A/N: Like in chapter 10, I jump back and forth in time during this chapter. I hope it isn't too difficult to follow, but I have a significant purpose for this... Oh, yeah! It's also another long one. ~_~ooo
Special thanks: RogueBHS (MidnyteRogue, etc.) for inspiring the Storm/Rogue gabbing scene. For responding to my plea for Greek Mythology help, well, everyone, especially Roguechere, Lynx, CatgirlX, and SLH for taking the time to actually send me the story itself. All of you are wonderful! :hugs: Oh, and to my husband, for making it possible for me to spend so much time on my performing and writing goals.
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Seether
Chapter Fourteen – Aleatory [1]
By Randirogue
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"Crickets are chirping. The water is high. There's a soft cotton dress on the line hanging dry." (Man In the Long Black Coat –by Joan Osborne)
Even at this time of year, the humidity reigned. Something about the river, something about the south, something about nostalgia contributed to its sticky hold. Indoors, looking out through an antique glass window mimicked memories. This view showed the breeze tugging tree branches and laundry on the line, the river a picture of pure, still serenity, and the sunbeams cutting betwixt clouds and canopy to shower the grass. But, step outside and the image lost its perfection. Without the antique glass as a filter the faults were revealed. The breeze was blowing hair into eyes and lifting skirts, the river was tearing away the brush with its current or lying stagnant—a breeding ground for mosquitoes and such—and the sun was baking, glare blinding, and robbing comfort of the shade. Distance and separation tended to remove the bad for the good, or the good for the bad. It depended on what a person wanted to see. If a native southerner persevered the winters of the northeast for a few years, the haughtier climate of the south could appear pleasantly mild, a welcomed retreat... a view through an antique glass window. At first, that is. A few days in and the annoyances of the not exactly sultry weather returned; the filter of the glass was removed.
Rogue was no exception to this. Despite all her powers, she wasn't immune to the effects of facing her nostalgia in person any more than she was immune to the clinging humidity. She mused over the realities of her occasionally romanticized remembrances as she sat on a tree branch near the banks of the mighty Mississippi. Rogue wiped a bead of sweat trailing down her back then swatted a mosquito on her arm. She used the toe of one shoe to scratch another bite on the calf of her other leg. A trail of mud now spotted the bite. She frowned at that. She had flown to her perch in the tree, yet still, her shoes were splattered with mud. She'd forgotten how the mud managed to get stuck to her no matter how carefully she avoided it. She huffed and wiped a sweat-dampened lock of white hair out of her eyes, accepting that she would always be a river rat. The mud was just a part of that.
The team had arrived only a few hours before. They'd flown commercial, relying on Rogue's inheritance, Remy's vast financial means from thieving, and the contributions the other team members had made from their own admittedly smaller savings to provide for the excursion's expenses so they could refrain from involving Xavier so much. Rogue gladly offered up the wealth she'd inherited. She never was much for living up the high standards of the rich. Most of the X-Men figured that her modest spending was a left over from her lifestyle growing up. They always seemed to assume that her river rat roots encompassed the mass of her life. She knew that Sage reminded them of Mystique's significant influence, making them less inclined to equate her with ignorant trailer trash... okay, so she knew they had never viewed her intelligence and familial social status quite that harshly. But, they still didn't seem to comprehend that Mystique and Irene, who never felt the need to shrug off luxury, had raised her. Rogue was almost nine when they took her in. Her only possessions were a shotgun, the clothes adorning her, a nickname, and a fierce sense of self-preservation. She hadn't even possessed the gifts that identified her as a mutant yet. The X-Men failed to understand that Rogue's down-home-minimalist flavor wasn't from the pre-brotherhood period of her life. Those times were a foreign nation to her. It was a product of other things... things inherent in persona's like Thirteen and Eleven.
Rogue had found it amusing to bring them to yet another house when they arrived in Caldecott. The third one since they first set out after the diaries: Australia, New Orleans, and now in Caldecott. It wasn't a mansion by any means, but it wasn't a hovel either. It was a slate-gray two-story house with a wrap around porch and a white swing in front. There were benches and rocking chairs arranged on the porch as well, and white shutters framed each and every window. It was set a good ways back from the road on a patch of four acres of land. It wasn't right on the riverbank, but it wasn't far from it, either.
Upon arrival, Rogue had pulled out a key and walked inside like she'd been there a hundred times before. She showed them around, giving wistful, secretive smiles at this and that. By the time they had divided up the bedrooms, Rogue had them convinced that the house was hers and that she had lived in it for several years with Mystique and Irene. They even assumed that the room she had claimed for herself was the one she had occupied when she'd resided there. After all, it was furnished as though for a teenager. Storm, Bobby, Remy, and even Bishop were examining the house for signs of her history by the time she'd finished giving them the tour.
But right then, Storm and Rogue were in the kitchen, and Rogue was contemplating exactly how to give up the joke about owning yet another house when Storm had asked, "Seven bedrooms? Did Mystique have guests often?"
Rogue closed the cupboard door and looked to Storm. The expression Storm wore revealed to Rogue that the joke was up.
"Ya caught me, Ah rented it." Rogue said, mirth evident in her tone. "What gave me away?"
Storm opened a drawer and pulled out a welcome card. She had come across it first thing when her and Rogue began their inventory of the existing food supply in the kitchen. Pushing the card across the island, Storm said, "Samantha Cain [2]." It was the name that the card was addressed to. It was from a real estate rental agent.
"Ah didn't think any o' ya'll saw that movie," Rogue said with a slight chuckle.
"I rented it just a few days ago," Storm admitted, "after Sage reminded us of the—" a pause for the most judicious word "—tutelage you received under Mystique. I had wanted to see it when it first came out, but an emergency, Magneto on Asteroid M, if I remember correctly, had prevented me from seeing it in the theaters." Storm jotted down two more items on their shopping list. Without looking up, she added, "Some things Sage had said reminded me of the movie."
Rogue, who'd been continuing her survey of the cupboards, said, "Coffee, cream, sugah, honey for Gambit [3], tea, if ya want it, Storm." She didn't bother looking to see if Storm got all of those on her list. She didn't even need to use Logan's enhanced hearing to listen if Storm had written them down. Rogue hadn't been intentionally spying on Storm's thoughts, but ever since the odd absorbing of Emma's powers during Beast's tests in the danger room, Emma's telepathy had been automatically on all the time. She could dim it, but certain thoughts she couldn't keep out completely. Storm's oncoming question just happened to be one of those things. Rogue had mixed feelings about the ensuing questions to come. She was hoping she could use the shopping list to distract Storm from the direction their conversation was taking, since she wasn't willing to use Emma's telepathy to force it, but it didn't.
Storm's questions came regardless. The first one, "Do you think that film was very accurate?"
"Ah couldn't tell ya, 'Roro," Rogue answered. The response was nonchalant. "Ah never worked for the government. Mystique's X-Force days were after me."
"I see," Storm said with equal nonchalance.
Rogue's thoughts were not so insouciant. Just ask it, already, 'Roro.
She did... sort of, asking, "Did it have any resemblance at all to your time with Mystique?"
Rogue sighed and faced her. Storm wasn't normally one to beat around the bush like she was. It made Rogue realize that Storm really was working hard at not setting her off, at not pushing her too much. Sage had pointed out to them that Rogue never told the X-Men the specifics of that time because they had never wanted to know about it. They had never asked her about it. When she first joined them, they had no trust of her, no acceptance of her, and no liking of her. They had loads of suspicions, though, and plenty of opportunities to inform Rogue of them. So, Rogue had bottled them up inside her. She hadn't locked them away like she had done to Thirteen, Fifteen, Nineteen and whoever else was still in there, but she had kept them secreted within her nonetheless. Emma's telepathy had told her all of this, and seeing Storm work so hard at treating the issue so carefully, Rogue felt an urge to make it easier on her. All in all, it was really just about the least problematic topic for Rogue right then.
Rogue hopped off the counter and moved gently towards Storm. "Ya can just ask me what ya want ta ask me," she said, making light of it, "it can't be bad enough ta spark another episode."
Storm frowned; she wasn't amused.
"Okay, bad way o' putting that." Rogue took a breath and tried to make Storm understand with her expression and her tone, "Ah don't have a problem talking about my training with Mystique. My time with her? Most of it Ah don't regret. Her and Irene were probably better parents than ya'd think."
Storm was relieved. "I supposed they were. If who you are today is any evidence of their rearing techniques, I would say they were excellent parents."
Rogue smiled. Rising under Jean's telekinetic powers, she sat, Indian style, on the island, and asked, "So what do ya want ta know?"
Storm settled on one of the stools and asked, "How technical was the training? Was it more about combat and terrorism tactics or infiltration or what?" There was a hint of excitement to her questions: scandalous, curious, and eager all at once.
Rogue chuckled, guessing what Storm really wanted to know, and asked, "Did she train me to be a spy as well?"
Storm nodded. She was eager for the details, one friend to another, not as a leader seeking out the skills and education of her team member, and not a leader wary of the dangers a member could present.
For Rogue, Storm's response made her behave like a teenage girl with her first crush. Her eyes alit with joy as she exclaimed, "What should ah dazzle ya with first? My deviant stunts?" Storm laughed out loud and Rogue continued, the flourish of her gestures matching the exuberance in her delivery, "My world class marksmanship?" Rogue started to giggle. "My brilliant infiltration techniques? My extensive knowledge o' languages? Ah'm outta practice now, but Ah WAS fluent in Italian, Russian, German, Spanish, French and—don't let Remy fool ya." Storm, still laughing, shook her head at Rogue's silly boasting. "He could use a few lessons from me! What he speaks ain't French. The girls that fall for that mish-mush, thinkin' it's all exotic and classy? Well, let's just say they deserve ta be waitin' on his never-ta-come call for falling for that."
And that's when Rogue went still and silent, serious.
Storm was afraid that something Rogue had just said hit a tender nerve, but then, Rogue, quite deadpan, said, "Or all the boring hours—no, years—Ah spent studying blueprints, dossiers, security systems, computer programs, code ciphers, target profiles—oh mah gawd, this one guy, Ah'll never forget. This fat greasy pig o' a man that was Senator Mianni's assistant back in, oh, has to be six years ago now, he was a REAL winner."
