Chapter 3: Adjusting

            It was almost a week until Rogue fully recovered from being unconscious, still finding herself tired, but able to get around more and the headaches had begun to dwindle away almost completely.  And soon, she was back at school, with Professor Xavier and Kitty's help, she was slowly catching up with the backlog of school work.  It did not take time to adjust back to being at school – even when being way behind with school work.

            She pretended not to hear the kids at school - their cruel whispers would echo up and down the hallways, and distantly in classrooms.  She'd hear their jokes and she'd open her locker to find a Barbie doll dressed up like herself with it's hair cut and coloured over with a brown permanent marker and white out.  It would be hanging from a noose made from a shoelace.

            In fact, upon her return, her locker had been completely vandalised – black permanent marker everywhere, cruel and hateful words scrawled crudely upon the door.  She'd been assigned a new locker, but now was getting the hate notes posted through the slots, "die mutant die" written upon them.

            It was only over a week later that Rogue and Kitty Pryde found themselves in the girls locker room at school getting ready for gym class.  Most of the other girls avoided them completely and would get ready as quickly as possible to avoid having to associate with mutants – leaving the two fifteen year old girls totally alone in the locker room.

            Rogue pulled on a pair of skin tight leggings and a black T-shirt over a tight fishnet shirt she'd already been wearing.  Kitty, trying to be trendy, opted for one of those tiny matching shorts and cropped top sets, Rogue glanced over at Kitty, watching as she pulled on her sneakers.  "Have you lost weight?" She queried, it was only now that she could see the girl seemed a lot thinner than usual, no wonder her face had seemed so gaunt.

            "Hopefully," Kitty responded, she pulled on her other sneaker.

            "You look like a stick," Rogue retorted, and tied her hair back from her face with a black scrunchie.

            "I don't know if that's a compliment or an insult," Kitty looked at her.

            "It's not healthy," Rogue stated matter-of-factly.  "Next you'll be bleaching your hair that same platinum blonde that every other airhead at this school has," she added with a mutter.

            Kitty bit her tongue, and smiled a bit, at least it seemed Rogue was back to herself, the same sarcastic comment making girl she always had been.  Kitty knew it was just a defence mechanism, and felt that if Rogue could be one of those platinum anorexic blonde airheads at School, she probably would.

"Are you still getting the hate-mail?" Kitty asked casually.

"Yup, and it's not going away any," she sighed, "I reported it to Principle Kelly, he didn't seem to care, quite frankly," she added.

"Wouldn't be surprised if he didn't care," Kitty braided her hair quickly and precisely.  "He's totally anti-mutant, he has no time for any mutant in this school, he practically gushes over every 'normal' student though," she muttered, "about two weeks ago some kids started a fight with Kurt in class – Kurt got blamed for it AND got detention."

"Really?" Rogue asked.

"Yeah, he'd take the word of a normal human over a mutant any day," Kitty sighed.  "Are you ready or what?" she asked as she put her bag into a locker and locked it securely.

            "Just about…" Rogue commented, "go on without me, I'll be there in a minute."

            "Alright," Kitty nodded, and headed off.

            Rogue pulled her gloves on slowly, and strapped them at the wrist just to make sure they'd stay on, she thought distantly about all that had happened this past week, with recovering, and her first few days back at School.  She felt as if things were returning to normal – yet, she felt as if something were different, something she couldn't really explain.

            She knelt down to zip her backpack up, and she tossed it into a locker, and shut it, she turned, a reflection off of a dull mirror caught her eye, she had seen it from the corner of her eyes, but when she turned, the only reflection she saw there was her own pale reflection, her makeup perfect, her eyes tired, her hair pulled back tightly a ponytail. 

            Rogue looked around in every direction, "Hello?" she asked aloud, "anyone in here?"

            No reply, no sound, except from her own breathing and the sounds from the gym hall nearby, of a basketball being bounced around.

            "You're going crazy," she muttered to herself, and headed for the gym.

            Rogue despaired when she arrived in the gym hall seeing Basketball was the chosen sport of today.  She didn't feel like jumping around trying to throw a ball into a hoop, it was too physical, and physical was what she hated – all the people crowding around, she didn't like the thought there might be a chance someone else could get hurt.  She had asked if she could sit out, but her gym teacher was having none of it.

            She was glad at least to find out she had been picked to go in the same team Kurt and Kitty were both in, it made it somewhat easier.  When the game began, she felt herself relaxing, and beginning to enjoy it.  Rogue was a very athletic girl, and was good at many sports – but she excelled today in basketball – she'd never been so good at it before. 

            Kitty and Kurt could only gape as Rogue used tactics she'd never used before, weaving in and out of the opposition with eerie precision, she passed the ball without stopping to wonder who she'd pass too, she worked purely on instinct like she never had before.  The team scored several times, and the opposition didn't seem to have a chance.

            When they stopped for a five minute break to cool down, Kitty walked over to Kurt, "can you like, believe Rogue?" she gasped for breath, she leaned forward a little, holding onto her thighs, perspiration dotting her forehead, "I can barely keep up."

