Alone
Shadow Knight
Epilogue: Free
Disclaimer: Last time I'll be saying it on this story. NO OWNERSHIP. There. :P
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NOTE: (Roguechere): I know what you mean. There aren't enough. And thanx. :P
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"Rogue? Are you awake?"
A voice buzz in my head and I opened by eyes blearily. As I did so, a figure swam in and out of focus, my pupils struggling in the bright light above me. Where am I? I rose a hand in attempt to block out the light when a warm hand grabbed my arm lightly.
"Don't move around so much you idiot, you're going to hurt yourself," chastised a familiar voice.
"Pietro?" Please, please let it be him, I prayed.
Cool fingers grazed softly along my cheek. I was amazed at how soft the fingers were. They felt like a butterfly kisses, cleansing each fear and pain that had been born inside me before. I leaned into his touch. "Yea, it's me," I heard him whisper lightly.
I let out a breath of relief I hadn't realized I'd been holding. My eyes were still blurry, but they were slowly adjusting as I gazed at the fuzzy face before me. I loved the way his lips turned up in a smile. . .
Me and him. . . just sitting here. . . finally together with no complication. . . it was like a dream. . .
Darkness spilled upon my mind, slipping into every fiber of my thought like venom from a snake.
And yet. . . like all dreams I had known. . . it crashed. I flinched from his grasp.
"Rogue? Rogue?? What's wrong? Rogue, please, answer me!" I couldn't bear to feel his touch and turned my face from him, shame flaming inside my nerves.
My vision was cut off when I clenched my eyes shut. "Pietro, don't touch this damned flesh. No matter that Shawn has no control over me, I still committed horrible acts!" I stared at him sadly as tears bathed my eyes, "Pietro. . . I still hurt them-"
"Rogue, it's alright. I don't care about that, I care about you. You were confused and los-"
"I murdered them Pietro!"
His face paled as he heard my exclamation. How it hurt to see him draw back from me! If only I were to die on the spot I'd be free of this perdition. I glanced at him sadly and inserted the final piece.
"Pietro. . ," he looked up at me, clearly shaken, "before you all saved me. . . I was sent to kill you. . . and I was going to do it."
Hearing of his scheduled death made him visibly shudder. I couldn't bear to see his face so horror stricken any more. I pulled my legs forward from beneath the white cotton sheets and hugged myself, closing into a ball of comfort.
"I killed them. . . .," I choked as I squeezed my legs harder to myself, "I was going to kill you. . ."
My tears were cut off when I felt two hands slip onto my cheeks. I jerked forward, surprised. "Pietro-"
His lips met mine with a gentle but comforting embrace. Pulling away, he combed my hair away from my face carefully. "Rogue," he whispered fiercely, "I don't care about all that. I told you that. All I care about is that I've finally found you again. And I'll never, never let you go again."
I don't think I had ever loved him as much as I did that moment.
"Ahem."
We both turned at the intruding voice. Xavier rolled in closer toward us. "I see that you are awake now, Rogue. . .and quite active too, I see. . ."
I felt my face flush for a moment. "Ah well. . . ya see," I stumbled as my accent slipped through the careful barriers I had constructed years before.
He held up his hand and I halted to a thankful stop. "Rogue, since the mental scan I performed on you yesterday, I discovered quite a few interesting things I thought you might want to know.
As you know, Shawn had been altering your mind set on all of us for quite a while. Everything you had known to be good suddenly seemed bad. Then you left. I hadn't been able to find you with Cerebro due to the mental blocks that Shawn had made you set up. After you met Shawn, he was able to surgically install the device we removed this morning. He used it to control your powers of course. Yet, little did he know that like any mutation, yours evolved and found a way to get around his control.
You mutation, has finally reached the last stage. You are able to control your mutation. Like you yourself said, with every command Shawn gave you mentally, he helped your mutation grow stronger, like a beast defending itself be devising a new method of attack. Because of this, when your mutation was shut off by the secreted chemicals of the device, you mutation borrowed the powers that it had stored away so long ago. Although I was able to purge them of your mind before, they still left an impression I was never able to remove. That's where your transformations came into place.
