficial wounds covering his upper chest. "Nice of you t'join us," he growled. "Duck!" he yelped, and pushed Rogue to the ground in time to feel the heat of a laser beam singeing her cheek.

"What the hell is goin' on?" she yelled.

"They got around us, ambushed us just as I caught up with 'Yana." He paused to deal with an onrushing Riptide, ducking under the other mutant and using leverage to heave him through the wall. At that moment, Illyana Rasputin teleported to the little group, breathless and covered in blood - most of it not hers.

"Cyke, we got problems, here!" she yelped. "Sabretooth's heading for Cerebro - tossed Sunspot aside like he was a fly. Bobby's hurt pretty bad -"

"Get him to the medbay and stay with him. Hole up there and wait for a signal before you go anywhere, got it?" Rogue ordered. The younger woman nodded and flashed out, giving them a brief glimpse of Limbo before the portal closed. Tapping her badge, she called for Quicksilver. In a blur of motion, he skidded to a stop, an unconscious Psylocke in his arms.

"We ran into Sabretooth," he informed them. "Bets tried to sink her psi-knife into him, but he saw her coming at the last minute and -" Gesturing wordlessly to the gaping wounds slicing across her midsection and legs, he shook his head. "On my way to medbay."

"Illyana's already there with Sunspot, but we're going to need you - come back quick," Scott told him. With a nod and a rush of wind, he vanished out of sight. Logan growled deep in his throat.

"Two down, three outta the fight - These guys are takin' us apart," he spat. "This is embarrasin'."

Another explosive round of energy burst cut off his diatribe and the three were forced to concentrate on defending their position for the next few minutes. Whoever their enemy was, they had resorted to weapons over powers, though Rogue doubted they were lacking in that area. Something else was definitely afoot, and she needed that knowledge before they all ended up in traction - or six feet under.

Surreptitiously, she slipped off her gloves and concentrated to switch her absorption ability to the "on" position. That act alone drained her almost completely of the small energy reserve she had managed to build up, but she gritted her teeth and commanded her body to function. After a reluctant moment, it responded sluggishly and she felt strong enough to attempt phase two of her plan.

Quicksilver pounded up with Iceman and Storm in tow. Turning to Wolverine, Rogue asked, "Logan, how many bad guys're we dealin' with over there?"

His nostrils flared as he scented through the haze of burning furniture and the acrid stink of ozone from the weapons. "Three - no two of 'em. Third one just left - must be circlin' around to come in behind us."

Eyes narrowed, Rogue asked, "I need you to flush one of 'em for me - think y'all can get to that last one, drive him toward us?"

"No sweat, darlin'." Springing his claws, he loped silently off. Seconds later, they heard a muffled curse and the sound of approaching, cautious footsteps. Gesturing for the others to hide themselves, Rogue mustered her strength and jumped straight up, grabbing onto one of the ancient cross-beams supporting the cathedral ceiling and pulling herself up into its shadows. Once there, she crouched like a bird of prey, waiting.

The payoff came soon enough in the form of a dark figure gliding quietly along the hallway. She let him pass just beyond her position; then with a curdling yell calculated to startle, she leapt from her perch, driving him to the ground. Caught completely off-guard, her opponent never had a chance as she clamped her hands on either side of his head, letting her natural abilities do the rest. Immediately, a flood of information tore through her, and they howled together as his power drained out. Seconds later, his senseless body thudded to the ground as Rogue tried to grasp the new sensations coursing through her.

"They're after Cerebro's files - they're tryin' t'pin us down while Sabretooth and someone named Kitty gets the downloads. We better hurry - this guy seemed to think the girl was some kind of computer whiz. I can take Scott - Storm, you get Logan. We'll get there first and try to head 'em off."

Storm quirked an eyebrow at her. "And what about the two ahead of us?"

With a grim smile, Rogue told her, "They're just our old friends Colossus and Malice. I trust y'all can handle 'em?"

"Let's go," Quicksilver snarled. With him, it would be sheer retribution - Malice had killed his wife in a conflict several months ago. Joining the X-Men to find consolation and distraction, he had also been waiting for this moment. Rogue doubted very much Malice would survive the encounter.

He raced off as Storm summoned the wind to lift her and Logan. "How you gonna get to the command center?" he yelled to Rogue over the gale.

"This guy was a teleporter," she shouted back and she caught a glimpse of his grin before he and Storm vanished around a corner. Humming with stolen energy, she wrapped her arms around Scott and told him to hang on. Then, clearing her mind, she focused on the ready room with the greatest attention to detail she could induce. When the power reached its peak, she directed it to the location in her mind; and, with a BAMF! of smoke and the stink of brimstone, they teleported.

