The More Things Change
Author: RoguesKnight
Chapter 3: A Voice from the Past
Disclaimer: Guess what folks, still don't own them and surprisingly no lawyers have written to tell me about the wonderful job opportunities working for the people who do. Just borrowing them.ok.so Rivers was my creation but I don't really want to be associated with him. I'll return everyone who doesn't belong to me safe and sound.and maybe a little happier.who knows.
Dedication: To my wonderful fiancée whom I love very deeply and who I have neglected to mention in the previous two chapters. And to my wonderful reviewers who keep me writing and thinking of where to go even when in class...hmmmm..I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not.oh well.
Rogue lay on her bed, pressing the room's cordless phone to her ear, and thankful beyond measure that none of the other students who shared the room with her were anywhere to be seen so she wouldn't have to answer any questions about the out of character grin that was firmly plastered on her face. He was alive! Xander had somehow managed to survive whatever the hell had happened to Sunnydale. Not only that but he actually remembered her. It was the first time in a long while that she'd been genuinely happy. Reaching out with her free hand, she pulled her pillow down the bed and propped it under her chest. " Actually, Ah go by Rogue now" Her smile widened and she wondered if he'd figure out how she'd chosen the name. " There are only a couple of people who know me as Marie anymore."
There was a pause on the other end of the line, " Rogue, eh? I like it" Xander's voice came from the other end. " It'd probably be a little conceited to think I had anything to do with you choosing the new name, huh? Ah, never mind. So, you've stopped running that's great! Did you go back home or finally make it all the way to Alaska? And if so, what's it like to deal with the whole six months of darkness thing?" The excitement in his voice was evident as his words seemed to run together. It was also contagious, causing Rogue to giggle.
" Easy sugah," she finally managed to get out around the giggles, " One question at a time alright? And, at the risk of inflating your ego more than Ah remember it being, yes, you may have had a little to do with the name change. For your next question, no Ah didn't go back to Meridian, but Ah did find a home of sorts." Her brow furrowed slightly as she tried to figure out a way to describe the institute without giving too much away. Despite trusting Xander as much as she did anyone, the recent events with Stryker had her a little paranoid about discussing things that went on at the institute too openly. Who knew if he'd arranged a phone tap somewhere other than at the Alkali Lake base. " A few months after Ah met you, Ah ended up with a group of people like me in New York. Not exactly a family per se, but we look out for each other. So, Ah never made it to Alaska like Ah planned. What about you, did you complete your drive to all fifty states?" She smiled.
" Ya know, there's a funny thing about this great country of ours," Xander said, " Hawaii. it isn't really connected to the rest of the states, and sadly I can't afford one of those new cars that transforms into a speed boat. Not that they were even available for sale when we met. So sadly, no, I didn't complete my planned tour of the country. And, before you feel the slightest bit guilty about the money, that wasn't why I didn't do it." There was a short pause, as if he was considering something. " The truth is that the car my Uncle "loaned" me, was a little less than reliable for long trips and it broke down a few times along the way, so I'd get her towed to the closest town, pick up an odd job or two until I could afford the repairs and then head on. I finally got sick of the whole thing and decided to head back to Sunnydale. You know how my luck runs, right? Well, you have to swear that you will never repeat to anyone what I'm about to tell you."
Rogue's grin widened and she involuntarily pressed the phone closer to her ear in eager anticipation. " Who on earth would Ah tell anything to Xander? It's not like Ah have pictures of you Ah could show people and say, this is who Ah'm talking about. And Ah don't know any of your friend's phone numbers do Ah?"
" Yet you somehow managed to find my phone number, which is officially a business number that is not in Sunnydale. A business, I might add that when we met, I wasn't aware existed, let alone had any clue that I'd end up working for. So I wouldn't put it past you to be able to find my friends and tell them my incredibly embarrassing story. By the way how did you find me?" Xander countered.