The gabbing went on for a good hour between them. Both of them ended up revealing several humorous stories to each other. They were both gasping for breath from the force of their laughter, their faces red, their eyes watering, when Remy interrupted them, saying, "Y' two lookin' at de nudie pictures o' Logan 'n Hank again? I told dem dat none o' y' be approvin' a calendar fund-raiser. Especially since I refused t' exploit m'self in that way."
Rogue and Storm, shocked, looked at Remy, then at each other, then burst into laughter once again.
"Ah can see it, now! 'Gorgeous Men O' the X-Men!' One look at all o' ya'll's hairy unmentionables and we'd be sued for false advertising!"
Another round of laughter from Storm and Rogue followed that one. Even Remy chuckled with them.
"I'm not hairy!" Bobby exclaimed. They hadn't seen him enter and, as contradictory to his status as the resident jokester as it was, felt compelled to defend his own worthiness in participating in such an endeavor as a nudie calendar.
Gambit passed the teasing onto Bobby, saying, "Non, wit' y' boyish charms we'll be jailed for underage pornography."
Bobby did a Tarzan pose. "Hey, I'm all man."
Lots more laughter ensued at that.
Gambit, his laughter sobering to a mild chuckle, said, "Well, dis man gettin' hungry." He turned to Rogue, flashing her a sexy smirk, and said, "How about y' let Remy take y' out to de best restaurant in town?"
"Dinner sounds good," Bishop said as he, Sage, and Neal came into view through the pass-thru window leading from the kitchen into the dining room.
"Yeah, Rogue," Neal agreed, "Where's a good place to eat?"
Gambit leaned back against the island beside Rogue, and said, "Why is it every time dis Cajun tries to take y' out, de whole team joins up?"
Rogue giggled, remembering their infamous first attempt at a date. Logan, Hank, and Jubilee had all tried to tag along.
"Because we know you can't be trusted..." It was Bishop. His stern words left them holding their breath, preparing for him to go into another 'so-and-so can't be trusted' tirade. They were shocked when he grinned and added, "...to keep your hands to yourself."
Rogue covered her head, searching upwards as though something was about to crash on top of her, saying, "Is the sky falling? The world must be ending if Bishop made a joke."
Of course, more laughter followed.
They proceeded to make plans for dinner. Rogue ended up not joining them. Instead, she stayed behind, giving them the excuse that she wanted to take in some of her old haunts, alone. After the others had gone, she flew off property to perch in a tree near the riverbank and watch the water's perpetual current. She had a lot on her mind, being back Caldecott, searching for Destiny's Diaries, and so on. Before, her trips back here were for different things, painful, yes, but things she'd been actively dealing with her entire life: The onset of her mutation and the resulting coma that event caused in Cody. After Cody's death, she'd neglected visiting his grave, a complete contrast to her annual visit to his bedside while he was still living. For some reason the idea of visiting the dead sent shivers down her spine. She didn't even think it had anything to do with Cody. It was more like the general nature of the task struck a nerve buried deep inside her. Being here now, with the purpose of the diaries and with everything happening to her lately that had brought up theories of Rogue's early childhood, somehow made that nerve sing all the more.
Rogue sighed, still panning through her own musings. Despite her confusion and concerns for being there right then, for that purpose, she had to admit that she had nobody but herself to blame for her uneasiness. Storm had at first split the team, half to Caldecott, half to Cairo. Rogue had been purposely asked to go to Cairo. It was her own request that brought the entire team to Caldecott instead.
Originally, Rogue was perfectly content with heading off to Cairo with Sage, Gambit, and Bobby. Even then, when Storm brought up the plans at the meeting in that New York hotel room that she was conveniently invited to late, Rogue's sensitive nerve began singing its high pitched warning about returning to Caldecott at this time. It wasn't until later during a final meditation session with Logan the day before their intended departure that Rogue changed her mind.
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"The window's wide open. African tree bent over backwards in a hurricane breeze..." (Man In the Long Black Coat –by Joan Osborne)
A nonexistent breeze lifted up tendrils of Rogue's hair, tickling her neck, igniting her anxiety and thus her stubbornness. Her clothes didn't ruffle and neither did Logan's clothes or his hair. A few leaves flitted, but even then it did not match the flapping of her hair against the back of her neck.
"I want ya to try something different, darlin'," Logan had said when they settled down, sitting Indian style across from each other. They were in the same area of the woods that he had found Rogue in just before her first episode. Logan had chosen it specifically, and though she seemed oblivious to their location, his senses picked up the sent of her sweat from her tension at being there. It was exactly as he had anticipated, planned, and he told her so in his own way. "Whatever happened while ya were all on your hunting trip for the diaries gave ya more control of the imprinted powers than I could ever give ya with these sessions." He gave her a knowing look, and when she bit her bottom lip in defiance, he continued with a huff, saying, "I'm not gonna push ya to tell me about it, but I'm wonderin' if it released a whole other can of problems for ya. I'm thinkin' that whatever switch was flipped was connected to these things that are happening to ya right now."
"Like maybe she—it messed up? Something went wrong?" Rogue asked, eager and a little fearful.
Logan shook his head, then met her gaze as he grabbed onto her gloved hands to root her for what he had to say next. "No, Rogue. I think it worked better than ya ever wanted it to."
He expected her puzzled frown that followed, and so he wasn't daunted when she tried to pull out of his hold and said, "I think yer off your rocker, Logan."
He tightened his hold on her gloved hands, and said, "Why can't ya touch, Rogue?"
Rogue was stone silent. The nonexistent breeze began thrashing her hair at the back of her neck. Even her clothes at her collar ruffled with it. Everything else was still.
Logan, stubborn in his own right, refused to back down. He asked the next question, "What's yer real name, Rogue?"
The breeze became real. The sound of it twisting and bending the tops of the tall trees reached them. But, Rogue, Rogue was still, silent, biting her lip, stubborn as all get out, yet.
Logan fought the smile of triumph that was urging itself onto his face. He had reached her brink, and he was about to top it and he knew it. He asked the most important question of all, the thing, in his own theorizing that linked it all together, "Why did ya really run away?"
And that did it. The wet snap he felt back in that eerie meeting right in this spot in the woods before her first episode caught him in reverse. He was ensnared by Rogue's powers. He could feel the sticky web-like texture of a tug at his chest. The catch was activated. And it was just as he had planned.
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"Not a word of goodbye, not even a note, she's gone with the man in the long black coat..." (Man In the Long Black Coat –by Joan Osborne)
The group was in good humor when they returned from dinner. They had eaten at an old country diner that had live music, which Rogue had recommended to them. She hadn't been sure it would still be open, or that if it was, that it'd be run by the same owners, but she had insisted that it had been the best place to eat and be entertained in the whole of Caldecott county when she had lived there. As it had been a long time since she'd lived there, she repeatedly warned them that it may not be the same, and when the group had arrived at the near desolate restaurant, they had feared Rogue's warnings were correct.
They had all been wrong. The place was just as wonderful as Rogue had said it had been long ago. Its lack of patrons, they'd found out from their waitress, was due only to the annual revival being held at First Baptist two towns over. It was the county's biggest affair. It lasted the entire weekend and resembled a grand festival more than anything. Several tents were pitched in the field beside the church in order to accommodate the overflow of guests. Nearly everyone in the county joined in the revival's events sometime over the weekend. Besides spirited sermons, there were crafts, bake sales, chili contests, cookouts, dances, and live music of every type. The revival was, at heart, a celebration of life and faith, not some dreary lecture about the ways of the devil and how temptation and sin would pave the way to hell. Of course, the fire and brimstone sermons did have some of that flavor, but the purpose of the revival was to make people want to embrace the Lord, not scare them off with threats of the damnation of their souls nor bore them to sleep with quiet, solemn services. As a result, First Baptist's revival was the county of Caldecott's biggest party of every year. It was a party few members of the county's population missed out on, and thus, the country diner was about empty, save for the X-Treme X-Men team.
The band that was performing at the diner and the employees there weren't bitter about missing out on the big dance that for having to work that evening. Instead, they brought a bit of the party atmosphere with them to the diner. It hadn't taken long for Gambit, Storm and some of the others to be caught up in the spirit of things. By the end of the night, they were dancing, singing, and calling out "Hail Mary," "Praise the Lord," and "Hallelujah!" Rogue, had she been there to watch Bishop trying to line-dance, would've been thoroughly amused.
It was in the remnants of that spirit that the group returned to the slate-gray house Rogue had pretended she'd grown up in. Bobby and Gambit, each for different reasons, immediately sought out Rogue as soon as they'd returned. Bobby wanted to relay the silly stories of the evening to her and Gambit wanted to convince her to go out with him to the revival for some fun of their own. When neither of them found her, they were a little upset, but also admitted that what they wanted her for was nothing that couldn't wait until the following day. They had all understood the emotional turmoil that possibly connected Rogue with Caldecott and didn't want to intrude on her initial coming to terms with it. But, they also knew she would need those closest to her to really deal with it all. They decided, separately, and then later with Storm and the others before heading off to sleep, that they would give Rogue a little more time with her ghosts before searching for her.
The next morning they were all up doing research and scouting for the diary that had been rumored and deducted to be in Caldecott. Storm and the others wished Rogue was there to help them navigate the area and the possible hiding spots for the diary. But, since they reasoned that the original plan had been based on not having Rogue's help at all because she, Sage, Bobby, and Gambit were to go to Cairo, they figured a few more hours on their own was nothing to be too concerned over. However, when Rogue hadn't returned nor checked in with them by the following afternoon, their decision was reversed.
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"Somebody's seen him, hanging around at the old dance hall on the outskirts of town..." (Man in the Long Black Coat –by Joan Osborne)
"Yeah, Ah saw her," the bake sale attendant said as she looked at the picture. She passed it over to one of her customers, to get her ascension that the girl in the photo had in fact been at the dance at the revival the night before, and asked, "She was dancing and talking with those other two strangers, right Amy Lee?"
