Disclaimer: I do not own any X-Men characters appearing in this story, they are the property of: Marvel Comics, 20th Century Fox, Stan Lee and a whole bunch of other people none of which include myself. This has been written for purely recreational purposes, I make no money from this so please don't sue.

"The past is what you remember, imagine you remember, convince yourself you remember, or pretend you remember."

-Harold Pinter

"The light of memory, or rather the light that memory lends to things, is the palest light of all. I am not quite sure whether I am dreaming or remembering, whether I have lived my life or dreamed it. Just as dreams do, memory makes me profoundly aware."

-Eugene Ionesco

"Memory is a complicated thing, a relative to Truth, but not its twin."

-Barbara Kingsolver

"Memory cannot exist without endurance of the things perceived, and the thing perceived cannot remain where it has never been."

-William Hazlitt


"How is she Logan? Have there been any changes since you started to speak to her?"

"She—"

"She is awake and would like to know what she is doing in the Infirmary."

Rogue pushed herself into an upright sitting position. She allowed herself a brief smirk of amusement at the gaping shock on both Wolverine's and Beast's faces before the pounding sensation in her head could no longer be ignored.

"Oh, God, mah head is killin' meh! What in the sam hell happened?"

Hank and Logan shot each other uncertain looks—they had been expecting Rogue to wake up with more memories not with less.

"What do you remember Rogue?"

Rogue groaned, her head felt like someone was dancing offbeat flamenco on it and these two wanted recitations!

'Weren't the X-Men supposed to be nicer than the Brotherhood?'

She froze as the implications of her thought settled in. She had never been a part of the Brotherhood had she?

No, she sighed with relief, she had never been officially affiliated with them but she had worked extensively for both her mother and Magneto in the past—Rogue looked up and became aware that the two hairy men were still waiting for a response.

"Last thing I remember was being in the Danger Room—no wait—the Professah's office…where y'all ambushed meh." Rogue glared at the two men present, her features dark, riddled with accusations.

"So d'ya remember flipping out on us and storming out of the room? It was really impressive, darlin' 'specially the part where you fainted—"

"Passed-out." Rogue tersely interjected.

"What?"

"I passed-out. There was no fainting. I don't faint."

"Sure thing, kid. You passed-out for no apparent reason and earned yerself a bed in the Infirmary for the past…six or so hours." Rogue had no real response to that.

Beast took advantage of the lull in conversation and moved closer to Rogue's side, removing a penlight from his pocket he began to shine the bright light in her eyes. After examining both eyes for pupil responsiveness he leaned back and said, "Well, Rogue you do not have a concussion and aside from a couple bumps and bruises you are once again the picture of physical health. I will notify the Professor of your status change and we can, er," he faltered, not quite sure how to make mention of the previous discussion in a manner that wouldn't upset the teen.

"Continue our discussion? Maybe you could hold off on that until later, Beast. I've still got a killer headache and right now all I want to do is sleep." She shot Hank the biggest set of puppy-dog eyes she could muster and grinned at him when he nodded.

"Great! We can talk after classes are done for the day…who is covering for my classes anyway?"

"Popsicle and the Ruskie both skipped their classes today to baby-sit the runts."

Rogue frowned. She really didn't want anyone who didn't absolutely have to be involved to know anything about the little…incident.

"Oh well, that was…sweet of them. Tell 'em I said thanks."

"Of course Rogue. And if you need anything don't be afraid to ask. I'll be working in the lab next door since I've finished educating the eager young minds of the Institute for today."

"See ya later, kid. I'll ask 'Ro to bring you some food down later." Logan may have missed the supremely irritated look that Rogue shot him as he exited the room but Beast certainly didn't and he was surprised by the amount of malice that seemed to be infused in the glare. In the past the fuss she had kicked up over being called a child had been mocking, good-humored anger.

Perhaps Rogue was hiding a bit more than was initially suspected. Either way he would notify the professor and keep an eye on the security cameras in the infirmary while he was tinkering in the lab.

Rogue sighed in relief—she was finally and blessedly alone! Or rather as alone as she had ever been since she'd gotten her powers.

A bitter chuckle issued, involuntarily, from her throat. Marie had though it crowded in her mind before with a half dozen mutants and twice that number of norms residing there Rogue wondered how she would have handled more than thrice that amount.

'A psychologist would have a field day in my mind. Of course I don't suppose its very normal to have multiple personalities in your mind and not be insane.'

'…Well mostly not insane.' Rogue amended with a grin.

Her humor faded quickly though, because of her moth—Mystique Rogue now found herself in a rather delicate situation. Should she stay with the X-Men and continue to live at the Institute as Marie D'Ancanto?