* Damn * Rogue thought, * He's still as sharp as when we met. * "
Ok, ok. Ah swear that I won't tell a single soul about this incredibly embarrassing incident in your life." She said sweetly, holding up her free hand mocking the boy scouts salute even though he couldn't know that she was.
Xander seemed to consider it, finally sighing heavily, " Ok, but don't think I didn't notice you avoid the question of how you found me Marie. Well after you left, I stayed in Tennessee for a little bit, then decided to head on home to Sunnydale. Instead of just driving back the way I came, I took a detour through Northern California and broke down for the final time in this little town about twenty-five miles outside of Sunnydale called Oxnard. The only job I could get there was at the fabulous Ladies Nite Club, primarily in a dish washing capacity. Then, unfortunately for me, one of the dancers got accepted into UCLA's theatre program and left the club to pursue legitimate performance. Guess who they pulled to fill his spot?"
Rogue's gloved hand flew to her mouth to try to stifle the laughter, her slender body convulsing on the bed with the effort. " You're kidding?! They actually had you strip? Just pulled you out of the kitchen to get all naked on stage for a bunch of horny middle aged women? How awful!" Rogue exclaimed once she could hide the amusement from her voice. A sudden image of the Xander she had met a couple of years ago flew into her mind and began to do a slow seductive strip tease. * Cut it out girl * she chastised herself * You have Bobby, you love him! You don't need images of other men getting naked in your brain *
" Thanks for saying the thought of me stripping is awful," Xander teased, unwittingly following her train of thought, " And not all of the women who frequented the club were middle aged. Some of them were much older. The point was that they were very appreciative of my performance and considering that their contributions allowed me to buy an only slightly used newer model car, who am I to complain on how they spend their grandchildren's inheritances? Now, you avoided telling me how you found this number before, how about explaining that little trick?"
Rogue swore under her breath and glanced towards the open bedroom door. " Alright, just give me a minute and you'll have to swear not to breath a word of this to anyone. You can't even think too loudly about it." She pushed herself up off the bed and walked to the door, closing it securely before returning to the bed. " You know how I said that I ended up with a group of people like me? Let's just say that I didn't mean that they were all runaway teenage girls. And the guy who set this place up has a knack for finding people, no matter where they are." Nervously glancing back at the door Rogue hoped that her explanation was appropriately vague"
" I see." Came Xander's cautious reply, " And I can understand why you don't want to publicize that information too widely, especially with whatever this "mutant attack" the news is constantly talking about was."
That caught Rogue's attention, causing her to sit up straight on the bed, pulling her pillow into her lap and wrapping her free arm around it. " Whatever, the .attack, was?" She asked, carefully omitting the word mutant, " You mean you weren't affected by it? As far as we knew it hit just about everyone on the planet both human and, ah, non-human. Are you seriously telling me that you don't know what the news keeps referring to?"
" Not a damn clue," Xander said " All I know about it is what was on the news and from what little people here in L.A. have been willing to say about it. Giles, you've probably got memories of him floating around in your head if you remember anything from me, has a theory that the effects of the Hellmouth actually shielded us from what was going on around the rest of the world. It was probably the only time that living on the mouth of hell was a blessing considering that once again we had to save the world."
" Again?!," Rogue asked, shocked, " One of these days you're going to have to tell me just how many times the world has almost ended. But to make a long story short, there was this covert military group that decided to raid our house here and took some of us prisoner. They wanted to find a "cure" for the "mutant problem" and decided to use the guy who set everything up here to do it. You see, he was taken prisoner as well and forced against his will to use his abilities and a machine he created to attempt to kill everyone with a mutant gene on the planet. Problem is, during the rescue operation, a man called Magneto decided to reverse the machine to target humans. Hence the whole "mutant" attack the news keeps talking about."
There was a pause on the other end of the line as Xander absorbed what she had said, reading between the lines to catch what she wasn't saying, finally he answered, " Thanks for filling in the blanks. I have the feeling that you probably aren't supposed to say much, if anything, to anyone about it but I do appreciate the inside scoop. Considering the fact that everyone's still living, I'm going to assume that everything came out alright."
