AN: Wish The Walrus Was Paul Happy Birthday!! Sorry, it took us so long to get all these things uploaded, but with two people who are working three jobs between them, it's a little difficult to get together. We hope you enjoy this chapter! There's some fluff…. How could se be the fluffy walrus without romance, right? And… ah… don't kill us for having another cliffhanger ending!!!
Chapter Three: A Thief's Honor
"Strap her to the table, LeBeau," Magneto ordered.
Gambit nodded and pulled Rogue toward a cold metal table in the center of the illuminated room. He hated this room, it stank like death. Gambit had only been in this room once before, and even then only for a few minutes, as he retrieved a file for Magneto had requested. He'd never seen this room in use, and now as he held Rogue's shoulders, he wasn't sure he wanted to.
"LeBeau! Strap her to the table or I will find someone who can!" Magneto barked.
"Oui, excusez moi, Magneto," he apologized as he pulled Rogue toward the table.
Rogue weakly struggled against his grip. "Shh, Petite," Gambit whispered into her ear, pulling her body against his. "Come on, Chere. Agree to work wit' Magneto."
She shook her head and ceased her struggle and allowed Gambit to move her to the table. She lay down and watch Gambit as he attatched the metal restraints to her hands and feet. She kept her eyes on his, watching his every move, his eyes never meeting hers as he finished his work and stepped back to allow Magneto to begin her torture.
"Are you ready, my dear?"
"Go to hell, Magneto!" Rogue spat.
"My dear, try to calm yourself." He picked up a needle and examined it. "Now, this will hurt you much more then it will hurt me." He laughed as he lowered the needle to her temple and began to inject it.
Rogue clamped her eyes shut as the needle penetrated her flesh. Her eyes flew open as she felt pain unlike anything she'd ever felt before. It felt like her entire body was on fire. Unable to control herself, she let lose a horrible scream that chilled Gambit to his very soul.
Rogue was thrashing about on the table, the metal restraints bruising her skin, as the serum continued along within her system, leaving no physical harm, but causing unbearable pain.
"Just agree to join our team, child, and this will all be over," Magneto said as the serum began to wear off.
'Just give in,' Gambit thought. 'Don't let him do dis. . . ."
"Fuck you," she said weakly, gasping for breath as she tried to focus on something –anything other then the lingering pain.
Magneto shook his head and pulled out a whip. "Gambit, release her from the table."
Gambit did so, then carried Rogue's limp body to the wall, where manacles lay, waiting. He looked at the girl, his dark hair falling into his face. Why was she putting herself through this? Were her beliefs really that strong? He didn't know what that was like, to believe in something so much that he would be willing to suffer like her, in order to defend it. This girl was very strong, one with a spirit he'd never seen before. He hoped that, Magneto finally forced her to join their team, the damage to her would not be permanent.
"Magneto, mabbe you do something else? What can dis accomplish?" Gambit asked, still holding the semi-conscious Rogue in his arms.
"LeBeau, do not question my methods! I do not expect a swamp rat like to understand why I do what I do." He glared at the twenty-four year old Cajun with contempt. "I am beginning to question your loyalties. You do not want me to question your loyalties, Gambit."
Gambit stopped. He could take a lesson from Rogue and stand up for what he believed in, or simply obey Magneto's commands.
Rogue slowly opened her eyes, and Gambit looked into the green depths, looking back. He guessed he must have found his answer in her eyes, but at the same time, he wasn't sure why he did what he did. Gambit lowered his head and kissed Rogue's unresponsive lips before he to Magneto.
"Non," Gambit said firmly. "Gambit will not do dis anymore. Torture is not de way to obtain peace. Money or not, I will no longer do dis." Gambit tightened his grip on Rogue.
Fury flashed across Magneto's face. "You! You dare to betray me!"
"Oui."
Magneto took a deep breath to calm himself. "Very well, swamp scum. You have decided your fate." He raised one hand and pointed it at Gambit. "You will share hers."
A restraining collar fastened itself around Gambit's neck. "What a fool you were, LeBeau! You've thrown away a promising career." He glared at the Cajun and the southern belle. "As well as both your lives."
