I'm not sure if I'm competely happy with this chapter. I may repost it later, but I wanted to get it out. Tell me if it stinks.
Disclaimer: Insert one here.
Thank you to all the reviewers! You're the best!
Nowhere road....
Nothing. She was here and now nothing. Scents don't just vanish, there had to be something...Where hadn't he looked...What had he missed....
"Anything, Logan?" Jean's voice was quiet, almost like she was afraid
to ask the question. The winds had picked up and it was getting colder, but
Storm was keeping away the rain, so that Wolverine could search. The trail was
only a little over a day old, he should be able to find....something.
"She came this way. You people should have been watching her. Magneto came
after her once, why wouldn't he try it again?" He and One-Eye had already
had this arguement in the Blackbird when they were flying back from Ottawa,
and had gotten nowhere, but he wasn't about to just let it go.
Jean had that far away look she got when she was scanning, clearly not getting involved. Cyclops answered, "Magneto's still in prison and his machine was destroyed. He has no use for Rogue, we don't think it was him. But the Professor is questioning him now anyway."
Wolverine was crouching lower to the ground and moved a bit toward the grass
on the side of the road, "What about his goons? They might be out for a
little payback,"
Cyclops was standing with his arms crossed, like he usually did, "Sabretooth
and Toad were little more than mercenaries before they joined the Brotherhood.
After Magneto was arrested, they went back to freelance work. Mystique is probably
the only one with that kind of loyalty, but she's still pretending to be Senator
Kelly and wouldn't have had time for something like this."
That didn't rule out anything in Logan's opinion, "But she still could
have done it or even the other two. It's only your guessing that says
they didn't,"
Cyclops continued to stand there, face impassive. This was a pointless debate
until they had more information. Another one of the students, a tracker named
Rahne, had tried to find Rogue's trail, while he and Wolverine were in transit,
but she lost the scent in about this area. If Logan was more successful, all
future arguements would be moot. "Well, were any of them here?"
A low growl, "I can't smell em. But Magneto figured out away to hide
from Chuck's telepathy, couldn't they have found a way to hide from my nose?"
Scents don't just vanish! I know they don't.
A small nod conceded that point, but the reply,"Possibly," didn't
sound very convinced. "Where does Rogue's scent go from here?
Logan was standing again, looking at the patch of half dead grass on the side
of the the two lane road. "It stops here."
"What do you mean "stops"?"
Grrr...One-Eye was picking a really bad day to get on his nerves.
"I mean it stops. It disappears, vanishes into thin air. Apparently
just like she did! If you had done your job, you wouldn't be asking me these
stupid questions, now would you?"
"I'm just trying..." Scott knew Logan was upset, so he was attempting
to be diplomatic, but Wolverine was in no mood for niceties.
"Trying to what? Obviously not trying to protect young, runaway mutants,
like you say you do. Otherwise, I wouldn't be here!"
"No, you wouldn't," Scott had a look on his face Logan couldn't quite
place, but knew he didn't like.
"What's that supposed to mean, bub? I would have protected her!"
"You weren't here," he didn't say it with malice or even a hint of
anger. Just a statement of fact. That didn't seem to matter though, the only
thing that kept Logan from tearing into Cyclops right there was Jean's restraining
hand.
"Is there anything else, anything at all?" her voice was still soft.
"A kind of ozone smell. Faint, but there. It's only in this one spot,"
and he pointed to the ground. It was a the base of small rise that led into
Salem Center. "I'm gonna keep following the trail, see if the scent picks
up again." He didn't wait for an answer, or response of any kind. Spinning
on his heels, he walked down the road, senses alert, looking for any trace of
the missing girl. The girl he promised he'd protect.
A considerable time later...
There was snow on the ground. Quite a bit of snow. That's odd for September, she thought to herself. What was even more odd, was the fact that she didn't remember there being any snow when she started walking to... Where was I going again? ...she was on the road leading there from...from... Where did she start walking from anyway? A vague image of a large manor house flicked in her mind's eye then disappeared. No...I was in my apartment...The girl standing on the side of the road shook her head and brought her hands to her face as if trying to shake off a deep sleep.. Something wasn't right, but she couldn't put her finger on it. She looked down the road again. Where was it going again?, she knew a second ago. Despite the unseasonably snow and lack of helpful road signs, she started walking again...again? Had I been walking before? I just got home from work, I was sitting...NoNoNo...? Shutting her eyes, she took a deep breath to banish the cofusion. The road had to go somewhere, and maybe somewhere would make more sense than here.
She stopped walking almost as soon as she started. If I wasn't here before,
then someone must have brought me here. Someone who could still be here...A
vague sense of danger grew in her mind, like a sixth sense, and she lifted a
few feet off the ground and turned in a full circle looking for someone, anyone.
I was here before. Look there's Salem Center... What's Salem Center?!?
