DISCLAIMER: The x-men ARE mine, I DO own them, and I WILL sue anyone who mentions them without my permission. aand scene I obviously dont own them.
After the training session, the other team members had to get ready for their duties teaching and whatnot, and Rogue was free to go back to the med lab. When she got there, she was surprised to see Gambit awake, playing solitaire.
"Mornin' sunshine."
"Bonjour, Roguey. Nice clothes."
She hadn't taken off her uniform, since she wanted to try her hardest to break it in, a task, which according to Jean, was a mammoth undertaking.
"Thanks. So what do ya wanna do today?"
"Go back to my own room."
"You'd have to take that one up with Hank, sugah."
"Non... you just wheel me up dere. Easy."
"Ah'd hate to add 'abduction of an obviously incapacitated man' to my list of infractions. It's hard enough walkin' around here as it is."
"Din' know you knew big words like dat, chere."
"Ya want me t' slap you. That's gotta be it."
"Remy don' mind getting a little rough."
She sighed. "If Ah take you upstairs will ya shut up?"
"Non, probably not."
"Lets go."
Fifteen minutes, one pair of pants, and about twenty wisecracks later, they were sneaking out of the med lab.
"Remy feels underdressed."
"Is that so?"
"Oui. Why don' we go get his uniform so he can match?"
"Because Rogue thinks that Remy is hard enough to get into a pair of jeans let alone tight leather."
"Ah. Rogue has a point."
"She knows."
Their conversations, although seemingly warm (in their own strange way), were lacking. Neither of them truly felt comfortable with the other, and so they just seemed to say what was expected of them, rather than what they actually felt. Even after she had left him to die in Antarctica, they had been able to talk. Perhaps the difference lay in the fact that this time, she had left of her own free will. She had made the conscious decision to depart in the middle of the night, without so much as a warning. Remy had always thought of himself as the master thief in the house, with Storm coming in at a close second, but that night, Rogue had proven herself worthy of the title. She had stolen his life. Taken his very will to live and flown away with it in the dark. The years had gone by, and he had still refused to admit that she was gone for good. He knew that she was prone to leaving, she had left him, left the team, countless times before, but she had always returned. He waited dutifully at her window every night, hoping, knowing that she would come back into his life. It hadn't been until about two and a half years after her departure, when he had gotten the flu from one of his students and she hadn't been there to help him feel better, that he realized the finality of her actions. All of the will that he had left in him disappeared. His hope was lost. He had never felt more crushed in his entire life. When he had looked up from his hospital bed and seen her face, different as it was, looking down on him, he had been filled with such bliss, practically bursting with joy. He felt as if he could do anything again. Once the initial shock of her return had worn off, however, he realized that he would never be truly happy unless he knew why she had left. As they made their way to the elevator, he knew that it was now or never.
"Rogue?"
"Yes?"
"We need to talk."
Those four simple words sent a shiver down her spine. She knew exactly what he wanted to talk about. She had known from the second she arrived at the mansion that she was going o have to talk about it with him. She knew that she owed it to him to talk about it. But none of that made it any easier.
"I know, Rem..."
She pushed the chair into the nearest rec. room, and closed the door, locking it behind her. Since school was in session, she figured that it would be quieter than the dorm halls. Once inside, she headed over to the couch, lifting Remy out of the chair and placing him on it. She then took a seat in one of the easy chairs nearby. She took a deep breath and stepped into the conversation that she had been dreading.
"Well, what do you want to know first?"
"You never gave Remy a reason. You just left him."
She knew that he was right, and the pain that she saw in his eyes made it hard for her to remember again, but she tried to answer as best she could.
"Ah had to. Or ah thought ah had to. Mah powers... they weren't getting any better. In fact, they were getting worse. Ah figured, the whole reason ah came here in the first place was because of them. Ah left my momma to try an' get them under control. Ah realized that it'd been more than five years and they still weren't mine to control. Ah didn't know how ah could be happy without it. Ah didn't think it was fair to you, to anyone, for me to give up on it and just be happy."