" More or less" Rogue said carefully, doing her best not to think of Jean and what had happened.
Xander could tell there was more she wasn't saying but decided not to press the issue, " Well, since you gave me the inside scoop on your brush with the apocalypse I think it's only fair that I let you know about mine. I know this is going to sound a little far fetched, but I can assure you it's the truth. There was, maybe still is, an entity known as The First. Essentially the first evil every to set its foot on the earth. It wanted to take over and ultimately destroy our world and to do that it needed to get the Slayer out of its way. So its agents started killing off all the women who ever could be Slayers and headed down the line til it got to the two current Slayers, Buffy and Faith. Of course, we couldn't let that happen. So Giles started sending what potential Slayers he could find our way, and we trained them into lean mean fighting machines, with only a few bumps along the way. World's still here, so, needless to say we royally kicked it's evil ass and in doing so, kinda caused Sunnydale to be sucked off the face of the Earth.just your average every day thing for us" He quipped easily.
It was Rogue's turn to be shocked. " Ok.I can beat that" she teased, " ..so I lied. I can't top that. My god, you can brush that off as an every day thing? What counts as out of the ordinary for you guys? And what did you mean by bumps, if you don't mind me asking that is."
There was a sharp intake of breath on the other end of the line as Xander considered what to say, finally he sighed heavily. There was only one way to start moving on his life and that was to put the past to rest. " Well, as with just about any war there were casualties. We couldn't keep all of the girls alive against the Uber-vampires the First sent after us. And during the final battle, my ex-fiancee, Anya was one of the ones to fall." His breathe caught in his throat but he pushed on, self consciously raising a hand to his eye patch, " and I, well just call me Cyclops cause now I only have one eye left."
Rogue brought a hand to her mouth in shock, " Oh my god. I'm so sorry Xander." A sudden giggle escaped her lips, " Sorry.it's just what you said.there's a guy here I think you'd have a lot in common with. Why don't you come out for a visit some time?" she asked without thinking. A moment later she realized what she'd said and decided that it didn't sound like as horrible an idea as it could be, as long as the Professor was cool with it. After all, the other students could probably do with seeing that not all humans hated mutants. " You know what, if you could come out sometime I'd love to see you. Hang on for a second." She set the phone down on the bed and flew out of the bedroom to find the Professor and talk it over with him.
Five minutes later she returned, picking up the phone and bouncing with excitement. " Listen Xander, I just got back from talking with the guy who set this place up, Professor Charles Xavier, and he doesn't see any problem with you coming to visit. I explained that you're definitely cool with mutants and how you saved me. He's also interested in talking to you about the hellmouth and the possibility that it actually shielded you from the effects of the..ah.incident. What do you say? We can come get you if money for travel is an issue."
" Well, I do have some vacation time accrued that I can use. And considering that all I do here is answer phones and take messages it shouldn't be too hard for me to find someone to fill in. I could probably be free by Monday. If that's ok with you." Xander said, a little shocked by the proposition. However, the chance to see Marie again, and maybe meet some more mutants was a very tempting offer indeed. Besides, it beat sitting around the hotel waiting for business calls or trying to fend off hungry Slayers intent on getting at his twinkie supply.
"Great," Rogue said happily, " I'll call you later with more details about where to meet and at what time on Monday. But I should really hop off the phone before the long distance rate goes through the roof. I'll see you soon. Bye!" She quickly hung up the phone before waiting for his answer, a huge smile on her face. In a few days she'd see him again, something told her the next few days would be the longest of her life. * Oh come on * She thought at herself * It's just Xander. He's just a friend, a nice guy who saved my life. It's not like I want him or anything, after all, he's no Bobby." Determined to believe herself, Rogue headed out of the bedroom intent on patching things up with her boyfriend.
Author's note: Yea, I know there wasn't much action in this one, but how exciting can most phone calls be? Trust me, there will be some more action later.