"Yeah, she created quite a stir, iffen Ah remembah right," Amy Lee said as she looked at it and passed it to her much younger companion.
Remy kept a close eye on the picture as it moved further away from him. It was the only picture he had of Rogue on him, and it was both his most and least favorite picture of her. It was taken at one of their picnic's/baseball games/swim parties two summers before. Rogue looked happy and content and quite comfortable with herself. She was in a bikini top and cut off shorts to boot, and seeing her so relaxed while wearing so little made him very happy in return. It wasn't a picture he was ready to lose because these women passed it around until it was eventually lost.
"Oh yeah!" exclaimed the companion with the emphasis of a scandal. "There was lots o' talk ovah her last night."
"Not that we're ones foh gossip, mind ya," the bake sale attendant said. "It just struck us as odd the way she behaved. None o' us could pick her out as a relative or former resident heah, but she moved around the place like she'd near grown up in it."
"It just struck us as funny, ya know," the companion said, continuing for the bake sale attendant.
"She didn't seem ta be enjoyin' herself at all, either," Amy Lee added. "Seemed a bit scared o' alla us. Now isn't that just the silliest thing ya evah heard?"
"An' those two men," the bake sale attendant interjected, "she didn't seem ta like them one bit, got into an argument with one o' them an' still left with him too."
Amy Lee's nod to that was strong enough that Remy thought she'd be saying 'hallelujah', but instead she said, "An' that was weird, 'cause they were some big guys, kinda dark an' menacing lookin', but she seemed less scared o' them than she was o' us."
"Ya are so right, Amy Lee," the attendant said, "She did seem ta almost relax when she saw them."
The team had split into three pairs to search for Rogue so they could best cover all five towns that comprised Caldecott County. Storm and Remy went to the revival since most everyone was supposed to be there, Bobby and Sage had asked around the town they were staying in and the one just North of it, and Bishop and Neal took the two towns to the South. Storm, Remy, and Bobby each had a picture with Rogue in it that they could use to ask about her. Storm had given up her photo to Bishop and Neal to use, since she and Remy were using his.
"Could you give us a description of these men," Storm asked.
"Well," Amy Lee answered, "that wouldn't be hard at all. They did stick out like a gator and a croc on yoh front porch."
The attendant continued for her, saying, "They both looked a bit a like, though. Real dark hair, big muscular builds, kinda stern an' self-righteous, like they were better than alla us. Oh, an' they had long coats like yoh's suh." She indicated Gambit's brown trench when she said that, "But theirs were both black."
"Made me think they were part o' some big city gang or something," Amy Lee added, again with the scandalous tone of hers.
"No, they were more like secret government agency types," the companion said with enthusiasm. Both Amy Lee and the attendant rolled their eyes at the young woman even as she continued, saying, "Ya'll know what ah mean. Those conspiracy types, all dressed in black, driving black cars with real dark tinting, wearing black sunglasses ta hide their appearances..." She paused in her excitement, then added, "Only they weren't dressed identically, an' they didn't have sunglasses on, an' they weren't together."
"She's got something there," Amy Lee said, forming her own hypothesis. "They weren't part o' some gang, unless they were from rival gangs. They didn't come near each other an' they gave each other mean looks."
"Yeah, an' their coats were different," the attendant said, jumping in. "The one with the darker skin and long hair, his coat was more like yours, while the other one's coat was more o' a cloak. It had a sorta Victorian feel about it."
The attendant's words sent a chill through Gambit. He turned to Storm and mouthed the name 'Vargas' to her, and Storm nodded her agreement. That fit the description of the longhaired man, but they still were confused over the other one.
Satisfied with what they'd learned from these women, and wanting to discuss it amongst themselves and to inform the others of their discovery, Gambit reached for the photo that the companion still held and said, "T'ank y' for helpin' us."
The companion, as she went to hand the picture back, unfolded it. The crease in the picture had been so worn in that at first she hadn't noticed it was folded at all. As she opened it, she saw the other half of the picture included a young man with long silvery hair and icy clear blue eyes. The woman they were asking about was sitting directly in between him and the very man they were speaking with, Remy. When folded, the picture seemed to be one of just Remy, slightly grim, but with a mischievous glint in his eyes, and the girl, Rogue, who seemed to be turning away, smiling at something Remy had just said that made her blush. When unfolded, it was clear that Rogue was smiling and blushing as she was talking to the man with the silver hair. This was the reason it was also Gambit's least favorite photo, for the reason that the picture made it seem she was so happy. Gambit knew it was really that they were on down time and having a good time, but it looked like it was Joseph, now deceased, that made her so happy. And his feelings on that subject, especially since Joseph was dead, made him a bit guilty feeling. So, he had kept the photo, for mixed reasons, but kept it folded.
The companion studied the man with the silver hair, and then her eyes lit with recognition. "He looks a lot like that guy, Mag—"
"You've been a great help to us," Storm interrupted as Remy took back the photo. She had a feeling that their being associated with Magneto in any way would not bode well for them in their search for Rogue. "We really must continue looking for her, though."
As they started away, Amy Lee called after them, saying, "Don't forget ta visit mah quilting booth! Ya won't find better stitching from a Quiltin' Bee this side o' the Mississippi!"
Ororo waved and smiled politely back at them. Once out of range, she and Gambit consulted and contacted the others with the information they'd learned.
~~~~~~~~~~~
"He looked into her eyes when she stopped him to ask if he wanted to dance. He had a face like a mask..." (The Man in the Long Black Coat –by Joan Osborne)
Rogue surveyed the interior of the biggest meeting hall of First Baptist, which was currently serving as the main dance hall for the revival. When she was sitting up in the tree looking out over the Mississippi, she had seen a modest fireworks display glittering in the water's reflection just after full dark had set in. Something seemed familiar about it and she followed the colorful display to its origins at the revival. Once there, her nerves sang exponentially louder, convincing her to check it out. There was a connection here. She just knew it. She just couldn't place a finger on it.
"Not a finger, eight years." Salt and vinegar, it was Fifteen.
"It's heah." That was the real Eleven. Her pause gave the feel of her searching the room with Rogue's eyes even though it was Eleven's memories that were being examined. "But it's befoh even meh."
"It's the most secret." Edgy and sad, Thirteen. "Even Ah can't access it. Heck, it ain't even part o' mah catalogue. It's just inside."
"More depraved than meh, more fearsssome than Herrr," Nineteen's chickory voice hissed.
Rogue noticed that Impostor Eleven hadn't come forward with the others. She stayed quiet, infusing herself only on the outskirts of Rogue's consciousness, ever since the mission with Kitty. Other than the one time during the meditation session with Logan, Impostor Eleven had done nothing more than watch, wait, and plan. She made no attempt to manipulate the catches, or even to speak to Rogue. It was suspicious to say the least, but it also made Rogue wonder if Impostor Eleven was afraid.
"Too-oo-oo-oo-oo much-uch-uch-uch-uch depends-ends-ends-ends-ends on-n-n-n-n chance-nce-nce-nce-nce occurances-ces-ces-ces-ces."
Rogue about jumped out of her skin. Fifteen rolled her eyes. Thirteen seemed bored, untrusting. Eleven scowled. It was half mischief, half annoyance. Nineteen laughed, haunting, taunting, her usual way. It wasn't like true conversation when they all spoke, but more like internal thoughts or telepathy. They each stayed in their own domains while Rogue remained outside her mindscape, surveying the rowdy hall during the biggest dance of the entire revival. Rogue could feel their mental gestures, expressions, and emotions like through a telepathic link, but she couldn't actually see them. It was in this way, that she felt and heard all of them.
"Ignore them, Rogue," Emma's ghost said, meaning the remains of the dead catches, "I try to most of the time. They like to sound ominous and over-dramatic. They think it makes them important."
"Great, it's the Queen Bitch o' the Universe," Fifteen said. Her sarcasm was as thick as the tart and bitter flavor and texture of her voice. "Are ya heah ta rescue all us peons from our own ignorance?"
Laughter. Haunting, taunting. "Correction, Fifteen. She'sss sssecond next ta Herrrr."
"Correction again"* child Cody's ghost said, sing-song. "She's third, aftah ya."
"Yeah, ya big wimp," Eleven said, fists balled on her hips, ready to pick a fight. "So, why dontcha just shut up an' go cower from Her. It's all ya seem good at anyway."
It was Thirteen who came to Nineteen's defense. Thirteen may not have trusted people easily, but she sure found it simple enough to sympathize for them, despite her training against it. She said, "We're all afraid o' her, Eleven. All o' us."
"So says the great and powerful Librarian," drawled Fifteen. "Let us bow ta yoh pre-teen wisdom."
"Leave her alone, Fifteen," Eleven said, jumping to defend Thirteen. "Aftah all, ya are bitch numbah four."
Emma's ghost cleared her throat, interrupting their bickering, then said, "The point we're here to make, dear Rogue, is that you need to be careful."
"Like Ah needed ya'll to tell me that," Rogue said, or rather, thought to them. "Now, if ya'll don't have anything actually helpful to offer, Ah'd suggest ya let me get back to what Ah'm doing."
"I wasn't done," Emma's ghost said with annoyance. "You need to be careful, BUT you need to stop sitting on the sidelines. We're doing all we can for you from in here. You could at least do a little something to help yourself out there."
"What do ya think Ah'm doing right now?" Rogue asked, somewhat offended.
"You are standing against the wall, waiting for one of them to make a move first," Emma's ghost said, indignant.
Rogue sighed, stubborn, but relenting. She glanced, left, then right, one black coated man skulking in the shadows, and another one brash and challenging at a table under the brightest light in the entire dimly lit hall. These two men were the 'them' that Emma's ghost was referring to. The brash, challenging one was Vargas. The other... well, Rogue had her hunches about him, but outwardly, he was nobody she recognized. She suspected some sort of shapeshifting or image inducer was involved. She'd only caught a couple quick glimpses of him as he moved closer and closer to her, passing in and out of the light as he did so, but he wasn't anyone she could pick out as knowing specifically. Because of that, she figured him the greater threat. She didn't know his motives or intentions for seeking her out. Vargas, on the other hand, was an annoyance she understood too well.
