A Time Forgotten
AN. Hey, this story is a tad edgier then what I usually write. Give it a chance. So please read, and have fun.
Bry
Disclaimer: I own no one, nothing, nada… but if Shawn Ashmore reads this, I want a signed autograph attached to you sent to my house. *If you're Anna Paquin, I'll take your autograph and Shawn's number…* Ok, just don't sue me.
Chapter One
The Beginning of the End
"Even though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death
I fear no evil: for thou art with me
Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me"
"Hank told me to be quick, since so many still need to say goodbye. When I first met you, I was praying for a chance. I thought you might be able to cure me, that you might be able to make me whole again. But even though you couldn't make it happen, you gave me an environment to be myself." Marie D'Ancanto paced around the medical room bed. "You gave me a home, and you gave me the opportunity to learn. Oh, there is too much to say, Professor. Why do you have to go?" She stopped and faced the bed. On it laid an older man, his head only covered by a blood soaked wrapping. His eyes were shut, but she knew they should have shown a bright blue filled with knowledge and compassion.
When she had first met Charles Xavier, she couldn't comprehend how such a powerful mind could be patient with the children around him. He started the School for the Gifted on the sole principle to help children adapt to the mutations forming in their body. He taught them how to control their power, and how use it responsibly. He knew that the strongest always had to protect the weak, not the hurt them. Even without his telepathy, he knew how to read people. They way their eyes shifted, their hands shook could tell him their life story. Marie had been one of his chances that ended up changing the whole dynamics of his school.
"Even after the attack on Liberty Island, you made sure I belonged in the school. You taught me that I didn't need to be alone anymore just because I couldn't touch anyone." She took her gloved hand and wrapped it around his limp hand. "You taught me to feel again. Oh, sugar, I don't know how we can live without you. Your ideals are inside us, but you are the head on our shoulders." Her mind thought of what happened the day before. "We should have stopped him, but we were too late. He managed to get so close to you at the public hearing, that we didn't even sense he was harm until you cried out. The chaos happened so fast that he managed to slip away. But don't worry. We will find him. Those red eyes are hard to forget."
"Rogue?"
She turned around, her hair sticking to her tear streaked face. But there was no one in the room. She looked back at the bed ridden man. His breathing was forced through a tube, but she knew it was he who had spoken.
"Professor?"
He didn't move, but his voice filled her head. "Don't turn to revenge, dear. Hate can not be crushed with a blow, but stopped with the firm stance against it. Don't retaliate, but show the world what they are causing. It will stop. Always be a human first."
The voice stopped, and her tears welled up in her green eyes. His breathing was still constant, but she knew he was gone.
The funeral had been held without any pomp. He had asked not to be immortalized in his death just because he had died, but to let his dream live for him. The professor had always been great with words. The hallways of the mansion that he had made his school were quiet. The students with homes had gone back; the runaways that remained sat quietly in their rooms, waiting for their fates.
Rogue stared out the entrance way, fighting the urge to grab a smoke. Technically she had never tried it, but the personality of Logan was craving for one. That was the bad part of her power. With a contact she did not only take the person's memory or powers, but she took them inside her, and the drifter that had lead her to Xavier's school always had a cigar in his mouth. He never had to worry about lung cancer since his cells regenerated themselves.
Even though she wouldn't have been as lucky if she took up the habit, but it was something she thought would comfort her. It was better then doing nothing. It was better then replaying Xavier's assassination over inside her mind.
The day similar to the one she stared at. The sun had shown bright, and they sky had been the same dreamy blue. The protestors had stood in front of the Washington Monument, their signs rejecting the signing of the Mutant Registration Act.
The professor desperately wanted to go down, and arrange another meeting with Congress to delay the process, but his cry for time was ignored. Scott Summers, the leader of Xavier's X-men and one of his older pupils, did not want Xavier to go down to the capitol. He had said something bad was brewing in the city, and he didn't want Xavier to be there when the law was passed. But with his Oxford spoken lit, the Professor had smoothed some of Scott's fears, and insisted that he wasn't going to let the government make an injustice without showing some sign of protest. He had even agreed to bring some of the X-Men along to be his body guards.
Rogue had been chosen for her ability to spot troublemakers from afar, another trait she had received from Logan. She had just joined the X-Men after graduating from the school, and she was eager to test her wings. Ororo Munroe, one of Xavier's other pupils had went with them. Rogue had been assigned to stay away from the white headed goddess pushing Xavier's wheelchair. She was supposed to watch the crowd, and make sure no one got out of line since the only thing unique about her had been her white strips running in her hair.
Rogue had watched. Xavier made a statement to the crowd, urging them to stay peaceful. Ororo stayed on his back, ready to attack at the sign of trouble. But then the crowd started to move all at once. A whole mob ran up to the podium set up for the appearance, and before Ororo, codename Storm, could force them off, the man with the red eyes had come. He moved lightning fast, and Rogue had gasped out loud from her place in the crowd as the bright light had hit the blade.
The crowd had cut her off from the stand, but when she finally got there, Ororo was crying into her com-link for help. The mob was tearing around the monument, and the police had intervened, but in his wheel chair sat Xavier, blood pouring out of his neck.
When the school's doctor Hank McCoy examined Xavier, he knew the slash on his neck wasn't deep enough to kill the professor. It was the slash into his internal cavity that had proven fatal. A slash that had been made by an assailant that Rogue didn't even notice.
Rogue stared out the window, not ready to forgive herself. She was good for nothing. Because of her the man that had given her a new life was dead. She wasn't sure how anyone was going to forgive.
She clenched her fists; her mind was on the edge. The man would pay.
AN. Weird yes, but this chapter had to be posted to set the story up. If you read it, please review!
Thanks,
Bry