Author: RoguesKnight
Chapter 3: A Voice from the Past
Disclaimer: Guess what folks, still don't own them and surprisingly no lawyers have written to tell me about the wonderful job opportunities working for the people who do. Just borrowing them.ok.so Rivers was my creation but I don't really want to be associated with him. I'll return everyone who doesn't belong to me safe and sound.and maybe a little happier.who knows.
Dedication: To my wonderful fiancée whom I love very deeply and who I have neglected to mention in the previous two chapters. And to my wonderful reviewers who keep me writing and thinking of where to go even when in class...hmmmm..I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not.oh well.
Rogue lay on her bed, pressing the room's cordless phone to her ear, and thankful beyond measure that none of the other students who shared the room with her were anywhere to be seen so she wouldn't have to answer any questions about the out of character grin that was firmly plastered on her face. He was alive! Xander had somehow managed to survive whatever the hell had happened to Sunnydale. Not only that but he actually remembered her. It was the first time in a long while that she'd been genuinely happy. Reaching out with her free hand, she pulled her pillow down the bed and propped it under her chest. " Actually, Ah go by Rogue now" Her smile widened and she wondered if he'd figure out how she'd chosen the name. " There are only a couple of people who know me as Marie anymore."
There was a pause on the other end of the line, " Rogue, eh? I like it" Xander's voice came from the other end. " It'd probably be a little conceited to think I had anything to do with you choosing the new name, huh? Ah, never mind. So, you've stopped running that's great! Did you go back home or finally make it all the way to Alaska? And if so, what's it like to deal with the whole six months of darkness thing?" The excitement in his voice was evident as his words seemed to run together. It was also contagious, causing Rogue to giggle.
" Easy sugah," she finally managed to get out around the giggles, " One question at a time alright? And, at the risk of inflating your ego more than Ah remember it being, yes, you may have had a little to do with the name change. For your next question, no Ah didn't go back to Meridian, but Ah did find a home of sorts." Her brow furrowed slightly as she tried to figure out a way to describe the institute without giving too much away. Despite trusting Xander as much as she did anyone, the recent events with Stryker had her a little paranoid about discussing things that went on at the institute too openly. Who knew if he'd arranged a phone tap somewhere other than at the Alkali Lake base. " A few months after Ah met you, Ah ended up with a group of people like me in New York. Not exactly a family per se, but we look out for each other. So, Ah never made it to Alaska like Ah planned. What about you, did you complete your drive to all fifty states?" She smiled.
" Ya know, there's a funny thing about this great country of ours," Xander said, " Hawaii. it isn't really connected to the rest of the states, and sadly I can't afford one of those new cars that transforms into a speed boat. Not that they were even available for sale when we met. So sadly, no, I didn't complete my planned tour of the country. And, before you feel the slightest bit guilty about the money, that wasn't why I didn't do it." There was a short pause, as if he was considering something. " The truth is that the car my Uncle "loaned" me, was a little less than reliable for long trips and it broke down a few times along the way, so I'd get her towed to the closest town, pick up an odd job or two until I could afford the repairs and then head on. I finally got sick of the whole thing and decided to head back to Sunnydale. You know how my luck runs, right? Well, you have to swear that you will never repeat to anyone what I'm about to tell you."
Rogue's grin widened and she involuntarily pressed the phone closer to her ear in eager anticipation. " Who on earth would Ah tell anything to Xander? It's not like Ah have pictures of you Ah could show people and say, this is who Ah'm talking about. And Ah don't know any of your friend's phone numbers do Ah?"
" Yet you somehow managed to find my phone number, which is officially a business number that is not in Sunnydale. A business, I might add that when we met, I wasn't aware existed, let alone had any clue that I'd end up working for. So I wouldn't put it past you to be able to find my friends and tell them my incredibly embarrassing story. By the way how did you find me?" Xander countered.