"As much as I hate to admit it, Rogue, Logan was right"* Emma's ghost said, "You need to face up to all of this. You need to take some of the chance out of it."
It only took a moment for Rogue to make her decision. The ghosts, the personas, and the remains of the dead catches all faded back from the forefront of Rogue's conscious mind as she moved to confront the first of the two men. She wanted to sneak up on them, one at a time, but they both kept their attention directly on her so she didn't bother. She walked right up to her first choice, the one she saw as the most threatening, the one skulking in the shadows, and asked, "Care to dance?"
A smile spread across his handsome face. He was handsome: tall, dark, an air of dignity and confidence, and a certain Old World grace to his mannerisms and speech. After all, the scariest villains were always the most charismatic too, the most likely to easily lure you in. This attractive, cultured man raised his arms up in preparation of a waltz that didn't match the music, and said, "I wouldn't be a gentleman if I declined such a fascinating offer, now would I?"
Rogue got chills when he said 'gentleman.' Despite everything about him, every bit of her told her he was no gentleman and that he was hinting at other things with that statement, especially with his wording of 'fascinating.' She took up his arms, still, and began to dance with him. They found their own waltzing rhythm within the contrasting music of the live country-rock styled band. It was awkward, sure, but what better way to confront your demons, she figured, than to dance with the devil him self? Whoever he may be.
~~~~~~~~~~~
"And somebody said, from the bible he quote, there was dust on the man in the long black coat..." (The Man in the Long Black Coat –by Joan Osborne)
Bobby rolled the ice cube over his tongue. He'd been making them and sucking on them all day to fight the awful heat, despite the time of year. He was waiting for Sage to say thank you and goodbye to the hardware shop owner from just outside the shop's door.
The two of them had been walking up and down the streets, showing the picture of Rogue, asking if anyone had seen her, and searching for hints of her whereabouts. So far, they'd not had any luck. With the Revival going on this weekend, the streets were pretty empty. Most of the people they encountered were those who had to work and those who weren't sociable enough to attend the revival. And because of that, they were getting more brush-offs than information.
Crunch! Bobby chewed the last bit of ice, swallowed it, and formed a new one right inside his mouth to do it all over again.
Sage came outside and they continued up the street. An old time styled barbershop, complete with the candy cane post outside, was the next business on the street. Two ancient men sat outside, smoking pipes and watching people on the street. Sage and Bobby approached the two men, both who gave them the once over, unsure what to make of the strangers that Sage and Bobby were to the town.
Sage passed Bobby the picture of Rogue, Bobby's picture, actually, and said, "Your turn."
The picture was from the road trip he and Rogue took. Well, the one he sort of followed her on, to keep an eye on her because he was worried about how much of Gambit was controlling her after she'd absorbed him with that last ditch kiss in Israel. It wasn't a very accurate picture, to tell the truth. Not only was it a few years old, but it showed her with a completely different look. Her hairstyle was different: longer, wavier, and flowing. She was wearing Gambit's too baggy trench coat, which completely disguised her body type and misrepresented her height. It made her look small and young like a teenager. It was taken at night, and yet she had on sunglasses to conceal the red on black eyes she'd retained from absorbing Gambit. But her face could be seen, its shape, its softness and subtle show of inner strength, and most distinguishably, the unique dual tone of her hair. Because honestly, Rogue's white streak was generally the primary identifiable physical trait she had. Even people who had followed the punk trends and dyed their hair with similar stripes didn't quite capture the same appearance that Rogue's natural tresses did.
Bobby had kept that picture on him not because she looked beautiful or happy or any other reason such as those. It was a keepsake of what he hoped he'd meant to her, been to her, during the road trip. It also reminded him that he wasn't as close to her as he wanted to be. Reminded him that she hadn't let him be as much a friend to her as she had been to him. That she likely knew of his feelings for her and, though she had stayed close to him, she had been discouraging his pursuit of her. Perhaps, he was just kidding himself when thinking there was ever even a possibility they could be a couple.
It had been Bobby, himself, that had taken the photo. It was in Miami, where he had first found her after Gambit's personality had her breaking into that museum. She was sitting on a pier railing, about a hundred yards out past the shoreline. She was just staring off into a dark so illusory that the sky hardly separated from the ocean at the horizon. Even the sparkling reflections on the water's surface seemed to be easily confused with the twinkling stars above, like she was sitting in a cocoon of black velvet sprinkled generously with silvery glitter. She wore the sunglasses in that darkness because Gambit's eyes, being still new to her, were sensitive to the reflected light of the moon and the stars and the night clubs lining the boulevard behind her. Or maybe she was just hiding them... him... Gambit. Bobby had never gotten that bit of information out of her for certain. For as much that the sunglasses and oversized coat—with its collar pulled up—had hid of her, the expression on her face was clearly visible. She wasn't pouting. She didn't even seem to be introspective or sad or melancholy, but she was as distant and unreal as that muted horizon line that didn't quite separate the sky from the sea. The picture didn't show it, but Bobby knew that right then Rogue and Gambit were only as far apart from each other, as seamlessly separated, as that night sky and sea were. The division between Rogue and Bobby, on the other hand, was as evident as the place where the hushing, slapping waves washed upon the sure, steady shore. After Bobby took that photo of her he had vowed silently that he would be her shore so she could flop onto his lap every time she stretched her reach from that place where she didn't quite separate from the night sky when it was dark.
With a sigh, Bobby handed the two old men his photo of Rogue, and launched into his spiel that ended with, "Have you seen her around?"
The old man sitting closest to the hardware store took the picture from Bobby. He looked at it briefly, sat it in his lap to pull out his bifocals, and then picked it up again to examine it more thoroughly. He squinted even with the glasses. After going back and forth between looking at it from over and through his glasses, he finally said, "Nope, can't rightly say as ah have, young man."
The old man then tried to pass the photo to his people-watching companion. As the first man had possession of it, this second one had flicked his eyes at the picture with a steamy scowl. And now that his friend tried to pass it over to his inspection, this second man just waved his hand at it like he was swatting at a fly.
"Ah don't need ta see it, ta know ah ain't nevah seen her," the second man said. He then gestured towards the street and the few people moving around on it. "Aaron, we sit out heah every day watchin' these folks an' ya know that ain't neither one o' us seen any strangers—'cept foh these two—in the last few weeks, at least."
Aaron, the first old man, shoved the picture at his friend again, quite stubbornly. "Just look at it foh these kind folks, Joe. Quit being such a hard ass."
Bobby chuckled at their grumbling. Sage cleared her throat, but Bobby kept on chuckling until Sage said, "But she isn't a stranger here. This is her home town."
Joe's scowl deepened and with a grumpy huff, he snatched the picture from Aaron.
Bobby questioned Sage with his eyes, but she ignored him. This frustrated him. He wanted to know why she told Joe and Aaron that Rogue was from this town. They didn't know that for sure. They only knew that Rogue was from Caldecott County, not which town of that county. She had to have had a purpose for telling Joe and Aaron what she did. And she'd said it with such surety, Bobby almost believed her. He kept watching Sage with that same questioning look until Aaron, slapped his though and said, "Aw hell, he's back."
When Bobby turned he was surprised he hadn't smelled the man already. The man, moving with heavy, shuffling footsteps, was heading straight for them, only a few feet away. The man was a drunkard or a loon, Bobby suspected. He was likely homeless because he hadn't obviously bathed, nor washed nor changed his clothes in a very long time. His hair was greasy and ratted into odd twisted dreads with leaves and twigs sticking out of it in places. His layers of clothes he wore were thin and stained and worn. The man reeked of ammonia, likely from urine, of excrement, the non-human kind, and of sweat. The scent was so strong Bobby had to spit out the ice cube he was sucking on because it suddenly tasted like the man smelled.
The ice cube bounced twice and stopped right in front of the man. Bobby held his breath as the guy looked to Bobby, then to the ice cube, before he bent over and picked it up, saying with a beaming grin, "Ya lost something there, kiddo!" He carried it over to Bobby, holding it up in a palm that was brown from dirt and calloused.
Bobby cringed and said, "That's okay, I don't need it."
The guy frowned, as though confused, then his eyes widened with hope, "Ya sure? That's a right fine lookin' diamond."
"I'm sure, Mister," Bobby said, "I don't want the ice anymore."
"Well, okay then," the guy said. He stared at it, marveling over it like it was indeed a precious jewel, then popped it in his mouth and cooed.
Bobby gasped, cringed, and slapped his hand to his mouth all at once just as Aaron stood, shaking his fist at the guy, hollering, "Get outta here, Byron, ya danged fool!"
Byron, as Bobby and Sage now knew him as, looked like he was about to cry. He spat the ice cube carefully into his palm, wrapped his other hand around on top of it to make sure he didn't lose it, and said, "Ah didn't steal it, Aaron. Ya heard him, right? He said he didn't want it no more."
"See this is why we don' got no tourism around here," Aaron exclaimed in exasperation, "Ya always scaring them away!"
"Hey, it's okay, really," Bobby said, placating the fairly irate Aaron. Bobby thought the guy was strange and all, but he also felt a tinge of sympathy for a guy who treasured a simple piece of ice as much as he did.
The photo was then shoved into his face by the more ornery Joe and a gruff, "She ain't from here," sounded in his ear.
"Sure, thanks for your help," Bobby told Aaron, getting annoyed with the guy. Bobby figured even if Rogue was his neighbor as a kid, he'd still be adamant that he'd never seen her. The guy didn't want to help and Bobby didn't want to bother with him anymore. There were still a lot of other people left in the town to talk to. He'd rather get on to speaking with them and get away from this cranky old man.
Bobby pocketed the picture and headed closer to Byron. Sage watched him with her neutral, analyzing gaze, but was then left to deal with Joe's continuing crankiness.
Behind him, Bobby heard Joe tell Sage, "She lied ta ya. Aaron an' ah know everyone that ever lived in this heah town. She ain't nevah lived heah." Even though Joe's tone was softer and more sympathetic, Bobby still preferred doing something for Byron than dealing with Joe right then.