Rogue wrinkled her nose in disgust. Marie was a child—young and prone to losing her head in heated situations. It was shameful for Rogue to recall her role in recent events as Marie. Her reactions to her solo flight of the blackbird, the attack on the mansion, and the whole Liberty Island incident in retrospect made her face grow hot with embarrassment and shame.

She snuggled deeper under the covers as she turned her attention inwards. Thanks to Mesmero Rogue not only had the psychic residue of numerous people dwelling in her mind she also had two dominate personalities that needed to be merged.

Pushing into the recesses of her mind Rogue entered a meditative trance and examined her mindscape where she found the memories of the psyche Mesmero had created. Theoretically it was all very simple, the false memories of her 'childhood' would be bound the same way she would any psychic imprint allowing her true memories of her past to fully regain their place, the memories from after she woke up from her 'coma' could be left untouched as they were events that had actually transpired.

Of course the impact emotionally and psychologically remained to be seen as those aspects could not be as neatly bound and filed away.

Any further progress in her mind was barred by the unfettered psyches of people she had absorbed in the past two years. No one had thought to give Marie any aid in corralling the fractured personalities dwelling in her mind and as a result the constant chatter in her mind had been harrowing to say the least.

'Time to rectify that.'

Rogue closed her eyes and began to build mental walls around the psyches. She started with the humans—David and truckers who expected a bit too much after giving her a ride—they weren't particularly forceful presences, just irritating ones. Finishing those shortly she braced herself as much as she could before attacking her mental version of Erik Lehnsherr with an incredible amount of gusto. His presence was the second largest in her mind and he had exerted this power over her to constantly feed her anti-human propaganda complete with memories of concentration camps to illustrate his points. It had quickly grown tiresome.

But sadly for Erik while he was more than a match for Marie Rogue had more training in the art of shielding her mind and thusly made short work of him, though not before he managed to project a few more choice memories.

Wolverine and Storm were more of a problem.

Not that they were resisting her, just the opposite really, both wished to help her and although they didn't quite understand everything that was going on they were willing to be sealed off like the others had been but it was not something she wished to do to either of the two people as she was fond of them both and being placed in a shield wouldn't be a pleasant experience for them.

In the end she decided to leave them free until they gave her a reason to imprison them.

Moving on in her mind she delved deeper to see the damage the psyches had wrought in what was essentially her absence. She was pleased to see for the most part that the barriers she had erected and left unmonitored for over two years were still strong and keeping her well-protected although she suspected Mesmero had a hand in this as well because the imprints of both Destiny and Mystique were also blocked—she had trusted the two women implicitly and thus had never reigned their psyches in. Still she was glad that she wouldn't have to even come in contact with their psyches

Further still into the darkest reaches of her conscious mind Rogue had finally 'reached' the area reserved for the dangerous unruly and powerful psyches. Their strength was evident as these barriers were barely reigning in the destructive imprints. Rogue sighed and was truly thankful the shields had held up for as long as they had she sat back and made herself comfortable—she was very much out of practice when it came to repairing these types of shields, it was most likely going to take far longer than it would have only three years ago.

Hours later she became aware that she was being shaken awake. She sighed in irritation and allowed herself to be pulled from her mind—the new shields were only three-quarters of the way done but the rest could wait until she took care of whoever saw fit to raise her from her apparent slumber.

"Good evening, Sleeping Beauty. Good of you to finally wake up…we've been calling your name for the past five minutes."

"Hey Bobby, Piotr."

""Privet Rogue, we have brought you some chicken soup. Jubilee and Kitty made it to help you feel better."

Rogue paled significantly before asking "Does it have Ororo's seal o' approval? I really don't want to be here any longer than necessary."

The boys laughed and as Bobby moved closer to place the tray on Rogue's lap he said, "This soup has the sanction of both Storm and the Wolverine so based on that fact alone, I think they bought it somewhere else and are trying to pass if off as their own."

Rogue laughed and tentatively placed a spoonful in her mouth. She was surprised to find the taste palatable, let alone pleasing. "I'd say your theories are correct, boys. This tastes an awful lot like Panera chicken soup."

Bobby and Piotr exchanged high fives. "Alright now we can make Jubes eat her words. 'Home cooked with lots of love' my ass!"

"As much as I appreciate the gesture y'all should have let those two know they didn't have to do this, I'm not at all sick."

Piotr immediately latched on to the statement and ran with it. "So why are you here then? Were you injured in the Danger Room?"

Bobby quickly followed in the same vein of questioning. "Is that why training was cancelled this morning? All the adults looked really tense all morning—were you hurt? You look all right now. Did you absorb Logan?"