* Damn * Rogue thought, * He's still as sharp as when we met. * "
Ok, ok. Ah swear that I won't tell a single soul about this incredibly embarrassing incident in your life." She said sweetly, holding up her free hand mocking the boy scouts salute even though he couldn't know that she was.
Xander seemed to consider it, finally sighing heavily, " Ok, but don't think I didn't notice you avoid the question of how you found me Marie. Well after you left, I stayed in Tennessee for a little bit, then decided to head on home to Sunnydale. Instead of just driving back the way I came, I took a detour through Northern California and broke down for the final time in this little town about twenty-five miles outside of Sunnydale called Oxnard. The only job I could get there was at the fabulous Ladies Nite Club, primarily in a dish washing capacity. Then, unfortunately for me, one of the dancers got accepted into UCLA's theatre program and left the club to pursue legitimate performance. Guess who they pulled to fill his spot?"
Rogue's gloved hand flew to her mouth to try to stifle the laughter, her slender body convulsing on the bed with the effort. " You're kidding?! They actually had you strip? Just pulled you out of the kitchen to get all naked on stage for a bunch of horny middle aged women? How awful!" Rogue exclaimed once she could hide the amusement from her voice. A sudden image of the Xander she had met a couple of years ago flew into her mind and began to do a slow seductive strip tease. * Cut it out girl * she chastised herself * You have Bobby, you love him! You don't need images of other men getting naked in your brain *
" Thanks for saying the thought of me stripping is awful," Xander teased, unwittingly following her train of thought, " And not all of the women who frequented the club were middle aged. Some of them were much older. The point was that they were very appreciative of my performance and considering that their contributions allowed me to buy an only slightly used newer model car, who am I to complain on how they spend their grandchildren's inheritances? Now, you avoided telling me how you found this number before, how about explaining that little trick?"
Rogue swore under her breath and glanced towards the open bedroom door. " Alright, just give me a minute and you'll have to swear not to breath a word of this to anyone. You can't even think too loudly about it." She pushed herself up off the bed and walked to the door, closing it securely before returning to the bed. " You know how I said that I ended up with a group of people like me? Let's just say that I didn't mean that they were all runaway teenage girls. And the guy who set this place up has a knack for finding people, no matter where they are." Nervously glancing back at the door Rogue hoped that her explanation was appropriately vague"
" I see." Came Xander's cautious reply, " And I can understand why you don't want to publicize that information too widely, especially with whatever this "mutant attack" the news is constantly talking about was."
That caught Rogue's attention, causing her to sit up straight on the bed, pulling her pillow into her lap and wrapping her free arm around it. " Whatever, the .attack, was?" She asked, carefully omitting the word mutant, " You mean you weren't affected by it? As far as we knew it hit just about everyone on the planet both human and, ah, non-human. Are you seriously telling me that you don't know what the news keeps referring to?"
" Not a damn clue," Xander said " All I know about it is what was on the news and from what little people here in L.A. have been willing to say about it. Giles, you've probably got memories of him floating around in your head if you remember anything from me, has a theory that the effects of the Hellmouth actually shielded us from what was going on around the rest of the world. It was probably the only time that living on the mouth of hell was a blessing considering that once again we had to save the world."
" Again?!," Rogue asked, shocked, " One of these days you're going to have to tell me just how many times the world has almost ended. But to make a long story short, there was this covert military group that decided to raid our house here and took some of us prisoner. They wanted to find a "cure" for the "mutant problem" and decided to use the guy who set everything up here to do it. You see, he was taken prisoner as well and forced against his will to use his abilities and a machine he created to attempt to kill everyone with a mutant gene on the planet. Problem is, during the rescue operation, a man called Magneto decided to reverse the machine to target humans. Hence the whole "mutant" attack the news keeps talking about."
There was a pause on the other end of the line as Xander absorbed what she had said, reading between the lines to catch what she wasn't saying, finally he answered, " Thanks for filling in the blanks. I have the feeling that you probably aren't supposed to say much, if anything, to anyone about it but I do appreciate the inside scoop. Considering the fact that everyone's still living, I'm going to assume that everything came out alright."