The previously chewed ice had all but melted away in the palm of Byron's hand. He now looked at his empty but wet hand like he'd lost his best friend. Bobby covered Byron's palm with his own, flashed him a smile, and activated his mutant powers. When he pulled his hand away, ice cubes spilled from the man's hand like magic. Bobby winked and said, "It's our secret."
Byron, overjoyed, said, "Ya got a God given gift there. Thank ya, thank ya lots. " Then he shook Bobby's hand so enthusiastically, he lost a few of the ice cubes. Ignoring the lost diamonds, as Byron saw them, Byron's eyes lit up further when he saw the picture of Rogue in Bobby's other hand.
"She yer girl?" Byron asked. He said it like Rogue was last season's harvest princess. He whistled appreciatively and added, "Yer one lucky fella."
Bobby blushed, but tried to correct Byron's assessment, saying, "Oh, she's not my—" But, Byron clapped a hand on Bobby's shoulder, pulling him a little from Sage and the others, and just kept on talking.
"A girl like that," Byron boasted, "beautiful her whole life, strong willed and caring, is something ta be thankful foh. Yer ice trick? That's nothing compared ta her. Yoh truly blessed by God, sonny. Truly!"
"Um... okay... uh, thanks," Bobby said, figuring it was futile to try and correct him. But then something Byron said, struck Bobby as interesting. It could've been Bobby's wishful imagination or Byron's insanity, but the way Byron had spoke of Rogue seemed like he knew her... or had known her. Assuming it couldn't hurt to prod, Bobby said, "I was glad to come with her to visit her home town. It's the least I could do for her."
Byron grew suddenly serious. He curled Bobby closer to him, making sure they were out of earshot of the others, and with all chilling sincerity, said, "I didn't like carrying mah brother's weight on mah shoulders, but it was a burden I'd bear again."
Bobby stumbled back and out of Byron's reach. Something about what Byron's words felt more real than figurative to Bobby. An image of Byron carrying a limp body in a fireman's hold flashed in Bobby's mind, freezing him to his core.
"Uh... sure... uh..." Bobby said, tripping over his tongue as he stumbled back to Sage. "Thanks for your help and... uh... have a nice day," Bobby said to the barbershop duo as he pulled Sage away and around a corner.
Once they were out of the way, Bobby leaned back against a small brick structure, like a sign, and exclaimed, "If this is where Rogue's from, I know why she left it. Man, those two old guys were annoying but that other guy was whacked!"
"They recognized her," Sage said in analytical calmness.
That stopped Bobby. He blinked at her in disbelief, and stammered, "What?"
"They haven't seen her in a while, I don't think," Sage clarified, "But, they knew who she was. Joe may not be the nicest person, but he was glaring at her picture like he had a personal claim in our asking about her. Aaron, as cooperative as he seemed, was surprised at seeing Rogue. He didn't have that hard a time seeing the picture. He was just shocked to see who it was. He was badgering Joe, not to be more helpful, but in an attempt to cover."
"Okay," Bobby said, confused, "How do you know that? They didn't do anything different than any of the other people we've talked to."
He didn't need to hear her saying, "Exactly my point," to realize what he had just said.
"I think most all of them know her," Sage said. "I think this was her home town. Either that or she lived somewhere nearby..." She looked at the surrounding buildings and landmarks in her view. To her right and behind her, where Bobby faced, was a field with some old half-collapsed, half-blackened buildings. After that was the river, a rail-bridge crossing over it even further in the distance. To her left was the main street of town and the quaint suburbs beyond. "...Someplace that these people would've frequented."
Bobby's face paled. He had just worked some connections out and he hoped he was wrong.
"Remember what the waitress told us about the revival last night? About why the first revival was held?"
Sage realized Bobby had paused to wait for her agreement, so she nodded then said, "The original church had burned, killing the pastor and his family." She sounded like she was reading it from a brochure or encyclopedia. "On the anniversary that the new church was built, the Revival was held to end the mourning and boost the populous' morale. In 198—"
Bobby's raised hand stopped her. "Yes, that's it, but, what I'm trying to get at is that the old—"
"Church is right behind me," Sage said, finishing for him. She pointed to the brick structure he leaned against. He turned around to see it was a sign and plaque and information doctrine for the historical site that the remains of the old burned down church, the museum like home the pastor's family lived in beside it, and all the land in between had become.
"Oh, yeah, that," Bobby said with a faint laugh. His mirth was short lived though; his expression darkened again and he asked, "You think Byron was crazy?"
Sage quirked an eyebrow and asked, "Why do you ask?"
"'Cause I think he was trying to tell me something."
~~~~~~~~~~~
"Preacher was talkin'. There's a sermon he gave. He said, 'Every man's conscious is vile and depraved. You cannot depend on it to be your guide when its you who must keep it satisfied.'" (The Man in the Long Black Coat –by Joan Osborne)
Rogue was meditating with Logan in the woods outside Xavier's.
She was in a hotel room. It was dank and musty and everything she needed so she could be in Cairo incognito. She was looking out a window. The old, imperfect glass was bubbly and had a gentle wave in it signifying that over time the glass had been settling down towards the bottom of the frame. It gave the view a distorted look. For some reason, she could see past the bazaars and shacks, and could see banks and gush of the Nile. It made her feel small and insignificant. It was large and close, a rushing death trap just steps from her back porch.
It didn't seem right. It seemed more like home. She even saw cattails edging it. Were there supposed to be cattails along the Nile?
She was reaching for one, to help her examine it better through the glass, and she was through the glass. Her fingers didn't stop at its cold presence, but slipped through like it wasn't even there. She reached through and touched the cattail. She had to reach high though, cause it was so much taller than she was. And that was odd because she was tall. It had been years since she had to reach above her head to wrap her palm around one of the umber tops of a cattail. She knew the soft look of it was deceptive, so she expected the usual feel of dry and crumbly spores against her palm. But she had been deceived again. It was soft and velveteen and moist.
A pungent and stinging odor flared. It was sweet though. She looked away from the banks where she stood. She had to peer through the cramped stalks of cattails to see a vast expanse of desert, past the Sphinx and some pyramids to check and see if something was cooking or burning in the city beyond. But there was no smoke there, so she figured it had to be the strange breed of cattail in her hand.
She caressed her finger over it and realized that it didn't have the right shape for a cattail. It was tall, and it was a stalk, but it didn't even have the umber color, the porous feel, or the corndog-ness of it. She shook her head. She was being silly. Of course it wasn't a nest of cattails she was standing in. She was in Egypt. It was a stalk of a lily she was holding in her hand. She didn't know why she kept calling it a cattail. She knew it was a lily. It was soft and velveteen. It was vanilla white and mint green in color, though not scent. Its flower was large and inviting. It was a Madonna Lily, after all.
She reached in to touch the pasty spores at the tip of the stamen that protruded out from its center. It was farther away than she thought. She had to reach in and in and still she couldn't touch it, touch the thing that stuck out past the opened petals. Deep inside, she wiggled her fingers and their tips could just brush the edge of the tip of the stamen. The inner walls of the vanilla petals pressed around her tiny stretched hand like a comforting mother's hug. It was soft and velveteen and warm, and when the petals folded inwards and wrapped around her hand she sighed to welcome the embrace. She was in Cairo, being held by a Madonna Lily as she stood in the Nile, a sweet and stinging burning scent filling the air, the water rising from her ankles to her knees, her thighs, she hips, her shoulders... and she felt like she was finally home.
A tug at her waist and she looked up from where she was stuck in place in the middle of the river. The tug fought the current, like she'd been caught round the middle by a lasso and noosed into place. Along with the current, but jut a bit more forceful, her hand was being pulled forward, fighting the tug at her waist from behind. It was the Madonna Lily pulling her forward guiding her down stream. She knew what that was and for some reason accepted it as normal. Of course Lily would be guiding her that way. The tug from behind was new though, she thought, at least it felt awkward and new, so she looked back for its source. Behind her, many miles away upstream the rope from her led to Logan on the banks, in the woods outside the mansion. She could see clearly that the rope attached, sticky and web like at his chest. He nodded to her, eyes warm and forgiving... and cautious. She understood though. He had been with her this entire time. She'd just forgotten about him, but he'd never left her. He was there to jump in and pull her out if he needed to. His nod was a reminder of that, and so she knew it was safe to keep searching for the Lily's center.
The noose slackened and she was moving once again. But the pull didn't seem to be the same. For some reason it felt like she was going down, being sucked under, spinning, whirling, choking for air as the water bubbled into her mouth. One hand was reaching upward towards the sky. Manhattan was there, and West Chester and Washington and San Francisco and Venice and Caldecott and gray hair and glasses for the blind. Caldecott was above and below. Her other hand, hugged by the Lily's enclosed petals was pulling downward. But she didn't want to go there. She didn't. There was smoke there and a train chug chugging, but the Lily was soft and warm and velveteen and embracing her and ensuring her everything would be just fine.
Under she went. A pull from above and her face broke the surface of the churning water and it poured in her mouth and she was choking. Under, she couldn't breathe, but she wasn't coughing or choking either. Up, and she swallowed more than she wanted and had to spit and gasp. She just wanted it to end.
So it did.
She was on the riverside clutching to Irene's hand. She was soaked as a drowned river rat. As she coughed out the smoke and the water she caught sight of the whirlpool as the Lily was pulled under and swallowed whole.
"Ah want mamma," Rogue sputtered out between coughs.
Irene helped her stand, she was surprisingly taller than Rogue, and Irene pointed up to the apartment on 47th Avenue in San Francisco. "She's arguing with me about Carol."
Rogue looked into the window and sure enough she could see Irene and Mystique arguing. "It's no wonder ya two never figured out the diaries, 'Renie," Rogue said to the person who's hand she still held. "These visions o' are more jumbled than Logan's past."
