Author's Note: Yay! We FINALLY get another look at the whole Rogue/Kurt relationship angle in 'Cajun Spice'. Pretty good episode, and it obviously pushes this story into the realm of AU fiction, but I'm going to continue it anyway, to take a look at what might have been.
The kitchen of the Xavier Institute was a flurry of motion and activity as the younger mutants prepared breakfast. Ray loaded up the toaster with bread and used his powers to give the appliance a jump-start. A few seconds later, the hyperactivated toaster ejected the toast and sent them flying across the room. On the other side of the kitchen, Sam grabbed a plate and took flight. He veered around the kitchen, catching the flying toast, and landed next to the table, the slices perfectly stacked up on the plate.
At the stove, Amara cracked open several eggs and dumped their contents into a frying pan. She shot a bolt of magma into the pan, and when the smoke cleared, she had a pan full of perfectly cooked scrambled eggs.
Bobby walked past a row of glasses full of orange juice, creating ice cubes and dropping them in each glass. He set them up on a tray and carried them over to the table, and the feast was on.
X
Rogue slowly made her way downstairs. She had gone back to sleep after Kurt had vanished, but she had not slept well. She kept seeing images of Mystique's stone body tumbling off the cliff, and she was now starting to wonder if she had done the right thing.
She opened the door and saw the younger mutants in the middle of breakfast. She walked in the door just as four Jamies walked past her, hauling out the trash. The jubilant atmosphere diminished a bit as the young students took notice of her.
Rogue was getting used to this treatment from them, although she still didn't like it one bit. Ever since that night, the younger mutants had grown a bit cold towards her after they learned about what had transpired at the gazebo. They had been more supportive of Kurt's feelings in the whole affair.
And why shouldn't they, Rogue thought. After all, Kurt didn't kill anybody.
"Hey, have any of you seen Kurt this morning?" she asked them, hoping that she'd be able to get another chance to talk to him.
The younger mutants shook their heads no. "He hasn't come downstairs yet," said Amara. "Did you check his room?"
"He's not up there," Rogue said, not wanting to let on that Kurt had vanished the night before. "Thanks anyway," she said, grabbing a glass of juice and walking out of the kitchen.
As Rogue walked out of the kitchen, she saw Logan walking down the hallway towards her. She turned away, but she heard Logan's voice over her shoulder.
"Hold on, Rogue," Logan called. "I wanna talk to you for a minute,"
Rogue turned around reluctantly, not really wanting to talk to Logan, or anybody else for that matter. "Um, I'm kinda busy this morning," she said.
"Too busy to hear some advice?" Logan quipped. "C'mon, let's go talk in the den, it'll be quieter there,"
X
Logan led Rogue into the den and sat down next to her on the couch. "She's still buggin' you, isn't she?"
Rogue sighed. "Seems like she's always there somewhere, in the back of my mind," she said. "And that look on Kurt's face, right before he jumped off after her. I don't get it. Why would he still care for her, after everything she did to him?"
"Who knows? Look, I know this has been hard on you," Logan said. "But you can't keep dwelling on this. There's no way you can go back and change what happened,"
"Don't you think I know that?!" Rogue suddenly shouted. "Every time I think back to that night, I ask myself if I'd do it again,"
"Would you?"
"No," Rogue sniffed.
In an uncharacteristic display of empathy, Logan placed his arm around Rogue's shoulder. "Listen, Rogue. You shouldn't have to deal with this. You're too young to have this sort of thing pushed onto you. If somebody was gonna have to kill Mystique, it should have been me. Or the Prof. Bottom line, this is something you just shouldn't keep holding yourself responsible for,"
"I don't," said Rogue. "But I still feel so guilty,"
"You shouldn't," Logan said. "Whether you realize it or not, things are going to be better now that she's gone. And believe me, if I were in your position, I would have done the same thing and not given it a second thought,"
Rogue was glad that somebody finally could see things her way, but it still didn't seem to make the heavy weight on her heart go away. "I just wish I could tell Kurt how I really felt about all this. Every time I try to talk to him, he always runs away," she said.
"You're just gonna have to give him more time," Logan replied. "For whatever reason, the elf actually cared about Mystique. He'll forgive you someday, but for now you're just going to have to let him come to terms with this his own way,"
"I guess you're right," muttered Rogue, and stood up to leave. "Thanks, Logan," she said.
"Anytime," Logan responded as she walked away.
Rogue decided to take a walk outside, still feeling very isolated from her fellow mutants.
These people are supposed to be my family, she thought to herself. But how much do I really have in common with all of them?
Maybe I just need to get away from all of this, she thought, and decided that that some time on her own to reflect, away from a mansion full of confused and distrustful mutants, was the best thing to do for now. She walked a few blocks away from the institute and waited for a bus to come by.
X
Kurt had spent his morning in a similar sense of isolation. He had eaten breakfast in a lonely diner (using his holo-emitter to avoid being recognized, of course), but had barely been able to taste his food. After eating, he had wandered aimlessly around Bayville, following blindly wherever his legs carried him. These days, the whole world seemed very cold and numb to him. Not even talking to Amanda had helped to ease his feelings of loss and regret. She had, reluctantly, but at his insistence, agreed to give him some time alone in their relationship to sort things out. He had been grateful then, but now her absence only fueled his feelings of emptiness.
Kurt wandered for over an hour, completely oblivious to his surroundings. He finally began to take notice of where he was, and realized that he had gotten completely lost. He didn't recognize a single building or landmark. He was in a part of town that was completely unknown to him. To make things worse, the sky was beginning to cloud up with threatening storm clouds.
"Something tells me that's not Storm trying to speed up her garden again," Kurt muttered as he tried to retrace his steps. This, however, got him even more disoriented, and he finally gave up and slumped down on a bench.
He reached for his cell phone to call Scott and ask for a ride home, but when he flipped the phone open, the blinking light on the LCD screen made his heart sink even further.
"Great, no batteries!" he groaned, and clutched his head in his hands. "Oh, what else is going to go wrong today?"
As if fate were listening, he heard a horribly familiar crackling sound from his holo-emitter. "I had to ask!!" Kurt yelled aloud as his emitter began to short out. "I knew I should have changed the battery last night!"
Kurt was shortly standing in his normal, blue form, in the middle of the city streets. There was no traffic around and nobody to see him, but Kurt knew that he shouldn't stay outside like this for long. Sooner or later, somebody was bound to spot him, and Kurt was worried that that somebody might be one of the roving gangs of vigilantes that had begun to spring up after Duncan Matthews' escapade a few weeks ago. His arrest had seemed to have no effect on their activities, however, and their presence, while at present confined to simply spray-painting anti-mutant slogans on the sides of buildings, was not a welcome sign to say the least.
Kurt quickly looked around for a building he might be able to hide in, and came across his first bit of good luck for the day as he spotted a church across the street that was covered in scaffolding and plastic tarps.
Kurt figured that the church was undergoing a major renovation, and ran across the street and into the church. His instincts proved to be correct as a vision of a dark, empty chapel greeted him.
I should be safe in here, Kurt thought, and walked over to one of the pews and sat down. He looked around at the inside of the church, marveling at the architecture and especially the stained glass windows. He tried to imagine what the church would look like on a sunny day, and realized that people must find some comfort and solace in this place of worship.
As Kurt sat in the church, an idea came to him. He was not particularly religious, but in this case, it seemed like a good idea to say a few prayers for his mother. It might not do her soul any good, but at least the action might soothe his own. He walked up to the altar and, after a few moments of searching, found a book of matches. He lit the candles on the altar, knelt down, and began to pray.
X