"Did it work?"
"Huh?"
"Do you have control, chere?"
"Not really"
"What does dat mean?"
"Well, ah haven't put anyone in a coma for over three years now... but ah haven't been practicin'. Ah just tried to live as normal a life as ah could, tried to forget."
"Forgettin' is de hardest t'ing in de world. Remy could've told you dat."
"Ah know. And ya did tell me that. Ah absorbed you, remember? A few times. I've got ya in mah head. F'r some reason, that just made me want t' go even more."
"Ce qui?"
"Ah don't know. Something about how you didn't want me t' go, but Ah felt ah owed it to ya. I figured out how to shut out those voices two years ago."
"Well, dat's good."
"Somewhat. Somehow, though, not having you in there made it harder to forget all of this. It felt like somethin' was missing."
"j'aussi"
It stung her, once again, to realize just how much she had affected his life. She knew that her leaving before had all been detrimental to him, but she always figured that it was because she came back, wasn't decisive. She thought that maybe if she left for good, he would move on, as she had. Of course, it hadn't really worked out that way for either of them. She was at a loss for words, so she simply stopped talking.
"You know, Roguey... You were running t'rough my head too."
She threw a pillow at him. "You can be real corny sometimes, ya know that?"
"Ah, chere, you bring out de best in me."
She shook her head a little bit and smiled at his joke. Somehow, he had the ability to return all of her quips with an equally sharp retort, something that no one else was able to do. He wasn't scared of her. As she sank back in the overstuffed chair, she realized that perhaps he was the only one who really wasn't scared of her at all. And then, for the first time in two years, she allowed his voice to speak in her head, his absorbed psyche considering and responding to her thoughts.
Chere, Remy is terrified of you. He t'inks dat you might leave him again. Dat scares him more than anyt'ing.
"Rogue?"
She was practically frozen in the seat, the harsh truth of the words that "he" spoke seeping into her mind like a cold mountain spring. She could barely see him trying to get her attention through the tears that were slowly filling her eyes. As she blinked and they started to roll down her face, Remy lifted his hand to wipe them away with a corner of the blanket that was sitting on the couch.
"T'ought you was invulnerable, non?"
She sniffed and tried to put on the best smile that she could.
"Guess Ah ain't as much as ah used to be... But ya always had a way of getting t' me despite it."
She wiped her eyes on her sleeve and looked at him. He was staring at her, his red eyes boring into her soul. Despite her heavy clothing, she felt naked. She felt as if he could see her for what she was, no matter what façade she tried to put on. She knew that no matter how much she tried to run, to get away, he would always know her. Hell, he had known her this time, and she had done everything in her power to change her appearance. Neither of them blinked for what seemed like an eternity. Their mutual trance was broken, though, when a whoosh reverberated across the room, and Kitty Pryde walked in, obviously immediately regretting having phased through that particular door.
"Um... sorry... tender moment, huh?"
Rogue shot the young woman a nasty look, which Gambit immediately countered by turning on his charm.
"Bonjour, Chat! Is dere somet'ing dat Remy can help you wit'?"
"Well, I was trying to find someone to operate the danger room for me... I have some free time, and I figured that now would be as good a time as any to get in a session. But if you guys are busy, I can try to find someone else."
"Non, don' be silly. Remy an' Roguey'll come down an' help you. Wont we, Rogue?"
She didn't look too happy about ending the conversation, but she gruffly complied and stood up, grabbing the wheelchair and pulling it up to the couch, ready to put Gambit back in. Instead, she decided that, since he had agreed to end their little talk, he would have to be uncomfortable for awhile. She pushed the chair into the corner and heaved him up over her shoulder.
"Woah, chere... easy on de family jewels? Remy don' t'ink he can steal himself anot'er set of dose."
She smiled and headed towards the door, making sure to brush his head dangerously close to the doorjamb as she exited.
A/N: Well, there we go. Thanks for all of the reviews for the last chapter... You know the drill, reviewing makes the world go round. or...something like that. Yeah. but review. :)