Rogue gave the hand a squeeze, but the hand squirmed and tried to pull from her. Confused, she looked at the grasp. Her bare hand wasn't holding a hand, but a bare arm. She looked up, following the arm she held, and found the struggling face of Carol Danvers. Rogue gasped, and tried to break free, but couldn't. Not at first. Something was wrong. When Rogue finally could let go, her head was screaming, a whirlpool all of its own, and there was a limp weight in her arms. She looked down and saw the blue lifeless eyes of what had to be a dead woman, or near enough since it was Carol. Rogue freaked and dropped the woman and flew off. When she realized what she'd done, she looked down to see the woman disappearing under the ocean's surface.
Rogue clutched her own throat. She could feel the liquid and smoke burning her throat as she was pulled under by the ocean's tide. She shook her head. That wasn't her; that was Carol who was drowning. That was Carol trapped in her head scrambling for control and to understand what was happening. But, she was drowning and coughing and sputtering in the smoke and the water. And she couldn't get enough air. She collapsed to her knees, trying to force air in.
...The situation was desperate. And if her life was the price to save... So be it...Strangest sensation... As if every atom of her being had instantly become aware... While top to bottom and out body and soul... The woman she was had been blown to bits.... Then, just as suddenly, startlingly, terrifyingly, she was back together again! [4]
An enormous intake of breath caused a nauseating shift inside her and she vomited on exhaling. There on the carpet in front of her was a limp and wilted Lily. But it was only a bud... sort of. It was small and young and yet fully formed. She closed her eyes at the sight of it. It made her head hurt. Nothing made sense.
A television was on. A reporter talking about the death of Mystique. Her mother was dead. That couldn't be right. She had to go. She had to help her mamma. She jumped out of the window to fly off to her mother's side, but she tumbled down and landed in the street. She couldn't fly. She had lost her powers. The Siege Perilous had weighed and measured her and deemed her worthy and now she was free. She was new.
"... You alone sweetheart?" Reavers in Australia.
"Itsy bitsy spider went up the waterspout..." Memory, but not her memory... exactly. Caldecott, home, hurt.
"...She's cute, she's perky, she's southern, with a skunk stripe in her hair... Big as life but half as sassy..." Reavers in Australia.
"Down came… the rain," she turns the faucet head, but it is rusted shut. She's watching, but she's doing it too. "to… wash the… spider out." In her floating state of mind, she realizes not the strength she has, and with a grunt, gives up her efforts of turning on the water. She pouts, but with her shunted memory, she remembers that pouting is bad, although not why, so she stops. Memory, but not memory. She's her but she's watching. Her hand once held by a withering Madonna Lily, swallowed, spat back out.
"Rogue?" Logan asked, leaning over her crouched form stabbing at the dirt at her feet with a stick to the rhythm of a nonexistent train chug chugging in the near distance.
Revenge. Carol. Australia. Savage Land. Seething. Shared. Losing. Guilt. Penance. Separation. Removal. Integrated. Blocked. No penance. Saved?
"Out came the sun... and dried... up all the rain," she continued as she jabbed the stick into the faucet spout, into the dirt in the woods outside Xavier's where she's meditating with Logan, punctuating the places where the sobs had been from where the memory of the song began.
"Rogue..." Logan had crept up to her, watching her curiously and cautiously. A few moments before, she had been sitting Indian style across from him. Her hands were relaxed on her knees, her breathing steady, her eyes closed, as she was meditating serenely with his aid and guidance. Then she was up, scrambling on hands and knees to the same spot he'd found her in just over a week back right before the first episode in Bobby's presence. What they had all thought was the first episode, at least. The exactness of what he saw now to what he had seen then, her crouched over, singing and half-sobbing in a small voice, stabbing at the ground with a stick, made him wonder if the episodes had been going on longer than they had realized. Perhaps what he had seen that day was the first. Perhaps it was something even much, much earlier.
"Then the itsy... bitsy spider," she gave one final jab with the stick before giving up. She remained in her crouched position, her knees tucked against her chin, as she turned her attention to the ground as she sees it between her knees. She lightly poked the ground there with the stick, as if testing its readiness, its durability.
"Rogue... I think we should stop now," Logan said. His voice was gruff, but tentative.
"Went up… the spout… again, " she sang sharply. The last word was as pointed as the stick she stabbed into the ground, pulverizing the stick with the strength her memory had neglected earlier with the spout since it was out of context with the memory itself that she now neglected with her unrealized emotions. The stab echoed in her stomach. Avoided memory took imagined form.
The ferocity and violence of her actions, of her complete submersion in the visions, be them forgotten memories or from Irene's powers, he didn't know which, but her actions were starting to concern him. He didn't like how it was going. He didn't like that it seemed out of their control. He didn't like that he was feeling a great anger and sorrow tugging at his chest in the same place he felt the catch. He wanted it to stop.
He grabbed her shoulders from behind and he expected that what had happened the first time he caught her like this would happen again. He thought she would jolt back, slam her knees together and fall back. He thought the impact caused by the strength of her recoil would slam her back into the dirt and that with a resounding, "Umph," her lungs would seize and the air rush out. [5]
But she never even turned around.
He was flung back. He could feel the magnetic powers she'd gotten from Joseph and Magneto pulling at the adamantium in him, as it threw him high against the tall trunk of a sturdy pine.
"Umph!" The air was forced from his lungs when he hit and a sharp, piercing pain shot through his right lung. He didn't feel the hold on the adamantium, so he expected he would fall to the ground, but he didn't. The pain in his lung burned and he looked at his chest to see a short broken branch protruding there. Another one poked through his left thigh. That was why he wasn't falling.
He stole a glance at Rogue, to see how she was. The most startling thing was that she had attacked him. He feared she wasn't in control. Especially, since the catch at his chest, now that he knew what to feel for with it, felt odd, strangled, and just well... different.
Rogue was still crouched on the ground, but she was now half-facing him and balancing her weight on her palms too. Her face was contorted in some sort of internal struggle. Whether she was battling some pain of her own, fighting against something or someone trying to take control of her as Carol had done a few years before, or if she were battling some other thing, he wasn't sure. For the moment, as long as he was suck up in the tree, though, she was on her own. And he wasn't about to let it stay that way.
He gripped on to two sturdy looking branches on either side of himself, to steady himself with the pain and to keep his balance should either branch protruding though him were to snap from his weight. Ready as he was going to be, he yanked his thigh off of the branch, snarling, "Yyyarrrggggg!"
The pain was near unbearable, but he knew his healing factor would take care of it in a moment. Sweat beaded all over him and he was panting as he was letting the pain subside a bit, or at least let his body get used to it. He took a couple of huffing breaths to yank himself forward from the branch through his chest, but couldn't...
"Logan stop," Rogue panted, still fighting whatever battle she was fighting herself. "Ah can't... she's... just wait a minute!"
He wasn't even sure if she was really talking to him. He tried to pull himself off the branch again, but he was weak, getting dizzy, becoming confused, and there was a tugging through the catch he felt at his chest. As his head fell, boneless, to his chest, he had to fight just to keep his eyes open. He blinked and blinked, his vision getting blurrier and darker with each one.
Blood was pouring from his thigh. His femoral artery was punctured. He wasn't healing.
And as he blacked out completely from the blood loss, clarity struck him. The difference in the catch he felt at his chest was that it didn't feel like Rogue. It was halting his mutation, his healing factor. Impostor Eleven had taken control of his catch from Rogue and it was that control that Rogue was fighting for. But by the time the thought was formed he was unconscious and didn't expect he'd ever know the truth of the situation.
"Logannnnneeeaaaarrrrg!" Rogue grunted as she fiercely punched her hand into the soil, gripping a root buried there and yanked it up. That was what was mimicked outside her mindscape. It looked like that real action, but the real action of her motions was inside her mindscape. There, she had reached into the bundle of catches, grabbing the one that was Gambit's. She was desperate to save him and had no idea of how to fight Her. But, she had remembered Gambit creeping through his own catch to help her in her dream, in Nineteen's forced and embellished remembrance. She took hold of his catch, captured it, tangled it with Logan's, and set to charge Impostor Eleven's shimmering cloud form within its place in Logan's catch to force Her out of it.
Her mindscape quaked. Web strands burst forth all over, spreading, coiling, multiplying, and patterning to ensnare Rogue herself. And even as Rogue felt those sticky strands reach further and further through out her, she noticed that they didn't consume her. She was still in control. She was still master here. And with a surge, Rogue drew Impostor Eleven painfully out of Logan's catch.
It was in Rogue's hands now.
As Rogue worked on it—she'd only just purposely accessed a catch for the first time when Logan was taunting her before they began the meditation session--Impostor Eleven's shimmering cloud form expanded, heated, and finally dissipated in a furious scream. All the while, Rogue focused on Logan's catch, coaxing it to somehow do what she wanted it to do. She needed to give him back his powers so he could heal himself. She tugged on it, squeezed it, bounced it and more, but it stayed dull and limp and lacking the luminescence it held when Impostor Eleven had been controlling it. She was tiring. She could feel herself splitting between Gambit's catch, keeping the charge loose with that catch to keep Impostor Eleven at bay, and using the rest of her energies to try and re-activate Logan's catch herself. And the weaker she got, the more she feared she wouldn't make it. He would die while she was trying to figure out how to manage her own mindscape and that was not satisfactory to her.
She released her hold of Gambit's catch then, letting it fall back into the bundle of all the other catches. The glow of her controlling it faded away and she felt the split of herself pull together to completely focus on Logan's catch. A faint hum filled it; illuminated it the tiniest bit. But it wasn't enough. She was tired, nearly drained herself, and it wasn't enough!
She could feel Impostor Eleven floating up and around her. With the charge generated with Gambit's catch ceased, Impostor Eleven was taking advantage of Rogue's weakness. She was prepared for Rogue to lash out at her to keep her at bay, but she wasn't prepared for Rogue to ask for help.
"Tell me how to do it!"
Okay, so Rogue didn't exactly ask. But it still shocked her. Rogue needed her. And she was filled with joy. Immediately, the shimmering cloud halted its advance and encumbering on Rogue's mindscape form. Gently, reassuringly, she said, "I will fix it." It was everywhere and nowhere all at once.
"No!" Rogue yelled. "Ah sure as hell don't trust ya. Tell me how oa do it, now!"
Impostor Eleven backed off. She was stunned and a little... hurt.