" More or less" Rogue said carefully, doing her best not to think of Jean and what had happened.
Xander could tell there was more she wasn't saying but decided not to press the issue, " Well, since you gave me the inside scoop on your brush with the apocalypse I think it's only fair that I let you know about mine. I know this is going to sound a little far fetched, but I can assure you it's the truth. There was, maybe still is, an entity known as The First. Essentially the first evil every to set its foot on the earth. It wanted to take over and ultimately destroy our world and to do that it needed to get the Slayer out of its way. So its agents started killing off all the women who ever could be Slayers and headed down the line til it got to the two current Slayers, Buffy and Faith. Of course, we couldn't let that happen. So Giles started sending what potential Slayers he could find our way, and we trained them into lean mean fighting machines, with only a few bumps along the way. World's still here, so, needless to say we royally kicked it's evil ass and in doing so, kinda caused Sunnydale to be sucked off the face of the Earth.just your average every day thing for us" He quipped easily.
It was Rogue's turn to be shocked. " Ok.I can beat that" she teased, " ..so I lied. I can't top that. My god, you can brush that off as an every day thing? What counts as out of the ordinary for you guys? And what did you mean by bumps, if you don't mind me asking that is."
There was a sharp intake of breath on the other end of the line as Xander considered what to say, finally he sighed heavily. There was only one way to start moving on his life and that was to put the past to rest. " Well, as with just about any war there were casualties. We couldn't keep all of the girls alive against the Uber-vampires the First sent after us. And during the final battle, my ex-fiancee, Anya was one of the ones to fall." His breathe caught in his throat but he pushed on, self consciously raising a hand to his eye patch, " and I, well just call me Cyclops cause now I only have one eye left."
Rogue brought a hand to her mouth in shock, " Oh my god. I'm so sorry Xander." A sudden giggle escaped her lips, " Sorry.it's just what you said.there's a guy here I think you'd have a lot in common with. Why don't you come out for a visit some time?" she asked without thinking. A moment later she realized what she'd said and decided that it didn't sound like as horrible an idea as it could be, as long as the Professor was cool with it. After all, the other students could probably do with seeing that not all humans hated mutants. " You know what, if you could come out sometime I'd love to see you. Hang on for a second." She set the phone down on the bed and flew out of the bedroom to find the Professor and talk it over with him.
Five minutes later she returned, picking up the phone and bouncing with excitement. " Listen Xander, I just got back from talking with the guy who set this place up, Professor Charles Xavier, and he doesn't see any problem with you coming to visit. I explained that you're definitely cool with mutants and how you saved me. He's also interested in talking to you about the hellmouth and the possibility that it actually shielded you from the effects of the..ah.incident. What do you say? We can come get you if money for travel is an issue."
" Well, I do have some vacation time accrued that I can use. And considering that all I do here is answer phones and take messages it shouldn't be too hard for me to find someone to fill in. I could probably be free by Monday. If that's ok with you." Xander said, a little shocked by the proposition. However, the chance to see Marie again, and maybe meet some more mutants was a very tempting offer indeed. Besides, it beat sitting around the hotel waiting for business calls or trying to fend off hungry Slayers intent on getting at his twinkie supply.
"Great," Rogue said happily, " I'll call you later with more details about where to meet and at what time on Monday. But I should really hop off the phone before the long distance rate goes through the roof. I'll see you soon. Bye!" She quickly hung up the phone before waiting for his answer, a huge smile on her face. In a few days she'd see him again, something told her the next few days would be the longest of her life. * Oh come on * She thought at herself * It's just Xander. He's just a friend, a nice guy who saved my life. It's not like I want him or anything, after all, he's no Bobby." Determined to believe herself, Rogue headed out of the bedroom intent on patching things up with her boyfriend.
Author's note: Yea, I know there wasn't much action in this one, but how exciting can most phone calls be? Trust me, there will be some more action later.