A/N: Here's another. This chapter sort of has a point. It's more or less satisfying a few of the unwritten aspects of Rogue and Jean that I wasn't able to do early on. And footnotes already? Ouch, i'm moving into school mode already!
New Years Day passed, and the normal day to day activities of the Mansion began once again. The older students from Rogue's year finalized the plans for their lives, and one by one, the other students returned to the school in time for the new semester. The teachers prepared their curriculums, or went about intervening in mutant-human conflicts.
The latest intervention brought them to Forest, Mississippi, where local mutant-human conflict resulted in fighting that almost killed three mutants. Storm and Wolverine brought along Bobby and Piotr for the mission. Moira stayed in the X-Jet. This was her first 'field' mission. Rogue came along too, but she was not part of the rescue mission.
Rogue climbed the narrow and rickety stairs of the old apartment building. The air smelled stale and old, and reminded her of the shacks she had to squat in early on when she was on the run as a newly exposed mutant. When she came to the right apartment door, she double checked the address scribbled on the inside of her palm before knocking lightly on the door. No one answered, so she had to knock harder.
"Coming!" Came a voice through the door before it opened.
"Papa?" Rogue said uncertainly.
The older man stood in a pair of old trousers and wore a blue, cotton flannel shirt. His once neatly trimmed mustache had spread to be a slightly unkempt beard. His hair, which had been a rich, dark brown two years before, was gray. His eyes narrowed in confusion, and then widened to almost unnatural proportions with recognition.
"Marie?" The old man spoke the word as if he was saying it for the first time.
"Papa." Marie said, affirming her identity.
Marie's father let out a pent up cry of relief and bear hugged his daughter. He pulled her out of the hallway and sat her down on the couch. Even through the joy of the reunion, Rogue was shocked at her surroundings. The apartment furnishings were old and mismatched. This was nothing like her house back in Meridian. More than one light was burned out, and a visible layer of dust was gathering on the top of the shelves.
"Where have you been? I looked for you, but you were gone so fast. Marie…" Her father babbled on asking questions about Marie's life, but midway, Rogue interrupted.
"Papa, why are you here? Why aren't you living in Meridian? I called the house, but it was another family. I had to look you up through the phone book…" Rogue trailed off as her father's body posture slumped, and for the next forty five minutes he recapped what happened. He told her of how he and her mother became targets of mutant hatred. Their house was repeatedly vandalized causing them to leave, but not before Marie's father lost his job. Since the courts deemed Marie responsible for David's sickness, Marie's family needed to pay for the substantial medical bills. This caused them to liquidize almost everything they had of considerable financial value.
Rogue sat in silence for a while as she digested the news. She knew that Meridian was not particularly mutant friendly, and even she had been a bit anti-mutant before she realized she was one.
"And Mama?" Rogue asked tentatively.
"She works at the dentists as a receptionist, and at the grocer's on the weekends." Her father's eyes watered. "I'm so glad you are well." He moved closer to kiss her on the cheek, but stopped short as he remembered what happened to David.
"It's okay. I can touch." Marie demonstrated with a quick peck on her father's cheek.
"You're cured?" He asked hopefully.
Marie frowned.
"Mutation isn't a sickness. I just learned control."
"Oh." He said, embarrassed. "I didn't mean…"
"Christopher? You left the door open!" A voice cut through the air, and both Marie and her father stood up in alarm.
"Julia…" Christopher said as Marie's mother walked into the room.
"Who are…?" The unfinished question hung in the air.
"Mama." Marie searched her mother's eyes for the same spark of joy she saw in her father's, but all she saw was the look of growing animosity.
"You." Her mother's voice dripped venom. "Get out, you freak."
"Mama." Marie protested. In less than a second, Rogue felt herself transported back into time when she first developed her powers. She felt vulnerable, helpless, small and cornered.
"Don't call me that. This is your fault." Julia's brown eyes blazed in fury as she stalked closer to Rogue.
"Julia, don't." Christopher stopped in between, but Julia glared him down.
"Don't try to protect her. Because of you, she's a mutant." Her words cut right through to his heart and soul, and he faltered. During the past year and a half, Julia had researched everything she could on mutants. She knew the mutant gene was passed down through the father, and this had soured the marriage. Julia looked back at Marie.
"Out."
"No Julia. She is our daughter. She needs us." Marie's father challenged.
"She doesn't need us. Look at her." She pointed at Marie's trench coat. It was the rich leather trench coat she had borrowed from Jean. "She's done better than us. No doubt she's preying on humans with her powers." Julia directed her attention to Marie once more. "Get out, or else I will call the police. They know you're a mutant. They won't hesitate to use force."
Marie looked at her father, but he had his back turned to her as he was watching his wife. With one last look at her mother, Marie spun around and fled the apartment. As she raced down the stairs, she heard her father call out for her not to go. Marie almost stopped and ran back, but she heard her mother shout for her to leave once more. At the top of the stairs, her father came into view. Marie looked up at him, and saw how his eyes begged her to stay, but this was trumped by her mother's repeated threat to call the police.
