Notes: Sangofanatic: I actually can't say I really know how she'd react if it was Kitty, hence why she fought Jean. Glad you liked the chapter, sorry for the long wait for an update. no escape: Thanks! I will probably (but don't hold me to his) update before the beginning of next week. XX-Goth-Gal: Thankies! And I agree, pretty much anything is allowed if it adds to the angst, apart from a couple of Rules that are Non Breakable. coldqueen: Survival at any cost is pretty much the theme I try to keep in mind whilst writing this fic, and others like it. It's such a good motto, in my opinion.

Chapter Seven

Adams visited Rogue personally that night, about two hours after the fight had ended and all the guests had left. He praised her on such a good fight, on making him so much money, and informed her that she would be exempt from fighting until her wounds fully healed. He did not apologise, for the torture or the choice of her opponent, and she knew he wasn't sorry. She just looked at him with dead eyes until he left her alone in her small room, with only the low, dying light of a lamp to chase away the shadows that lurked in the corners.

A doctor came to see to her wounds, not saying any more than he had to and never looking her in the eyes. He tried to give her something for the pain, but she refused, explaining that she didn't like being drugged up. It seemed like hours before he finally left her alone, and she thought about locking the door before she remembered that there was no lock. So instead she just curled up on the real bed she had been allowed, with the thick, warm blanket pulled tight around her body, and tried very hard not to think

She thought, absently, that she should be crying, should be mourning the loss of her friend, should be angry at Adams for putting her into that situation, should be regretting the choice she had made to fight. She should've been a lot of things, but she wasn't. She truly was empty. she'd used that term a lot of times in her life, thought she had been empty on many occasions, especially during the past month, but she'd been wrong. There had always been some glimmer of emotion in her heart, some spark of life, it had just been buried so deeply she had thought it wasn't there.

But now, staring at the ceiling with her friend's blood on her hands, metaphorically speaking of course, she really was empty. She could have been killed in that instant, or been told that she was being set free, and she wouldn't have cared. It was all pointless now, because she'd finally broken herself. Over the past month, or even, if she was being truly honest with herself, over the past few years, she'd slowly been killing herself, tearing off pieces of her soul, sacrificing bits of her heart, and she had been fine. She had changed, become dark and reclusive, but she had been okay, she had coped, she had survived. But now… now she was truly broken. She would never recover from killing Jean, and a part of her didn't want to, because she shouldn't be able to. Killing your friend was not supposed to be something you could just brush aside.

The night passed slowly, filled with the dreadful silence of a graveyard. Usually, she could always hear some form of movement, normally that of the guards checking on the fighters, but now, there was nothing. just silence, heavy, thick, unbearable silence that pressed against her skin like a pillow, trying to smother her, trying to kill her….

Rogue shook her head and rolled onto her back. She had never dealt well with silence, not since she had absorbed Cody. That was why she always had her music on so loud, to chase away the silence, to block out the voices within her head. It was strange that she had come to regard that as a weird sort of comfort, that the voices still continued to shout at her from within her mind. After everything she'd been through, she still had all those personalities inside her. There was Kitty, trying to cheer her up and sulking when she failed miserably. Scott, telling her to be careful, stop taking so many risks when she fought. There was Evan, telling her to hurry up and kill that sucker quick.

But… something was wrong, someone was missing. It took her a moment to realise that one voice had finally left her, finally been silenced. Jean no longer talked to her.

Perhaps it was that she was so empty, but all she thought of when she realised that was: It must mean that the real people are 'powering' the voices. If they're not alive, their voices aren't either. That would explain those periods of silence from various people, they must have been unconscious or otherwise impaired.

The more she thought about it, the more she realised she was right. During the thing with Xavier's son, Jean's voice had disappeared for a bit, and she matched up the time with the things Scott had told her and deduced that her friend had been unconscious.

Rogue thought about this new information about her powers until she was too tired to think anymore, and fell asleep.

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Rogue woke immediately, her subconscious screaming at her that something was wrong. It only took her a second to realise that someone was in the room with her. She fought to keep her body relaxed, her breathing steady, focusing on not giving any indication that she was awake. Straining her ears, she deduced that the person was standing by the opposite wall, far enough away that unless they had a gun pointed at her, she had a good chance of fighting back.

With that thought in mind, she opened her eyes and sat up. Her body screamed at her, the wounds from her torture making themselves known, and she repressed the urge to wince and fold up in a little ball of pain. Apparently, she'd reached that delightful little stage where every minor movement hurts like hell. It wasn't surprising as quite a few of her wounds were on her back and every time she moved, she used the muscles in her back. It was not going to be fun for the next day or so.

It turned out to be Kendell that had walked into the room. He was leaning against the far wall with his arms folded across his chest. He was watching her and there was something in his eyes that Rogue really didn't like. She glared at him, wondering what in the hell he was doing there.

"We're all pretty stupefied, little Roguey," he said with a little smile. "The boss has said that not only are you to be excused from fighting until you're all better, but none of us are allowed to touch you. And that is a mighty shame, babe, we were really lookin' forward to having you back in your cell, on our turf. But, boss says you get to stay here."

"Well that is lovely ta know," Rogue said, her sarcasm making her accent a little thicker. "Now, would you kindly bugger off?"

Kendell's face darkened and he pushed away from the wall, hands clenching into fists. A vein started throbbing in his temple. "You watch yourself, babe. The second you get put back in your cell, you're ours again. Until then, you get to be free, but the moment that you get put back, we're gonna have so much fuckin' fun."

With that, he stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him, and Rogue sighed. She really shouldn't have been such a smart arse, it only lead to trouble, but she was always bitchy when she was hurt. She shook her head, letting out a little gasp of pain when her wounds protested at the movement, and very carefully lay back down on the bed.

The good thing about sleep was that it let her think about things a little better, gave her brain a chance to play catch up and to assess things. It was as if her brain played catch up while she was asleep, whilst simultaneously telling her heart to shut the hell up for a minute. The events of yesterday were playing out inside her mind like a movie with everything thrown into hyperfocus. She could look at it all and see every little detail, hear every sound. She could see, with perfect clarity, the exact moment that Jean died.

She wasn't exactly empty anymore, but it was as if her emotions were dulled, giving her only faint echoes of true, raw emotion. Sadness, regret, anger, it was all there, but faint, like a whisper half-heard in the night. It was a coping mechanism she had developed over the years, a technique that let her deal with some event slowly, easing her into things. She had never been more grateful for it.