Chapter 1: Baby Blues
Rogue tried to focus on her homework, typing the words in and constantly making typos accidentally, distraction lying with the pregnant woman sitting on the chair flicking through TV stations, a bowl of tortilla chips balanced on her belly.
These last four months – since Bella Donna had moved into Mansion - had been hellish. No, worse than hellish. Torturous was more likely the correct description.
It had been so long since anything had seemed normal in the mansion, and Rogue had never been able to really relax in the Mansion when Bella Donna was around – which was all the time. Still, thankfully dealing with Remy, right now, was at a minimal. He spent most – if not all – of his free time doing chores and working out in the danger room. In fact, as far as Rogue knew, Remy and Bella Donna barely spoke to each other either, despite they were to have a child together. That fact was about the only thing keeping Rogue midway sane at the moment.
It seemed hard to believe that the woman who had arranged Rogue's kidnapping – and Remy's – was now sitting on the recliner with junk food, eating to her hearts content, living like royalty. Pregnant by Remy. Weren't people as bad as Bella Donna meant to be suffering for all their misdeeds? Rogue wished so.
From the moment she'd fallen in love with Remy she'd had visions of being married to him when they were in their late twenties, and having a child. She was meant to have his children, not his ex girlfriend/fiancée. Those dreams, daydreams and wishes, the things that kept her going through the day, had been farfetched even before Bella Donna had arrived – the powers Rogue possessed killed any chance of a normal relationship, and there was no guarantee in another eleven years she'd even have control of her powers. Now with Bella Donna pregnant, her dreams of a happy life seemed crushed completely, ten times more impossible than they had been.
There wasn't a day that went by that Rogue had wished this pregnancy had been some sort of false alarm. But when Bella Donna's stomach had begun to quickly grow, and her breasts swell, Rogue had realised that this pregnancy was real – as real as was the tension in the mansion since since Bella Donna had moved in.
Bella Donna always acted like nothing had happened six months earlier, even though the result of the kidnapping she'd instructed had been the baby growing inside of her. And now they all had to live in harmony – or something remotely resembling it.
Lately, in an almost annoying way, Bella Donna would be almost pleasant to Rogue – which Rogue, quite rightly ignored. Rogue reckoned it was only because she'd dumped Remy - four months ago when Bella Donna had shown up, pregnant, vulnerable and in tears, with plans of abortion – that Bella Donna was even being distinctly nice to her.
Rogue had decided she could never be with Remy after this, and that left room for Bella Donna and Remy to play happy families.
Rogue cursed both of them and their child.
Rogue couldn't stand being in the room with Bella Donna – the woman who had torn her man away from her – and she quickly saved her homework on Microsoft Word, then logged off of the computer, leaving the room clutching a book in one hand and a half empty can of diet Lemon Coke in the other.
Unfortunately, she hadn't been paying attention, running head on into Remy LeBeau, who had just come down the stairs. Both having been not paying attention to where they'd been going.
Rogue bounced off of him, and fell on her backside, the can flying out of her hand and onto the tiled floor, spilling out and running between the gaps in the tiles like a maze of soda. "Fuck…" she muttered.
Remy almost fell back also, but steadied himself quickly, "Sorry," Remy put his hands in defence, "sorry…"
"You should be," Rogue muttered, pulling herself up.
Remy looked at her. She was beautiful when she was in a bad mood, it was when she was at her most desirable and when she seemed the most unattainable woman he could have…that was what attracted him even more to her. Despite he was already more than madly in love with her. He was a little hurt by her harsh attitude towards him, she'd been this way with him since Bella Donna had moved in. It was one of the reasons Remy found himself avoiding her more and more each day.
"Don't worry, I'll clean it up," Remy assured in a very responsible tone.
"Fine," Rogue threw a dirty look at him, then headed upstairs. Leaving him there with the soda to clean up, and a feeling of heartache.
Remy mopped up the soda wearily, he was tired, more tired than he'd ever been, it seemed the best way to avoid the woman he'd made pregnant – Bella Donna – and the woman he loved – Marie D'Ancanto, his Rogue. Life seemed so cruel to him, no matter how much he tried to atone for the wrong things he'd done, everything came into play to hurt him in ways he could have never expected.
Secretly, the thought of being a father in the next three months terrified him – Rogue had been right, he was in no fit state to be a father, he barely had enough responsibility to take care of himself – he had the feeling he was going to be a very useless, irresponsible and terrible father to the child.
The thought depressed him even more.
