Chapter three

It had been three weeks since Rogue had accidentally absorbed Gambit and unfortunately, even in a coma, he still had one of the world's biggest mouths that Rouge had ever encountered.

Dat be overpriced.

Rogue gritted her teeth and put the bracelet back down. Take my advice, chere. Dey didn' pay more'n twelve bucks f'r it.

Rogue put the bracelet back and backed away slowly. Kitty had managed to talk Rogue into going to mall, saying she was moping around way too much. Of course Kitty didn't have Gambit yammering in her mind. If she did it would be a totally different story.

"You didn't get anything," Kitty frowned and shifted her stuffed bags of clothes.

"Nope," Rogue replied crossing her arms. "Let's go."

"But I, like, didn't get to check out Hollister yet!" Kitty complained.

"We've been here for four hours already. You said it would be a short."

"For me, this is like short."

Rogue moaned, but didn't say anything waiting for Gambit to make his usual flippant comment. None came. She frowned a bit. Was it possible? "Let's go," she ordered Kitty grabbing her friend's hand and dragging her outside.

She walked quickly towards the infirmary. Her heat beat hard in sweet anticipation of hope.

"Hey, Rogue, where we you?" Scott demanded as she hurried past. "We were suppose to practice in the danger room, you're going to get out of shape."

Rogue ignored him. "Ah'm fahne, Scott!" She yelled back annoyed. He acted like all she'd been doing for the last three weeks was sitting around, eating bon-bons and reading romance novels. She'd been trying to master Gambit's powers which as cool as they were, really, really annoying. Anything she touched that wasn't organic was a bomb just waiting to go off.

She slowed as she opened the door to the infirmary and found Hank, Carol, and an alive and conscious Gambit. She nearly cheered. He was alive and up, not in her head anymore. Gambit turned to looked at her and smiled.

"Well, Gambit, I think I can give you a clean bill of health," Hank was saying.

"Merci, doc," Gambit said.

Hank left and Gambit's gaze turned to Rogue.

"Ah see ya're up," Rogue commented lightly. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Carol move a fraction of an inch away from Rogue. She surpassed a sigh. The teen was scared stiff of her, not that Rogue blamed her. But the constant inching away or leaving the room entirely got on her nerves.

"Dat I am," Remy smiled. "Did ya miss me?"

Rogue snorted in disgust. She looked at her tennis shoes. "Ah'm sorry about that."

Gambit shrugged. "Bad chance. Chere, y'can drain Remy's energy any time, he has plenty."

Rogue rolled her eyes as Gambit turned his attention back to Carol. "So, petite, what have you been doing?"

Carol's blue eyes lit up. "Professor Xavier is going to help me find my family."

"Dat's nice," Gambit said. Rogue left the two of them alone. Carol had been in to visit Gambit every day. The girl had been in every day to check on Gambit. Someone had a crush.

This could certainly be interesting. In so many ways.

Cat pushed her lank curls off the back of her neck and closed her tired eyes. A headache pounded in her temples. Nothing. Two weeks and nothing.

Nothing. It was never this hard. Never before. Who the hell was Nathaniel Essex and why was he so damn sneak?

She stretched and massaged her neck. "Whoever this guy is I hope he rots in hell for all eternity."

Suddenly a blue window popped up. Nathaniel Essex.

A frown creased her brow and pulled down at her lips. "But it's blue . . .it can't be."