From her point of view floating a few feet up in the air, she could see over
a small rise and sure enough there was a disgusting cheery small town that bore
a creepy resemblance to a slightly modernized Norman Rockwell painting. And
it was decked out for Christmas entirely to early.
A breeze picked up and blew a few errant snow flakes and several strands of
hair into her face. She didn't even bother brushing them away as she continued
to stare at that hideous little hamlet that seemed so familiar. At the same
time, it wasn't at all, so it was absolutely terrifying. Somewhere, was as it
was, made no more sense then the nowhere she's started from.
After a few seconds of staring at the town, she had a thought and started rummaging
through her pockets for her cell phone. She definitely needed information and
probably back-up. I'll see if Nick knows anything about this... Who's Nick?
Shut up! But there was no phone, because she was wearing some odd-looking
green peacoat instead of her usual bomber jacket. Shut up! The ghost
voice in her head that was trying to confuse her hadn't said anything yet, but
she could tell it was about to. It was a ticking sort of fog creeping over the
front of her brain. Unconsciously, her head starting shaking, as if to dislodge
it. Walking, start walking... get away from here. Get anywhere. After
a few minutes, she had walked into that horrible little town and there was a
small drug store on her right.
"Excuse me," she tried her best to look confused and not delusional,
"I seemed to have managed to get unbelievably lost," she flashed
a small self-deprecating smile to clerk at the counter. "I don't think
I even know what town this is." The clerk, aged somewhere between high
school senior and college freshman, laughed sympathetically.
"These roads can be bad, especially when it snows. This," he said
gesturing broadly, "is Salem Center. In Westchester county, if that helps.
We have maps on aisle one. Where exactly are you headed?" He started to
move around the counter toward the said maps, intending to play tour guide,
but the girl started toward the door instead.
"That's okay, I think I can figure it out from here. Thanks," she
tried to smile appreciatively and look exasperated with the state of American
infrastructure at the same time. A confused tourist would have probably stayed
and gone over maps, but she didn't think she was capable of carrying on the
mundane conversation at the moment. The fog was still thick behind her eyes
and the whisper still a low murmur. She opened the door to the fresh, cold wind
which did little to clear her head.
After she was gone, the clerk resumed his post. Four hours and only three people
had been in the store. I hate the off season. Talking to that cute girl
would have helped pass the time, even if she was a lost tourist. Not that this
place was a tourist's Mecca by any means. Mostly it attracted people from New
York City trying to get away for a weekend in the countryside. But this time
of year when the countryside was cold and snowbound, everyone opted to just
stay in the city. To pass the time in what had to be the world's most boring
job, he would make up stories in his head about the people who passed through.
The girl looked about his age, but she didn't sound like she was from New York.
From her accent he would place her as from D.C. or maybe Baltimore. Around that
area somewhere, definitely not anywhere south of Maryland, she didn't have a
southern accent.
New York, she was in Westchester, New York. That was slightly reassuring
in that she knew where New York was. How? Why? Westchester? What am I doing
in Westchester, New York!?! Why wouldn't I be...I told you to shut up already!
When she was a good distance from the edge of the annoying cute little town,
she immediately took to the sky. To find her way back home.
Further up the nowhere road....
Bobby looked idly out the large front window, as more snowflakes started drifting lazily down onto the front driveway. The snow had started early this year and there had been a lot of it. It had been two months, two weeks and six days since Marie had vanished. Her last words were, "I'm bored. I'm gonna head into town." How very memorable. Logan had come back two days ago. He had stormed off to find Magneto's old Brotherhood, convinced they knew something about what had happened to Marie. Well, he was back now and she was still gone.
Mr. Summers was out shoveling the front walk way. He and Wolverine had another
fight yesterday. Bobby didn't think too much of it, he wanted to yell at someone,
too. But there was no one to yell at, no one to threaten or curse or hit, no
one to bring Marie back. And what gave Wolverine the right to be the angry hurt
one? He was the one that took off and hadn't even seen Marie in who-knows-how-long.
I'm her boyfriend, for crying out loud! Sort of. They had an unofficial
rule that they could both see other people, but neither one of them really did.
It was Rogue's idea, to be "fair" to him
A few more snowflakes hit the window. The school did have a groundskeeper and
all the students took turns with the chores, but Mr. Summers was still out there.
(Mr. Summers had said Bobby could call him Scott, but the older man didn't really
seem like a "Scott,") As Bobby watched the snowflakes melt against
the pane, he wondered if Jean had made "Scott" go outside, or at least
leave the computer room. Since the extensiveand and numerous searches of the
grounds, Salem Center and even New York City itself had turned up absolutely
nothing, "Scott" had been in the computer room constantly since Marie
"left." Not that it did any good. Not that Logan's way had done any
good, either. There was just nothing. The sickening thought was that
everyone was starting to give up. Jean had torn her boyfriend away from the
police databases and now he was uselessly shoveling snow instead of uselessly
searching for nothing. Mr.Summers was a restless type A kind of person
and always needed something to do, useful or not. The front walk didn't even
need shoveling. Marie had been...still is (Bobby refused to think of her in
the past tense, he wasn't giving up) restless. Not in the same way type
A way as Mr. Summers. Marie could never sit still and listen to her own thoughts.