It was a testament to how out of practice Rogue was at being Rogue that she was caught by such amateurs. 'I've been trained by psychotic terrorists to never break under questioning and two 18 year old boys caught me in under a minute. God I suck.'

Rogue stalled for time by filling her mouth with soup. Swallowing slowly she quickly began fabricating a lie.

"Well—" A long clanging sound caught the attention of all the room's occupants. They tensed involuntarily until the voices from outside filtered in.

"Shh, they're gonna hear us!"

"I'm not the one who tripped and made three copies of myself!"

Rogue, Piotr and Bobby all shared identical grins at the sounds coming from the corridor.

Colossus shifted into his metallic form and made his was toward the entryway as he noted wryly "I believe we have been infiltrated by eight year old children." Once activated the door slid open with a faint whooshing sound and Piotr took advantage of every inch of his seven-foot height to tower over Artie and three identical Jamies.

"Uh…hehehe, hiya Mister Pete!" The children let out nervous chuckles—they knew very well the lower levels of the Institute were off limits to them.

Rogue smiled despite herself, she had never been a 'kid person' but as Marie she had grown quite fond of the tiny troublemakers so she was willing to put up with them. Besides they had provided, unknowingly, an excellent distraction.

"Now why are you two sneaking 'round down here? Y'all know very well that playing in the lower levels is forbidden!"

Jaime stuck out his lower lip petulantly. "We're not playing! We came to see you, Miss Rogue. Artie said that Kitty said you were real sick an' that that's why you didn't teach class today."

"Yeah so Jaime wanted to come and see you and I said that I remembered the codes to get down here so we snuck down to bring you a card so you'll get better faster." Artie chimed in.

The gruesome twosome shuffled forward and handed Rogue a homemade card that bore the heading "Get Well Soon!"

She accepted the card with a wobbly hand, it was truly pathetic that such a simple gesture could affect her so deeply. A sad testament to how little honest love she had ever received in her life—love she thought she had found in Mystique and Destiny, love she also thought she now had in the Institute…would they ultimately betray her as well?

Clearing her mind she smiled at the mischievous children.

"Well now, you both went through all that trouble for me?" Two enthusiastically bobbing heads confirmed her statement. She motioned for the little boys to come close, when they did she whispered to them with a huge smile on her face. "Were Bobby and Piotr that bad?"

"Hey!" Piotr and Bobby protested vociferously.

"We go through all the trouble of bringing you a bite to eat and this is the thanks we get?" Bobby crossed his arms in a huff. "I thought you southern belles were supposed to be all polite and charming. Come on guys we're going to go have some fun without mean, old Rogue." Without waiting for the others Iceman left the room dramatically.

'Older than you think.'

Artie and Jamie turned to Rogue and said their good-byes. Piotr watched carefully as Rogue whispered something to Artie who promptly grabbed his partner in crime and darted out of the room. He made a mental note to give both children a wide berth for a while.

"Have you finished? Should I take the plate back to the kitchen?"

"That's be great thanks Piotr"

"It's not a problem." The gentle Russian smiled slightly.

"EEEEWWW aw man that's gross!"

Rogue chuckled softly at Bobby's screams.

"Do I even want to ask?"

"Well now, I can't be sure, but I think that Artie might have jus' given Bobby a wet-willy."

"And of course you had nothing to do with it."

"Of course."

"We'll come visit you in bit, Rogue."

"I'll look forward to it."

Shaking his head softly the tall young man gathered the tray and exited leaving Rogue again alone, but not for long as seconds later Jamie darted back into the room giggling manically at whatever he saw over his shoulder.

"Miss Rogue, I forgot something."

"Did you now? Well what did you forget?"

Jaime pulled a familiar rubber tarantula from his pocket and placed it on the table beside the bed. "Billy wanted to keep you company."

Rogue smiled. "Tell Billy that I appreciate his staying." Ruffling the boys hair she sent him back out of the room to catch up with the others.

Once she was sure there would be no immediate interruptions the smile slid off Rogue's face. Settling herself back under the covers she allowed herself to be swept into the tangled mess that was currently her mind the best way to avoid the questions of the X-Men and Junior X-Men would be to feign sleep as long as possible—besides she still needed to finish repairing the walls imprisoning the rest of the psyches.


Next Posting Date: Hopefully within the next two weeks. But I wouldn't bet my life on that.

AN: Not a lot to say really. Sorry this chapter took so long but I really didn't like any of the finished versions and still don't like this one, it feels really awkward. That said I might edit this at a later date but I just wanted to post something for now. Also I might be posting the prequel to this story sometime soon. Or I might just finish this one before I post the other. Whatever.

Let me know what you all think and let's hope the next chapter won't take as long. The action should start to pick up.