Remy glanced to the door of the recreation room as Bella Donna came out, one hand over her grown belly. Her hair was in two braids at each side of her face, her bangs slightly covering her ocean coloured eyes. Looking at Bella Donna it seemed almost logical that he should be in love with her, she was beautiful, adventurous – and carrying his child.
But as he tried to find it in himself to love Bella Donna, he could think only of Rogue. And Rogue was more impossible to get due to this mistake he'd made of sleeping with Bella Donna in the first place. She'd never forgiven him – and now, there was no chance she ever would.
"You still on chore duty?" Bella Donna looked at Remy.
Remy gave a nonchalant shrug, "I'm always on duty, told you, odd job man's work is never done around here," he shrugged, and even when it is, there's so much catching up to do with danger room training…" he added.
Bella Donna looked at him suspiciously, "you work too much," she stated firmly.
Remy gave a shrug and put the mop into the bucket and wrung it out, the placed it back into the pool of soda on the floor. "It keeps me occupied…you know me, I never was one for lazing around much," he shrugged.
Bella Donna looked at him, "I think Rogue's reaching the end of her tether with me," she stated.
"She's irritable, she gets that way sometimes," Remy shrugged.
"I don't get it, Remy…why her?" Bella Donna asked. "What do you see in her? She's nothin' special."
Remy sighed, "I can't explain it…" he drew his breath. "I'm in love…and that's it."
Bella Donna sighed, "I hate being pregnant," she kicked the bucket stubbornly, it splashed water over the floor a little, Remy gave a frown at her, "I'm sick of being large, my clothes barely fit, not to mention all the other little ailments…"
Remy sighed, "three months more and you'll be free from it," he reminded, "You can go back to the Big Easy, pretend like there is no child…and I'll remain daddy, and tell it you died in childbirth."
"Fine by me," Bella Donna muttered, and headed upstairs.
Remy frowned, what was it with these women and their bad moods with him? Alright, he realised he had some responsibility in their attitudes towards him, but it wasn't like it was only his fault, Bella Donna also had blame, and Rogue? Rogue was just too lazy to even try and work it out this time around. He decided he'd be better off if he stayed away from both women.
But staying away from Rogue might be harder than he'd thought.
Rogue glanced from the window of her bedroom, Remy LeBeau was trimming the hedges out front, the June heat blazing on his tan skin, body shining with perspiration. He looked wonderfully delicious – and Rogue hated that. It was hard realising how appealing he is when she couldn't have him.
Your own fault, she told herself sternly, she sighed, watching the flex of his biceps as he used the large sheers on the hedge not so far away.
"Will you stop staring at people, its creepy," Kitty Pryde was sitting on her own bed with her laptop, playing solitaire.
"Sorry," Rogue blushed, she pulled her knees up to her chest and hugged her legs, she was sat on the windowsill, gazing out.
Kurt Wagner entered the room, he and Kitty had been spending more and more time together, they – unlike Rogue and Remy – got along brilliantly and rarely ever fought with each other. Rogue wasn't sure if there was a romantic relationship there or not, sometimes it would seem so, and other times, not so much.
"Bella Donna is driving me mad…" Kurt threw up his hands, "she ate ALL the potato chips!! All the candy and drank the last can of Diet Lemon Coke!"
"Actually I drank that," Rogue remarked, she looked out of the window again, "Just put up with it for three more months, she'll be out of here, we can kick her out on her fat lazy ass."
"Why are we even putting up with her? She's not a mutant…she's Gambit's problem, not ours, why don't they just get an apartment together already?" Kurt muttered.
Rogue shrugged, "He says he doesn't love her, doesn't want to be with her," Rogue picked at a loose thread from her right hand glove.
"Funny way of showing it, having her live here, wanting her to have the baby," Kurt said.
Rogue loved Kurt right at that moment, never had she loved him as her brother more than then, it felt as if finally someone was on her wave length.
Kurt had been picky towards Bella Donna and Remy lately, Kurt would find ways to make things difficult for Remy – making it impossible for Remy to come in on conversations, and ignoring him if he tried to. The man had hurt Rogue – who despite no physical blood relationship – he had family ties, and they would consider themselves brother and sister occasionally. "I'd beat the shit out of him."
"Yeah, sure you would," Kitty responded, "He's a foot and two inches taller than you, and he can blow up anything he wants…the most you could do is bamf in his face," Kitty stuck her tongue out.
Rogue looked out of the window.
"You are NOT still lusting after him, are you?" Kurt folded his arms stubbornly.
"What else can I do, I can't just switch off how I feel about him," Rogue sighed, "god knows I've tried," she looked down to the floor sheepishly.
Kitty sighed, "you got it bad."
Rogue chewed her lip and blinked back tears, "we were so happy…"