~*~
The pounding of her brain was unfamiliar to Katherine as she slowly returned to the land of the awake. The jackhammer of pain made her feel angry, but at least she knew she wasn't dead. The dead wouldn't be able to feel her head being abused by a sledgehammer swung by a juggernaught.
Wondering why she wasn't in more pain given the height of her fall (the velocity should have liquefied her bones) she opened her eyes and bolted up. Laying in a bed, covered in three heavy blankets, she was in a sparsely furnished room. There was a clock and a picture of cute blonde girl on the night stand. There was a dresser with several books, but Kitty couldn't read the titles, but she did notice the name 'Kafka' as one of the more highly read books. There were pain and easels neatly arrayed around the chamber, but beyond an unused desk, there wasn't much else.
Frightened, confused, and disoriented, she crawled out of the warm bed. Finding herself still in her X-Men uniform, she tried to phase through the floor and failed. Katherine tried again, with the same results. Why couldn't she phase?
Panic seized her throat and she sank against a wall, slowly sliding to the ground. Why couldn't she phase? Katherine had never been able to not phase before! She could even float through the walls of the danger room, and those had pattern changing force fields that made traveling through walls like walking through molasses.
She swallowed, and found it slightly hard. Feeling about her neck, her fingertips met with cold metal. A collar. She was wearing a freaking collar.
"Okay, Kitty," she told herself. "You can't use your powers. Take a deep breath. There's a good girl. Now, you've gone without your powers before, you can do it again. No problem. First, look at the door. It's the only way out of here and. . . ."
Katherine blinked. "And it has no doorknob. But it has a pin pad. Okay, now, tools."
Pulling a pair of tweezers and an optometrist's screwdriver from her belt, she started to take off the face plate. Katherine paused. Someone was pressing buttons from the other side of the door! They were coming into the bedroom! She dashed to the easel and grabbed a paintbrush.
Hiding herself behind the door, she jumped out when the person entered and stuck the pointy end of the paintbrush against the man's neck. She was only slightly surprised at seeing it was the man who could make his skin metal.
"I have a knife pressed against your neck. Do you have a key for this collar of yours?" she paused. Threatening people really wasn't one of her strong points, nor part of the X-Men's curriculum for future super-heroes. "Put up your hands so I can see them," she ordered, feeling like a police woman off of COPS.
The Russian man shook his head. "Nyet. I cannot. My hands are full. Nor do I have the key you ask for. I put the collar on only for your protection."
"My protection? How is keeping me collared like an animal in a room going to keep me safe?"
"It kept you from going outside the room," he sensibly answered. "Not everybody is as… benevolent is the word? Yes, as benevolent as I. Pyro would surely kill you on the spot. Magneto would doubly so. You are not one the strongest people in the world, so he might not want you to join. And you are also one of the X-Men, so you are, as far as he is concerned, a traitor."
He had a good point, but Kitty was far too angry to put the paintbrush down. Even through her anger, Katherine's friendly, lovable side showed through. His English made him appear slow, dim-witted, but he had an excellent mind on his shoulders.
"Keeping me prisoner is supposed to be protective?" she demanded. "And everybody is out to kill me? Do you actually think that what you display here is benevolence?"
Peter turned his face so that he could see Kitty from the corner of his eye. "Nyet. Not the part of it which you see. Keeping you from going over the cliff, that was an act of kindness. And depending on how one sees the world, an open act of treason. I was sent there to kill anyone who approached, human or mutant. Put the paintbrush down."
Surprised by this new information and his acknowledgement that she was threatening him with a paintbrush. Putting the artist's tool down, she almost seemed to sulk. "So what's in your arms that's so important you can't raise your arms?"
When he turned around she saw he was holding a folded dress and a bowl of steaming soup. She felt like a heel.
Almost shyly, he extended the tray in her direction. "Here. You've been out of it for a few days. I'm sure you're hungry, so I have a light soup for you. The dress is the only thing I could find that might fit you. I thought you might like to change. The washroom is behind you."