            "Tell me about it, I knew she was athletic, but this…" Kurt stated, a little concerned, he could feel his fur becoming clammy, yet with his image inducer working at full, it didn't show, he barely looked out of breath. 

            "I've never seen her so good at Basketball," Kitty took a deep breath, she sat down on a bench, leaning back against the cold brick wall behind it, "seriously, I cannot keep up, and I thought Jean was good – she'd give her a run for her money."

            "That'd be an interesting game, Rogue and Jean, one on one," Kurt smirked, "Jean's good at basketball, Jean's good at almost every sport," Kurt remarked.  "It'd be like a death match between them," he laughed, but through the laughter, his thoughts were glued to the fact that Rogue was showing characteristics that weren't generally matched to how she was. 

            Kurt and Kitty watched as Rogue tried to talk to some of the other students in their team, and they more or less shunned her, acted as if she was not even there, they felt so bad for her, there was Rogue putting in massive effort and not even being congratulated for it.

            Rogue walked over, sighing.

            "Something wrong?" Kurt asked of Rogue.

            "Yes, I've scored three times and the team are just totally ignoring me, I'm good enough to help the team win, but they're ignoring me now.  If I was a normal human they'd be gushing all over me thinking I was the greatest," she remarked bitterly.

            "Yeah, you're right about that," Kitty folded her arms, "two-faced jerks," she added.

            "You're doing really good out there," Kurt admitted, "I've never seen you play so well…"

            "Yeah, I don't understand it either," Rogue said, "I don't play Basketball all that often, I don't know how I could all of a sudden be so good…" she gave a shrug.

            After the break was up, the teams began their game again, Rogue's energy was boundless, she dodged opponents, dribbling the ball at her side, and through her legs, moves that most professional basketball players would have envied. 

When the opportunity came for Rogue to score, she went for it and she leapt into the air and tossed the ball into the hoop.  What surprised Kitty and Kurt was how precisely she leapt – almost as if she'd been floating for a few seconds, and when she threw the ball into the hoop, she did it with such strength she'd never seemed to have before. 

            In fact…it brought down the hoop…quite literally.

            There was a loud crash as the hoop fell to the hard wood floor, Rogue jumped back, her mouth dropping.  Everyone – including the teacher – fell silent, and the ball bounced past, making the only noise.

            Kurt whispered to Kitty, "did you see that…?"

            "I think I did…what did you see?" Kitty whispered back, leaning slightly to the side.

            "I just saw Rogue trash the basketball net…"

            "Yeah…I saw that too," Kitty mumbled.

            Rogue looked at the teacher, "I…"

            "It must have been loose…" the teacher stated, she glanced at her watch, "well…it's a bit early, but you guys can go get changed and head off for lunch…I better get this seen to…"

            Rogue felt a surge of relief run through her, glad she wouldn't be blamed.  But she knew she'd been the cause, she knew she'd thrown the ball far too hard.  Question was, how could she have broken the basketball hoop when she herself was not particularly that strong.

            Rogue walked over to Kurt and Kitty, "did you guys see that?" she queried timidly.

            "Yeah, we like, saw you trashed the net," Kitty remarked, "how in the world did you do that?"

            "I don't know," Rogue chewed her lip.

            "Mutant freak," muttered one of the girl students as she passed by Rogue.

            Rogue frowned, "bitch," she muttered.

            Kitty looked at Rogue, "Rogue, are you like, okay?" she asked.

            "Never better," Rogue muttered sarcastically, "I wish for one minute these damn preppy girls would get off my back…" she muttered, "Just because I'm not a 'sheep' like them they assume I'm like a lamb to the slaughter," she rolled her eyes.

            "They used to do that with me too," Kitty remarked.

            "Yeah, but since I came here, now I'm the brunt of all the mutant jokes, and now they're calling me crazy too," Rogue sighed.

"When you were gone so long they assumed you'd killed yourself or something," Kurt admitted.

"I guess that's why I received a Barbie doll hanging from a noose in my locker when I returned back to school," Rogue commented coldly.

"Nope, that means they want to lynch you," Kitty chewed her lip, "Just ignore them, they're all jerks."

"Jerks who are making my life a living hell," Rogue sighed.

"Cheater," remarked one of the male students as he passed Rogue.

Rogue spun around, "what the hell do you mean by that?!" she demanded.

"You used your powers and you know it!" another one of the male students muttered, and disappeared out the door.

Rogue clenched her fists, she wanted to after him and kick him up the backside for making such a remark, "How dare he insinuate that," she frowned.

Kurt looked down, he wondered the same thing, somehow he knew a human could have never played the way Rogue had played the game, not thrown the ball so hard it would knock the net off the wall, he could see the brackets it had been held up by had been completely snapped.

"Just ignore him, Rogue," Kitty rolled her eyes, "those guys are all jerks…"

"Jerks who are making my life a living hell," Rogue sighed, and headed towards the locker room, hugging herself as she walked.

            When she was out of earshot Kurt and Kitty looked at each other, but said nothing, their expressions said everything to each other that they needed to – and that was that Rogue might not be as recovered as they'd thought.