That was probably one of the reasons she had gone for that walk. I should
have gone with her. Should have talked her into staying home...Should have done
a lot of different things.
Down the Rabbit Hole...
There was a fairly tall building that close to the bay, with an usually amount
of antennae on the roof. It was only a few blocks from her apartment building
and a good place to land unnoticed, well as unnoticed as one could be in the
middle of a city. She had landed there before and just walked down to the street
below. Usually, she drove home, like a normal person. But her car, along with
her phone and normal clothes had vanished down a cosmic rabbit hole somewhere.
Well, she would figure that out soon enough. Her head had cleared remarkably
since she had started flying. By the time she landed on the roof of the aforementioned
tall building, that annoying echo in the back of her mind had almost disappeared
completely. Closing her eyes, she inhaled the salty breeze coming off the Chesapeake
Bay and relished the lack of snow in here in Maryland.
Briefly, she considered taking off the ridiculous green coat, but the air was still a little chilly, even if it wasn't freezing. However the stupid prom-looking gloves were another story. Of course, once she had stuffed the stupid looking gloves into the pocket of the equally stupid looking coat, she starting thinking that the coat, gloves and the rest of her "new" outfit would most likely be considered evidence and she should probably "tamper" with them as little as possible. Hmm..the boys in forensics are not going to be happy. Oh well, if they have a hissy fit, they have a hissy fit, she thought shrugging her shoulders and heading for the roof access door.
The door and the stairwell leading to the street below were exactly where she
remembered them. The door was locked, but with a small twist the lock broke
and she was on her way down. I'll buy them a new doorknob, I just want to
get home. So far so good, nothing remotely delusional. Whoever was trying
to screw with her mind would have to try harder. It wasn't working anymore.
Although she still didn't know how or why she had ended up in upstate New York,
she would soon be on the phone to Nick and he and the rest of SHIELD would help
figure out who was trying to mess with her head. That thought was enormously
reassuring and she couldn't help but smile to herself as she walked toward the
front of her apartment building.
As she reached for the handle on the glass doors, her breath caught in her throat
as she stopped suddenly and spun around. In the glass in front of her was the
reflection of a strange girl staring back. It looked so close that the girl
must have been right behind her, but after turning, there was no one there,
behind, or to either side. She caught the reflection again out of the corner
of her vision and looked towards it to see if she could discern its source.
The girl didn't look terribly dangerous. In fact, she looked more scared than
anything else. Average height, build, long hair with a bleached stripe running
down the front being her most noticeable feature. Clothing was fairly nondescript
too. Jeans, boots, and an odd-looking green peacoat... There was no more breeze,
but the temperature seemed to drop suddenly. The street got very quiet and the
air very cold. While continuing to stare at the reflection, the image of the
girl started getting smaller, like she was backing away from the door, just
like her own feet seemed to be involuntarily backpedaling away. The cloud in
her head that had been trying to confuse her in New York was back ten-fold and
the ghost was whispering in thunderclaps. I want to go home. I am home. No...Where
am I? Shut Up! Shut UP! SHUT UP! The image in the door got smaller and smaller
as if the source of the reflection had started running blindly away.
----------------------------------------------
Da-Dum...A cliffhanger ending, sort of. Rogue is "back," but not
quite herself. You've probably figured out who she thought she was, but what
happens now? The Chesapeake Bay in Maryland, somewhat near Washington, D.C.,
if anyone was wondering. Tune in next week, (hopefully if work cooperates),
same bat-time, same bat-channel.
Thank you again to the reviewers!
Gothica Faerie - First person POV is an interesting idea. I'll have a little bit of that, but I'm not sure if I could pull it off for the whole story though. Lolita's-Sister writes an unbelievable first person in "Une Danse Ronde" over in the Evo section.
Ishadahalf-I'm not really a Scott basher. He's not my favorite, but I actually kinda like him, but Wolverine doesn't. As for the Gambit/Rogue romance, this is actually going to be a Wolverine/Rogue story. Ha, ha, just kidding! No offense to people who like those, but I just...don't..
AngstWolf()-What exactly happened to Rogue remains to be seen...
Tigereyes-Music in the background would be cool. Glad you like it so far.
Lucky439-Here's the next part. Hope you liked it.
Elim()- No Gambit yet, but soon.
Muccamukk- That's funny about the senator. I personally don't think the Canadian government is now nor has ever been up to anything sinister. I'm just following in the Marvel tradition of Canada having all assorted black-ops, spies and their very own super-soldiers. And whatever Logan may or may not think about the government, those were the only leads he had to go on. It doesn't really matter though, because that won't have much to do with the rest of the story