She took the offered tray and out it on the desk. Katherine was now beginning to notice the hunger rumbling in her stomach and her need to go to the washroom.
Once she was cleaned up and refreshed, she reentered the bedroom. Kitty itched at the collar, but pretended to ignore it. Her captor was busy painting. Digging into the soup, she couldn't tell what it was, she inhaled it so fast. Katherine went bright pink when the Russian told her not to drink so quickly, as she hadn't eaten in a few days.
He turned around to look at her, wearing a friendly smile. "Let us start all over again. My name is Piotr Rasputin."
"Katherine Pryde." She shook his hand hello, and was quiet for a moment. Though interested in the painting, she was much more interested in something else. "So if you were sent to the site to kill people, how come you didn't kill me?"
"You don't understand the idea of starting over, do you?" She shook her head no, making him sigh.
"So are you going to let me go now?"
"I don't know." Peter paused, then walked over to Katherine. "I suppose, Katya, that you will just have to convince me." And he leaned over and kissed her.
~*~
Rogue awoke hours later back in her cell and sat up slowly. Her body was still aching, she hadn't been tortured too badly after Gambit's betrayal, he on the other hand…
She looked around her cell and found her fears confirmed. Gambit was lying unconscious on the floor, blood pooled around several serious looking abrasions in his extremities. He lay on his stomach, a pained expression on his handsome face.
"Ya saved me Cajun…" she muttered as she moved towards him, determined to do anything she could to save him, "Why? Ah'm your enemy… ar at least Ah shoulda been.." She pulled the thin blanket off the sad excuse for a bed and began to tear strips from it, hoping to create some make shift bandages.
When she had several decent sized strips, she moved to Gambit's side and looked him over, "Ah can't see a thing with that dang duster on him." She said as she decided to flip him onto his back, then remove his coat. It took her several tries as she was still wearing the collar which meant her powers were still being suppressed.
"Cajun, you need to lose some weight." She grunted as she finally got him on his back. She peeled off the duster and gasped at the number of cuts running up and down his body.
She removed his shirt and began to patch him up as best she could, given the tools at her disposal. Finishing up, she sat back and admired her work. Not too shabby considering her complete lack of medical training.
"Ah gotta admit, Ah do good work." She congratulated herself.
"I dunno chere, Gambit still feelin' pretty bad…" Gambit's voice was weak and hoarse.
Rogue looked at him, "Well had ya just kept yer big mouth shut…"
Gambit struggled to pull himself into a sitting position and faced Rogue, "I don' regret what I did chere," he looked at the dark ceiling, "it felt good to stand up for somet'ing I believe in for once."
Rogue sat down beside him, "Why would ya risk yer life for me?"
Gambit decided beating around the bush would be futile at this point. He sighed and kept his eyes away from her. "Gambit don' really know chere. You the first woman I ever felt like dis 'bout, it be very strange." He turned his unique eyes to her, "All I know is dat seeing you in pain was one of the hardest t'ings I ever done. I couldn't stand it petite, Gambit knew he had to do somet'ing."
Rogue's eyes softened as she regarded him, no one had ever said anything like that to her. No one in her miserable existence had ever sacrificed so much for her. She hated to think it, but she felt her heart melt.
"Well, Ah guess Ah should thank ya for that." She said as she smiled at him.
Gambit returned her smile, "Gambit glad we clear all dat up chere, but we still got a big problem. How we gonna get outta here?"
"Simple my dear boy," came Magneto's voice from all around them. "You will never leave this cell alive. If I were you, I'd make peace with whatever god I believed in."
Rogue's hand sought out Gambit's and they clutched each other fear running through them both. What would Magneto so to them? Starve them? Kill them right out? It wasn't an answer Rogue was sure she wanted to know.
"Gambit, Ah'm scared. We're helpless without our powers! What do we do now?" as she spoke she tightened her grip on Remy's hand.
Gambit shook his head, "I don't know chere. I don't know…" with that the two frightened teens clung to each other in the dark, afraid of what would happen when the lights finally came back on…