A second later, they materialized back in the command center. Immediately, the two sprang apart and rolled behind opposite computer banks. Rogue did a quick reconnaissance and determined that neither enemy had yet reached them. A whispered conference with Quicksilver indicated that Malice and Colossus were incapacitated, perhaps permanently; it was a question she would take care of later.

"Time to set up an ambush," Rogue mouthed. Scott nodded and concealed himself in the shadow of the massive terminal housing the main components that constituted Cerebro, while Rogue once again called on her fading reserves for one more jump to the ceiling and shrouded herself in the shadows atop a massive storage unit.

They had barely reached their positions when the door exploded inward accompanied by an earth-shaking howl. Squinting her eyes against the dust of the blast, Rogue gradually perceived the massive form of Sabretooth, a smaller female form at his side.

Without preamble, the woman darted to a terminal, muttering, "Bring down the house, why don't you?"

"Gotcha in, didn't I, frail?" he snarled, stalking about and smashing equipment at random for good measure. Rogue suppressed a groan at the damage he wrought, stifling thoughts of repair and diminishing funds, not to mention Xavier's ire. A flicker of movement attracted her attention, and she chanced a slow turn of the head to peep out the door in time to see Logan, Storm, and Quicksilver secrete themselves on either side of the doorway

In her earpiece, she heard Logan whisper, "Now what, boss?"

Barely moving her lips, she returned near inaudibly, "Count of three. One, two, three -"

A blaze of lightning shot into the room as Logan roared his entrance, and Cyclops sprang from his hiding place. Both intruders were caught flat-footed, but the female - Kitty - recovered quickly and somehow moved though the solid wall next to her. In a moment, Quicksilver was after her, Rogue hot on his heels.

As she ran, she reviewed the battle plan she had lifted from the teleporter - If attacked, Kitty was supposed to head for the long-abandoned Morlock tunnel entrance connected to the basement. Changing direction mid-stride, she called Quicksilver and informed him of her probable destination. He confirmed that she was indeed headed in that direction. Pushing all other thoughts aside, Rogue visualized the entrance to the tunnels and teleported one last time, popping back into existence directly in front of the woman.

With a startled screech, the thief stopped dead in her tracks, and Rogue grabbed her face. For a moment, the girl struggled, but the absorption process quickly overwhelmed her. Just before she reached the point of death, Rogue dropped her to the floor and clutched at her head, writhing in pain.

"Check in with the others," she growled through clenched teeth. Distantly, she heard Storm report, confirming that Sabretooth had been taken care of and was en route to the maximum security holding cell, accompanied by Logan and Scott. Then Quicksilver was steadying her as she sank to the ground.

"My head...Too many people in here with me. Need t'get to sickbay...Where's Moira?" She tried to rise and failed, and Quicksilver scooped her up. She thought she saw Storm arrive and secure the unconscious woman before her own eyes rolled up in her head and she sank away into darkness.


GAMBIT

Having monitored the action from his front-row seat, as it were, Remy was prepared when she went into another collapse, but was nonetheless surprised at the setting he found himself in almost immediately. This time they were in the library of the mansion, a place he was not overly familiar with, but one that he knew she spent a lot of time in on rainy days. Her summons of him had also been surprising, a harsh yank from his hiding place into this creation of her mind.

Rogue turned away from the windows and the night sky to face him slowly. Around her blew the gauzy curtains that hung from a simple brass rail above the window, and he paused mid-step, taken with the picture she presented. It was dark in the room except for the weak light of the crescent moon; backlit as she was, he could not immediately make out the expression on her face.

They stood apart in that fashion for a long moment as the silence stretched. Finally, Remy moved to her. "Rogue, what we doin' here?"

"Don't come closer." He stopped, alert to the tension in her voice.

"Somethin' wrong?"

She looked away, a grim smile barely visible in profile. "You might say that." Silence again, then, "What is real, Remy?"

"Huh?" He had no idea where her mood was coming from or where it was going.

"Was it real when I carried Magneto's child? Or when I was in love with Scott? Or that fight out there? What is real?" she asked again.

A tiny gleam of insight sparked in his mind. He hadn't expected this uncertainty - mostly because of his ability to retain his sense of self throughout their whole ordeal. Rogue hadn't had that luxury.

"What do you think?"

Looking down, she revolved slowly and leaned on the windowsill, closing her eyes and welcoming the rush of air on her face. "I don't trust my thoughts anymore."