"Muir Island University. I'm going to go to school there." Rogue shouted up at her father before fleeing the building and back into the life she had lived the last two years.
Half an hour later, as the X-Jet cut through the lower stratosphere to return back to the Mansion, Storm stretched out her neck and looked behind her.
Rogue was sitting with Bobby and Piotr in one corner, and Wolverine was, as usual, squirming in his X-Man uniform in the front passenger seat. Moira was treating the three mutants they had picked up. One had a broken arm. He was found under some rubble. Apparently, he had the ability to manipulate seismic waves, but had lost control and caused a localized earthquake to topple the building next to him. Another was a quiet, lavender skinned girl, who was found unconscious in a pool of blood that was, thankfully, not hers. The last was an older, dark eyed girl. She covered herself in a cloak, but Storm had seen the bone protrusions that extended from the girl's skin. Storm turned her attention back to flying. She frowned as she noted how as the years passed, the situations in which the X-Men found new mutants were getting more and more violent.
"Storm?" The intercom blinked to life. It was Xavier's voice. "How did everything go?"
"It went well, Professor. We picked up the mutant children and there were no casualties. Moira is tending to the children now."
"And the others?"
Storm smiled.
"Bobby and Piotr did very well."
Xavier nodded. This pleased him. He hoped that one day Bobby and Piotr would take a position as an X-Man.
"Very good. I'll see you when you get home."
Jean stood back from her packed boxes and took a mental inventory of everything she had in them. In less than a week she would be on her way to Muir Island, and wanted to make sure she didn't leave anything behind. Jean turned around to watch the door as Rogue walked in. Jean smiled, and sent Rogue the mental equivalent of a kiss.
"Do what you needed to?" Jean had felt something amiss through the rapport from Rogue earlier that day, but waited for Rogue to explain.
Rogue flopped over on the bed and sighed.
"I guess. I saw my parents. My dad was happy to see me, but my mom," Rogue paused. "She wasn't so pleased."
Jean sat down on the bed beside Rogue and the two looked each other in the eye. In that instant, Rogue replayed mentally what happened at the reunion.
"Ah, yes." Jean said knowingly. Through her years as being a teacher at the Mansion, she was more than aware of parental reactions to mutations in children. "At least your father is understanding, but it's a shame for your mother." Jean wrapped her arm around Rogue's waist, and used her other hand to comb away strands of hair from Rogue's face.
"What were your parents like?" Rogue let her head drop onto the pillow.
Jean's eye's unfocused for a moment as she remembered her development as a mutant.
"You know that it was through Annie Richardson's death that my powers manifested prematurely, and this caused me to shut myself off from the rest of the world. My father was a colleague of Professor Xavier, and so my father was told to send me to the Professor. When I grew older, and more capable of managing my powers, Professor Xavier and I told my parents[1]. They were shocked, but I was lucky. My father is very open minded, and so is my mother. Both were just very thankful for the Professor helping me. Sarah said a part of her always suspected." Jean played with a lock of Rogue's hair. "My family was always very close, and I think it helped that my mutant powers didn't manifest itself in an outwardly violent way. I think it would have been different if my telepathic powers developed in a way that caused harm to others.
"Also, if you take into consideration the wide spectrum of mutant abilities, telepathy seems to be the easiest to understand from a non-mutant perspective. Humankind's evolution revolves around how our minds developed to be our specialization. Instead of teeth or claws, humankind developed mentally, so maybe some could consider telepathy and psychokinesis as the next step." Jean's scientific mind began working and formulating hypothesizes. "Maybe that's why telepathy is more prolific as a mutation[2]. Maybe telepathy is the mutation that would most likely occur in people if there weren't any specific environmental triggers. I'll have to tell Duncan this." Jean looked back at Rogue with her eyes filled with growing wonder.
Rogue laughed lightly and rolled on top of Jean.
"Like usual, you've lost me, but I like how you can still get excited over things like this. You're such a big geek."
Jean slid her hands up Rogue's sweater.
"I have to admit, you bring it out of me."
Rogue kissed Jean and lightly tugged with her teeth at Jean's lower lip.
"We've got an hour to kill before dinner." Rogue mumbled through her lips. Both Rogue and Jean were expertly beginning to undress each other.
"That won't be nearly enough time." Jean whispered coyly into Rogue's ear before giving it a teasing lick.
--We'll manage.—Rogue replied through the rapport.
A/N: Yes.. this was short. But isn't this a good thing? Putting out another chapter in like.. less than half a year?? :D Please review. I like reviews…
[1] Jean Grey's father is Dr. John Grey, a professor of history at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson in New York. Sarah is Jean's older sister, who in the comics is dead.
[2] You know I'm right. Hello, look at Psylocke, Emma Frost, Xavier, and the other mutants through Marvel history that have manifested some sort of low telepathic capabilities… I'm on to something. I know it.