"Ah won't let him die, Sugah," Rogue growled, "But Ah won't let ya be my dictator either."
The cloud shimmered, a glow rippling through it that Rogue first took as anger. But, as the cloud swirled and caressed her shoulder, Rogue realized it was more like pride than anger.
Everywhere and nowhere, and softly vibrating against the shoulder she caressed, Impostor Eleven whispered, "You just have to touch it."
Rogue's head whipped around to face the bulk of the shimmering cloud form. She held up the catch in her grasp and said, "What do ya think Ah'm doin'?"
"No, touch it, Rogue," She whispered, dissipating. "Touch doesn't hurt so much anymore... remember?"
And Rogue remembered and the shimmering cloud wafted away from her altogether. Rogue had felt pleasure from that experience. It hadn't been romantic love, and though it was lust and need, it was more rewarding than what most would consider a simple fuck. There was healing in their having sex. There was friendship in it. And though some people felt a betrayal from what she and Logan had done which granted Rogue guilt for it, the pleasure of it, the satisfaction of it, the lack of pain from it, had far outweighed the rest. Rogue would not regret what she had consented to, what she had happily partaken.
Rogue stripped off her gloves in her mindscape and gripped Logan's catch again. It soared to life. It throbbed at her beckon. It shone with her possession. And before she was too tired to do so, she gave him back himself.
Outside the mindscape, Logan was waking. Blinking back his vision, he found himself lying in Rogue's lap. Before even checking himself out, he sat up and looked her over. She was asleep on the woods leaf covered ground. He didn't feel the catch anymore, and even though he knew it wasn't a tangible attachment to his chest, he touched where he had felt the connection on him. Surprisingly, a small shiver went through him when he did and Rogue awoke.
With a tired moan, she rolled onto her back, her hand reaching where he had just been, but not finding him. Her eyes snapped open and she jolted into the air, hovering, searching for him frantically.
"I'm right here, Rogue," Logan said tugging her back to the ground by her ankle. He gestured to his chest and thigh, where branches had punctured him, and said, "Ya fixed it up just fine." He waited for her to settle completely back on the ground, watched her raise a tentative gloved hand towards each healed wound, not touching, but checking it was real nonetheless, before he asked her, "Did ya do it?"
Rogue looked at him confusedly, then smiled with amusement when Emma's still on telepathy told her he was referring to whether she had beaten Impostor Eleven at her own game.
"Not exactly," Rogue said, stepping a safe distance back from him. A few small tears had been made in her clothing during her struggle and she didn't want to accidentally render him unconscious again.
Logan frowned at her withdrawal and Rogue laughed out loud, saying, "Did ya really think that li'l stunt o' your's was gonna fix me, Wolvie?" It was rhetorical and Logan had the compunction to at least smirk at her. It was a bit of a preposterous idea that in one session of pushing her to her edge she would suddenly have all the control she ever desired for herself.
Rogue kicked at the leaves then met his searching gaze of her. "It was too much, Logan. That's why she did what she did. She thought Ah'd get hurt. Afraid ah couldn't handle it." She kicked the leaves again and looked away, "And she was right. Ah couldn't have even helped ya on ma own. She had to tell me how."
Logan sighed and scratched his bristly chin. "So yer basically tellin' me I made it worse?"
"No, ya didn't," she said, "Ya were right actually. What ya was tryin' to do an' all." She turned to him and eased herself into the air as simply and instinctually as most people breathe. "Ya just can't do it for me."
"What are ya going to do now?"
"Dig up a few roots, Sugah."
And she flew off to find Storm so she could plead her reasons for the whole team needing to go to Caldecott.
~~~~~~~~~~~
"It ain't easy to swallow. It sticks in your throat. She gave her heart to the man in the long black coat..." (The Man in the Long Black Coat –by Joan Osborne)
Storm disconnected the cell phone call with Sage.
"Don't like that look y' givin', Stormy," Gambit said.
"You'll like Sage's theories even less," Storm answered.
"Merde! What now?" Gambit spat with vehemence.
Storm rested and comforting hand on his shoulder, questioning the strength of his reaction as well.
"Now I knows it's bad," Gambit said with a slight sigh. "Y' didn't tell me not to call y' Stormy."
~~~~~~~~~~~
"One. Two. There are no mistakes in life, some people say. It's true, sometimes, you can see it that way..." (The Man in the Long Black Coat –by Joan Osborne)
Caldecott County Courthouse housed the Mayor's offices, the county commissioner's offices, the county clerk's offices, the assistant DA's offices, and the school superintendent's offices. Bishop and Neal were waiting inside the conference room to meet with representatives from all five. Neither Bishop nor Neal knew why the superintendent was coming.
"They sure are taking their time, aren't they?" Neal asked. It was rhetorical.
Neal was slouching in one of the chairs on the side of the long center table. He was plumb tired after walking and questioning the locals all day. They were one more stop short of breaking to meet with the others over dinner to discuss what they had all learned about the possible location of the diary rumored to be in Caldecott as well as Rogue's disappearance when Storm asked them to retrieve some information at the courthouse.
Go to the county clerk's office, fill out a form requesting a copy of some public records, and bring the files to dinner for them all to go over and discuss. Those were their instructions. *Easy,* Neal had thought.
That was an hour and a half ago.
When the clerk came from the file room and went directly to her supervisor's office rather than just bringing them photocopies of the records as had been done for the four people ahead of them in line, Neal knew there was no 'easy' about it. They were told they needed approval and were led to the conference room to await a meeting to plead their reasons for wanting the specific records they requested.
"This is absurd," Neal complained again. He was a little stressed that Bishop hadn't said one word of protest. "They are public records, free and available to the public. We shouldn't need approval."
Bishop looked from the bookcase to a painting on the wall and to the door leading out to the main hallway. All three were on the same wall, with the painting centered between the bookcase and the door. Bishop silently read the small plaque below the painting. Original First Baptist Church of Caldecott, it read. 'Sometimes the good is burned with the bad, but as ashes it all blends together.'
Well, that's nicely cryptic, Bishop thought.
Neal leaned forward over the conference table. He asked, "Doesn't this bother you at all?"
"Storm said that Bobby and Sage were having similar difficulties at the library," Bishop said. He walked around to the other side of the table and viewed the bookcase, the painting, and the door from there. "I am not surprised, is all, Neal." Bishop looked at the window on the wall adjacent to the bookcase.
"What are you doing, Bishop?"
"This is familiar," Bishop answered Neal. He was puzzled. "But, it is different... wrong." He looks from the window to the bookcase. "I've seen this before... somewhere... but I think the bookcase and the window were reversed." He shakes his head. "I'm just not sure though. I've never been here before, not since I came to this time, and it would have been in ruins in my time."
Neal stood. Something about the bookcase having caught his attention. As Bishop groaned, annoyed at not being able to pinpoint the reason for his déjà vous, Neal took a peak out the door down the hallway at what should have been the other side of the wall from the bookcase. With a broad grin, he came back in the room and said, "Ever see Panic Room?"
"No, I have not," Bishop said.
"Well, it doesn't matter," Neal said. "Prop that door closed and help me move this."
Bishop did so, but questioned Neal with a glance as they shifted the heavy bookcase away from the wall and in front of the window. A door was revealed.
"It was a door, not a window," Bishop mused, "That was the problem."
"What are you talking about?" Asked Neal as they went into the hidden door.
Bishop found a light switch and it worked. They were in a small filing room. It was in the space between the conference room and the elevator in the hall.
"I remember where I'd seen it before," Bishop explained as they each rifled through a different dust covered wooden filing cabinet.
"Where?" The first drawers they checked were anything special.
"In a painting that hung in the Witnesses chambers." The middle drawers held files irrelevant to them and their purpose.
"Who's the Witness?" The bottom drawers were the same as the middle drawers.
Bishop paused in thought before answering, though Neal moved onto another cabinet.
"Someone I do not think will ever come to exist now," Bishop finally said. He checked the remaining cabinet.
"Why's that?"
"Many reasons, really," Bishop said, musing to himself. He looked to Neal and added, "You and I joining the team being among them. Jubilee is no longer the last addition to the X-Men."
"You do realize that wasn't a very helpful response, right?" Neal said, chuckling to himself. In all honesty, Neal hadn't expected a better one.
They were silent for the next few minutes of their hurried search. They had to be careful since they didn't know when the five would eventually show up... if they ever intended to.
"A-ha!" Neal announced happily as he pulled out three file folders. "Got it!"
Bishop glanced to him and nodded, but didn't cease his own search just yet. From his cabinet he pulled out a metal box with a lock on it. It was locked.
"Could you?"
Neal shrugged, unsure of Bishop's reasons for wanting inside the box since Neal already had the information Storm had instructed them to get, but he did what Bishop asked of him regardless. With a tiny, precise use of his powers, he melted off the lock. Bishop absorbed the excess energy from it.
Bishop opened the lid. A moment after peering inside, though, Neal knew Bishop had found something. An honest to God smile broke Bishop's usual serious expression.
"The painting was titled 'Memories Hidden, Futures Revealed,'" Bishop said as he held up his find.
Libri Veritatum, Volume Twelve.
~~~~~~~~~~~
"People don't live or die. People just float. She gave her heart to the man in the long black coat." (The Man in the Long Black Coat -by Joan Osborne)
Rogue flew off to perch in that same tree near the riverbank she was in while the team went to eat, and, again, she watched the water's perpetual current. It always helped her keep things in perspective. When the entire world seemed to be about her, dependent on her, revolving around her, weighing on her, the river's flow reminded her that she was no more than debris in the flux. It wasn't a metaphor describing some sort of low esteem she held for herself. Debris wasn't garbage. Debris was a branch, struck free of its tree... a person making its way in the world on her own without her family. Sometimes that branch would get hauled up on the banks, snagged on a root, caught up with other debris for a time, or some other such event that would hold it in place, fighting against the current of the river. Those were the times when the water swirled and buckled and rippled just for it, when life around her behaved the same. After a while, the bank would lose its appeal, the snag would tire and lose its hold, the other debris would break apart, and the current would carry the branch along its course. This parable, this parabola, returned to mind as Rogue watched the ebb and flow of the Mississippi, and she made her decision. She'd been stubborn, holding rigid against the current of her environment ever since that incident with Logan out in the woods, even before the first episode that had occurred in Bobby's presence. She hadn't really been making any headway. She'd just been fighting off the inevitable, trying to make it all seem as though none of it was happening. She'd just been holding still, forcing everything around her to swirl and buckle and ripple around her. But now, now it was time to rejoin the ebb and flow, the current of the world that set the course of her problems. It was high time she dealt with them.