"All right den - what do you feel?"

She didn't reply. After a moment of indecision, Remy threw caution to the wind and moved up behind her, placing his hands on her shoulders. The thin silk of her shirt warmed beneath his touch and he reveled in the closeness.

Choosing his words with care, he told her, "I can' tell you what was real an' what wasn', but I think dat if you feel somethin' here," he thumped his chest, "den maybe what is physically dere and what isn't don' matter."

She bobbed her head, acknowledging that she had heard, but not much else. Remy sighed and ran his hands lightly down her arms to catch her naked hands in his. With infinite care, he wrapped their arms around her, ready to let go if she made any protest. Meeting no resistance, he stepped in closer and pulled her back against his chest, leaning his chin on her shoulder.

"Y'afraid again? Dat okay, I understan'. I jus' want t'be here. Don' shut me out - I was dere the whole time. I saw t'ings - I want to help you," he told her quietly.

She rested limply in his arms, her breathing very slow, but made no move to disentangle herself. They stood, looking out onto the moon-dappled lawn of the mansion and its grounds, and Remy wondered idly why she had chosen this image and not the forest. Probably, it was the ultimate safe zone for her - and it had certainly served as a constant image in her journeys through her mind.

"Rogue, you gon' try now? I'll be here, I can maybe show you t'ings to help you get back- but you gon' have t'leave dis place t'do it."

"I'm so tired, I can't concentrate - I've been tryin' all day t'wake up, but I can't remember what to focus on...I don't think it's ever gonna end," she murmured thickly, her head lolling against his shoulder.

"No, chere, y' can' sleep yet." He unclasped one of her hands and brought his to her forehead. "Let me try dis - maybe it give you a point t' hold onto, hein?"

Closing his eyes, he mustered his rough telepathy and formed an image of her again, this time showing her strapped to the metal table, looking up into the mirrored surface above her. It was a harsh image, but he was beginning to fear that anything less would have no effect on her. Focusing, he transferred the image into her mind with all the grace of a bullet - a side effect of the untrained power, but one that he counted on for its very rawness.

Suddenly, her body strained outward in muscle-wrenching tension, and a startled cry escaped her. He held her to him, riding it out as her panicked mind reached outward through its own web of realities towards the physical plane once more. Linked as they were, he felt his strength flowing into her, boosting her diminished reserves as they hurtled toward a point of light in the frightening conflagration that constituted her lives.

"Hold on," he whispered between gritted teeth.

Warping lines of energy laced through them, drawing them closer to their destination, pulling them with forces that stretched and twisted them into terrible contortions. Rogue screamed in agony as it tore her forward, snapping bones and tendons out of their proper alignments.

"Rogue - listen t'me!" Remy shouted in her ear. "Your body not here! Believe dat! Listen t'me, girl. Look at me!"

She looked around wildly, the pain ebbing and flowing as they hurtled onward. Remy wrenched her around to face him, and she saw that although his body was twisting into the same unimaginable shapes as hers was, he didn't seem to be suffering.

"How are you doin' it?" she howled as her left leg folded up behind her head. She felt hands gripping her head, and then the image of her body on the table blazed across her mind again.

"Concentrate on the picture. Dat the real you. Dat's yo' body. Move it. Move a finger." Remy's voice was harsh in her ear, the command ringing through her mind as well as in her hearing.

"I - God!" she gasped, but clung to the image to distract herself. Straining, she flung her will out to the picture, demanding that a finger, a toe, anything - would twitch. To her shock, the body's entire hand flapped once against the restraint pinning it at the wrist.

Opening her eyes, she stared up at Remy, aware suddenly that the agony had disappeared completely. His eyes were tightly closed, and she saw a red stream of energy emanating from his forehead. Feeling a warmth on her own brow, she reached up and realized that its endpoint terminated somewhere in her frontal lobe.

Looking around, she saw that they stood in the center of the room that contained her body. In the far distance, she thought she saw a group of creatures huddling just outside of the light, but she turned away and observed the form on the table. As she drew nearer, her mind lurched, and her body, responding, fell over the prone individual.

A familiar vortex of blue light manifested before her, but this time she was unafraid as it swallowed her up. "Take me back," she commanded it, and with a disorienting pulsation, she was shoved into the body. Immediately, she opened her eyes, ripping at the restraints as she had once before, so many lifetimes from then. At her first twitch, the metal bands flew off of their own accord, and she staggered upright, wrestling the horrible helmet from her head and hurling it aside.