Your physical change was of course due to Mystique's powers, but the actual mind concept was something that came with the powers you had absorbed. With every power you used, the psyche came along to aid. Your powers were simply putting up as much defense as they could. Unfortunately though, with that came the blindness of reality. You saw only what had happened in the past, a moment when the person you had absorbed had been threatened or scared.
In reaction with seeing Pietro and realizing your past, Shawn panicked and set your mind tumbling. In defense, your mind tried to protect itself by letting you use powers and psyches that you had stored away. Since the pain received from Shawn was corresponding with Pietro and the others, your mind used the 'fight or flight' system. Using Lance's powers, you tried to destroy the image before you. Yet, when that failed, Kurt's powers let you escape. Since then, they were activated by agitations that caused pain or confusion."
He looked at me calmly. I couldn't believe it. So that's what had been going on all that time. When I had blacked out at the party, I hadn't realized that "others" had taken over. I stared back at him, my features giving away my fear of these controlling psyches.
"You have nothing to worry about now, Rogue. With a few lessons, you should have complete power over the psyches stored in your head. Right now they're at rest. But whenever you feel threatened or unable to take of the situation, they'll jump out. Yet, like I said, a few exercises should take care of that."
I sighed in relief. It was a little scary to think that angry psyches would take over at the bat of an eye.
"Oh, yes," he suddenly said, "I forgot to mention it. . . Rogue. . . you didn't kill anyone."
My breath froze in my lungs. I grasped at the sheets and tore them off my legs. Ignoring the pain in my head from the surgery, I jumped off the bed and grasped at his jacket. "What. . .what did you say," I huffed, trying to catch my second wind.
"I said you didn't kill anyone," he stared me straight in the eye, frowning at the sight of the IV drip swinging loose from my arm, "You had only made them forget what they had known."
I started back in confusion, "What?"
Leaning forward, he grabbed the loose IV and carefully inserted back into its place in my arm. "Shawn sent you on missions to kill people when they knew something right? Something that threatened his corporation? Or at least when they were about to. So he sent you to 'kill' them. When you used your 'drug' to kill your victims, really it was toxin that caused a slight amnesia. It's incredibly ingenious. It's able to be set to make the victim forget up to a certain time. The time when they discovered the incriminating evidence against Shawn."
I sat shocked through all of this. Before I could ask him the burning question in my mind, he answered it, "As for the part where they were knocked out? Well, that was simply a brew of chloroform mixed in. Shawn simply made you think you had killed them to frighten you to staying with him. And from getting close to others."
Tucking my covers in by my still sides, he pressed on my shoulder until I fell back to the hospital bed. "Hope that solves some. . . romantic issues. . goodnight Rogue," he turned to Pietro's flame red face, "goodnight Pietro."
As the door shut behind him, I turned to Pietro shocked. We suddenly burst into fits of laughter. Tears crawled down my face in a joyful release. No more fear, no more pain. . . I was free!
Suddenly I was caught up in a warm embrace. I smiled and hugged Pietro. As he smoothed my hair back, he kissed my forehead gently. "Rogue?"
"Yes," I breathed into his shirt.
"I want you to know that I'll never abandon you. I will always love you. . . . even if you try to kill me again."
I backed away from him and swatted at his shoulder playfully. "Pietro, I love you too, you idiot."
The trickster smile I had missed for so long crept upon his face. Before I knew what he was doing, I was swept up into his arms, yelping at the sudden flight. Holding me firmly in his arms, he leaned to my ear and whispered, "Say the word and we'll leave for a while. . ."
Holding tight onto his arms, I whispered with a smile. "Let's go,"
Our laughter and joy rang like a bell through the town as we danced away like the wind.
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THE END.(THERE'S YOUR EXPLANATION!)
YES! I'M DONE, I'M DONE!!!!!! Okay. . . ahem. . . I hope you all enjoyed this. Even though it's taken me forever to finish it. And even though a ton of people who used to read this don't anymore. . . . thanks for reading it and being nice enough to review.
This was the first and last piece of X-Men: Evolution fanfiction I've written. If I ever continue Cooking Lessons, I'll have to come back to this and erase that last comment.
Thank you, Lord for letting me complete this 21 chapter pain in the butt.
For the last time,
Ciao. :)