She looked down to his shadow, black as his coat that swayed gently with the breeze. The coat reminded her of Remy, though it was different, less fun and less free, more strict and old world. Remy would be dead set against what she was about to do. He'd surely figure out where she went and chase after her. There was nothing she could do to prevent that. And, in a way, she didn't want to. Granted, she never wanted to be some lame damsel in distress, but it was nice to know that he would rush to hell just for her. And so, Rogue wondered if she was leading him directly to Hades in the Underworld? It wasn't likely Remy's slippery tongue and card tricks would procure Rogue's release. And if per chance they did, would Remy trust enough to not check to see if Rogue were following him out? Would one of them be swept back into the Underworld's depths by Hades? And who was truly the one leading the other through Hades, Remy or Rogue? Ignoring gender, which of them was really Orpheus and which was Eurydice? [6]
"Ah'm comin' with ya," Rogue said. He wasn't even startled. He just nodded barely. She continued, though, with vehemence, saying, "But Ah got my conditions."
She floated down to him, still behind him and to the side. She was looking at him now, and he was watching the current. A stuck branch suddenly moved along with the flux. It wasn't just floating, it was gaining speed. It intrigued him.
"They ain't negotiable, so don't even try," Rogue said, stern and unyielding. "It's my way, or nothin'."
His head bent in her direction, but his gaze remained on that gaining branch almost out of his sight, and said, "There are always strings attached, aren't there?"
The branch was gone from Rogue and the man's field of vision, blocked off by bushes and an old train tracks bridge across the Mississippi.
Rogue took a deep breath, and even though her nerves were singing still, she felt renewed. She looked at the now clean flow of the water and said, "Yeah, well, sometimes it's cuttin' those strings that gives ya the most control."
The man sighed, and then smiled at her. It was as sharp as his bared teeth. "Yet there still remains an aspect of chance, doesn't there?"
~~~~~~~~~~~
"There's smoke on the water. It's been there since June. Tree trunks uprooted in the high crescent moon..." (The Man in the Long Black Coat –by Joan Osborne)
"I don't know what to say," Miss Orella, the Clerk of the Circuit Court, told the fuming Mr. Gyrich upon seeing the state of the conference room.
The room was empty of its expected occupants, Neal and Bishop, who had made no attempt to disguise what they had done before leaving. The bookcase was still in front of the window. The revealed door was wide open. The lock box was sitting out on the conference table.
"I don't know how they could've known," Miss Orella added lamely.
"Where's Dominic," Gyrich snarled past his gritted teeth.
"Who? Oh, Mr. Beauregard said he'd be waiting in his office." She reached a shaky hand to the phone on the conference table, and said, "I'll tell him you're—"
Wham! Gyrich's hand slammed onto the table. "Don't bother. Like you said, he's already waiting."
And with that, Gyrich stormed off to the Mayor's office.
~~~~~~~~~~~
"Gave a pulse and a vibration and a rumbling force. Somebody's out there beating on a dead horse..." (The Man in the Long Black Coat –by Joan Osborne)
"If ya know what's good for ya," Rogue said, panting, "Ya will stay down."
Vargas grunted, clutching his split open shoulder as he tried to stand.
"Didn't think so," Rogue said. She called up Magneto's powers, and along with a dose of Emma's telepathy, forced Vargas to sleep. He collapsed to the ground in a heap... and snored.
"Ha!" Rogue's bark of laughter came unbridled as she saw him. "Should've done that a while ago."
She wiped her hands on her thighs. And surveyed the mess their fight had made. One tree was uprooted, half in the water. A Vargas sized plow mark remained from where she had thrown him. There were other broken branches and upturned soil and both of them looked just as disheveled as their battlefield did. It was a shame he wouldn't back down from the fight; not that she really expected him to.
Her confrontation with the first man in the black coat went quickly and smoothly. Wasn't even worth calling a confrontation. It had been rather polite, all things considering. They danced, traded witty banter—hers more on the side of down home charm—his laced with conjecture and a surprising amount of distinguished eloquence. By the time one song had ended, he had made her his offer and asked that she answer after she'd dealt with the other, less patient man in a black coat.
That other one had been Vargas.
As soon as she had neared his table, Vargas had started in on his redundant tirade. Rogue had thought, He really is a one hit wonder that won't get while the getting's good, as she persuaded him to move their argument to a less populated locale. That's what led them to the abandoned paper mill on the opposite side of the river. Rogue hadn't even set down on the ground and he'd already had his sword drawn and slashing for her.
Even healed and controlling all her absorbed powers, he hadn't been easy to defeat. Part of the difficulty was that she didn't want to kill him or even injure him too much. That would just unnecessarily fulfill the prophecy of the diaries. Another part was that he was just that good. But, all in all, she was getting more familiar with his fighting technique, so there was that edge she had on him.
She'd rather have had a chance to talk to him as opposed to fight him. She really wanted to know how he knew she would be there. She also wanted to know where his copies of the diaries were. As he was now technically asleep, her only remaining choices were to absorb him, which she adamantly refused to do if it were possible, and it was, or to retrieve the information with Emma's telepathy.
Unfortunately, she never did get his diaries before taking up the other man's offer.
~~~~~~~~~~~
"She never said nothing, there was nothing she wrote. She's gone with the man in the long black coat...." (The Man in the Long Black Coat –by Joan Osborne)
Unbeknown to Gambit, Storm found him perched in just the same spot in the tree overlooking the Mississippi as Rogue had sat in twice since their arrival. One of those times was when she made her decision to leave Caldecott without any word to her friends and teammates. That had been part of the man's offer to her: Come with him—no telling them—and he would help her solve Union on whatever terms she asked of him. They didn't know that yet, and if they did, they wouldn't have believed he was sincere anyway.
"We will find her, Remy," Storm said as a greeting. Even she knew it was a poor one.
Remy turned to her and tried to grin. His effort failed as much as hers had.
She settled herself beside him on the great limb of the old tree. For a long while neither said anything, just the comfort of silence when no words seemed able to heal.
"We never did get to have that conversation 'bout Logan and all," Gambit said. It was so filled with defeat it belied his acceptance. "And you know what? I don't even care about that any more. Right now I just want t' see her flash me one o' her sassy grins and hear her call me swamp rat again."
Storm squeezed his hand. "And you will, my friend. We all will."
"We'd better," Gambit said, his eyes flaring danger, "Or there'll be some hell t' pay."
"She's gone. She's gone—Gone with the man in the long black coat." (The Man in the Long Black Coat –by Joan Osborne)
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FOOTNOTES:
[1] Aleatory—as defined by Webster's Collegiate Dictionary—Depending on an uncertain event; of or pertaining to luck or chance; (music) employing the element of chance in the choice of tones, rests, durations, rhythms, dynamics, etc.
[2] Samantha Cain was the amnesiac schoolteacher who discovered she was really the spy, Charlie Baltimore, in the movie The Long Kiss Goodnight.
[3] Gambit's using honey in his coffee instead of sugar is just another one of the characterization bits I took from the fan fiction Blind Sight. More information on Blind Sight can be found in the author's notes at the very beginning of the first chapter of this story.
[4] Paraphrased (to match tense of chapter) from Uncanny X-Men #269.
[5] This entire passage with the "Itsy Bitsy Spider" song is rephrased from chapter one of this very story.
[6] The reference made involving Orpheus and Eurydice is The Tragedy of Orpheus and Eurydice, a Greek myth. See below for a summary of the myth itself as reminded to me by Roguechere.
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The Tragedy of Orpheus and Eurydice
As relayed by Roguechere
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Orpheus was the mortal son of the Muse, Calliope. He was a cheery boy and always had a song to sing. He was in love with a sweet young girl named Eurydice, who was mutual about the feeling. They planned to be married, so of course in the land of the gods, they had the best wedding ever. Someone must of been pissed at her because just after the wedding she was bitten by a poisonous snake. Immediately Hermes came for her and brought her down to Hades. Orpheus was desperate so, moved by hope of getting his beloved back he went down to the realm of Hades. How was he to get in? He played like a
summer breeze on his lyre and sang as best he could. His song burst open the gates of Hades and Cerebrus was too moved by this song, so he lay down and rest. He reached the cold King and Queen of the Underworld, Hades and Persephone, and this was his challenge. He played a million times better than ever before, tears rolled down Hades' frozen cheeks and Persephone begged her husband to let Eurydice go back to the world of the living. Hades consented on one condition; Eurydice was to follow Orpheus. If Orpheus looked back at her she would have to return to the cold unloving world below. On their way up to Earth he saw the horrid Furies weeping blood, still from the effect of his song. Orpheus was almost to the sunny world above when doubt crept into his mind; had Hades deceived him? Had Orpheus been tricked by stingy Hades, who was just trying to keep more souls? He pushed those thoughts away. They pushed their way back into his head and he couldn't bare his mind any longer, he turned and saw Eurydice. The minute he looked at her sweet face, Hermes appeared next to her and led her back down the path to Hades. Orpheus had lost the love of his life on a lack of trust. Orpheus had lost all faith and love in the world, he never found joy ever again. He continued to sing, but this time he sang mournful songs, so sad that wild beasts and rocks wept. To add salt to his wound, a band of wild nymphs, the Maenads, who were talking so loudly and weren't touched by his music, demanded he dance with them. Orpheus refused and the drunken Maenads tore him to pieces and tossed his body into a river. The Muses grieved so much they searched the world for his body when one day he washed up on the shores of Lesbos. His mother and aunts gave him a proper funeral, and finally he joined Eurydice as a flittering soul in Hades.
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