Pushing herself off the table, she careened out across the floor towards her alien imprisoners, but there was no one to confront. She was utterly alone. A door snapped up to her right, and she flew out of it, following a winding corridor for long minutes until it ended in another room. There stood Gambit, transfixed by a brightly glowing orb of silver energy that crackled and hissed as it hovered beneath his hands.

"Remy!" she shouted as she slid to a stop next to him. No reaction. She threw her arms around him and tugged with all her might. After a minute of straining, she released him - she might as well have been trying to move a planet. The sphere continued to pop energy, and she moved closer, trying to see into it. To her horror, she saw Gambit within, pounding against an invisible barrier.

Frantically, she pulled at him again, to no avail. "Remy, wake up! This is real! Remy -" A thought occurred to her, and she trembled at the audacity of it. It was too sudden, too unreal -

An image flashed in her head, a memory that was hers and yet wasn't: Nathan Grey, a troubled young man looking for a renegade from his own dimension, reaching inside of her mind for a moment to touch a point deep within her core and flip a kind of switch. Suddenly, she had understood the nature of her power to its fullest extent, and the way to control it.

Now she reached deep inside of herself, down into the nucleus, the the bright white center that was the nexus of her own power. Exerting more constraint than she thought possible, she extended a tip of consciousness into the point and pushed. A tingling washed through her skin as the power retracted into the locus. Shaking, she raised her hand and turned it in the flickering light of the orb. It looked no different, but it felt very strange, as if a layer of gauze had been removed from her entire body - every little breath of moving air rippled through the nerves and sent an overload of sensation to her brain.

"Believe it, girl. Believe it, cuz it's the only thing that'll save Remy. You got him into it - you get him out," she ordered herself.

Wincing, she brought her fingers to Remy's cheek and waited for the dreaded flood of persona, but no transference began. Gaining courage, she laid her hand against his face, and when that resulted in no absorption, she realized that her gamble had played out. Summoning courage, she ducked under his outstretched arm, stood between him and the ball, and grasped his face between her hands.

Distantly, she relished the unfamiliar feel of the stubble beneath her fingers, the silkiness of a tendril of hair at his temple, the warmth of his skin. Closing her eyes, she focused on his presence in front of her and took a deep breath, trying to erase the hazy memory of another time she had done this, and its disastrous aftermath. Come on Sleeping Beauty - it's time to wake up. Pushing aside her fears, she leaned in and brought her lips to his.

His mouth was still and cold for a moment, so she pressed harder, demanding his body to respond. A burst of heat seared through her mind, and she heard a weak call.

Roguey?

Abruptly, he leaned into her as if pushed. Her arms wound around his neck as his came up around her, clutching her to him. The kiss lingered sweetly for a long moment before Rogue withdrew and opened her eyes. Above them, a light blinked for attention, and she nudged Remy until he, too, looked up.

"I t'ink it wants t' lead us somewhere," he croaked. He looked down at her hands resting now on his shoulders and blinked in surprise to see them bare of their usual gloves. In fact, she was barely clothed at all, only a light shift of some indeterminable cloth that rippled in the drafty chamber.

She followed his gaze and started guiltily to snatch her hands away, but he caught them in his own, marveling at the seeming miracle.

"You member, chere?" She nodded shakily and managed a weak grin. He looked up again. "Time t'go den, I t'ink."

The little light blinked in agreement with him, and Remy pulled her after him, beginning the chase. She stumbled along as best she could, exhaustion beginning to overwhelm her and making her clumsy. After a harrowing trek through the pitch dark pursuing their beacon, they ended up in a pool of light that illuminated Remy's prowler. Without questioning, he keyed the entry code and half-dragged, half-carried Rogue into the tiny fighter with him.

As he fired up the engines, the darkness in front of him shimmered and outer space twinkled invitingly. Rushing through preflight, he spared enough time to make sure Rogue was securely strapped in before opening up the throttle and roaring out into space.

Once free of the asteroid, he turned toward Earth and home. Around the asteroid, a wave of sparkling light rippled; then it accelerated away from the planet, elongated, and disappeared with a flash of light. Wide-eyed, Remy stared a long moment at the empty space it had filled before a sensor beeped, and he had to turn his attention to the business of charting a landing vector. At his side, Rogue slumped, her eyes slitted with pain.

He spared a moment to touch her cheek, but she barely responded. It suddenly occurred to him to hit the emergency beacon keyed to the mansion as they plunged through atmosphere; and as he fled over Europe, the communications gear crackled to life, questions barraging him. Ignoring them, he locked in a course for the mansion and managed to engage the autopilot before the disorientation in his head overtook him.