Title: The Sweetest Flowers

Author: tommygirl828 (at) gmail (dot) com

A/N: Much love to Jen and Steph for the beta work. Any remaining mistakes are all mine. Per usual, it's been posted on my website and my livejournal.

Rogue hated movie night at Xavier School. The boys fought for an action movie complete with bombs and guns firing, as though the incident at the school a few months ago had never happened or just added fuel to their bloodlust. Most of the girls wanted a romance, a story about true love and long kisses in the rain, those things they all yearned for, but knew better than to expect in grandiose fashions. Rogue watched as the girls giggled and sighed and she could barely stand it – why not aptly call anything from the romance genre "things that Rogue can never have."

It didn't matter though because there she was, squashed on the old green couch between Bobby and Kitty. Not the wisest place for the girl with an ability to suck out someone's life force to sit, but the students at Xavier School always tried to prove how much that didn't matter. They were like the idiot boys from Louisiana who used to take their trucks out into one of the fields and play chicken. It was fun being close to death at any given moment because it made a person feel like they were in control, like "look at me death. I see you but you can't see me."

The problem was that Rogue saw death all around her. Its energy tickled the back of her neck and caused all the nerves on her skin to fire rapidly. She was acutely aware of her power at all times, the mutant grim reaper, the girl with the sucktastic ability to pull everything out of someone and leave them an empty shell. It didn't get easier with time and there was no real control she could gain except to cover her skin and cower in the corner when someone tried to touch her. No matter how much time passed or how often Xavier told her to think of it as a gift, not a curse, it didn't matter. She was still Marie at the core – the scared little girl who would give anything to be normal for one day, but had to settle for watching from the periphery.

Bobby whispered in her ear, "It looks like it's going to be Titanic again."

She groaned. There was something horrifying about gripping loss forced into a cheesy three-hour movie. She meant to reply, but panicked when Bobby scooted closer. She tried to create some space, but there was nowhere to go and Bobby gave her that look that said it would be okay, that this was what boyfriends did with girlfriends no matter how untouchable they were.

Rogue smiled weakly even though the voices in her head were screaming at her, drowning out Scott's voice as he intervened in the movie fight. The Logan voice, complete with that guttural growl, liked to tell her that she was too good to be concerned with these other kids, that she was a loner like him. Except Rogue knew Logan wasn't as much of a loner as he would've liked – after all, he spent months wandering around for some inkling of who he was and he came after her at Ellis Island. His voice was usually the loudest, but sometimes that pristine British voice, crackling with bitterness, would erupt: look at all that Charles has accomplished for the cause…mutants worried about movies rather than the coming war…mutants trying to be like them

Anger coursed through Rogue and she knew the drill. Magneto's voice was powerfully persuasive at times and she could find herself almost believing all his crazy talk. He nearly killed her, but for the rest of her life, she would have a small apprehension of his motives. She hated that, hated God or whatever was in charge of the fucked up universe because it didn't seem fair, to have to carry his voice and bile around with her. Hadn't Magneto put her through enough?

Rogue sat up straight, garnering a look from Kitty who quickly focused back on the screen. Rogue faked a yawn and stood up. Bobby glanced at her, sweet Bobby who tasted of cinnamon and chilled air, who sounded like a babbling brook amidst the erupting volcanoes of the other voices. He kept telling her that he could handle it, that she could tell him anything, but she could already see their future play out. She would lose control of the voices or her power and she would break him somehow.

She nearly killed Logan and he was invincible. A poor guy like Bobby didn't stand a chance.

Tell him that he's a disgrace to all mutants.

"Shut up," she muttered under her breath. She met Bobby's gaze because there was nowhere else to look without creating a scene and getting the professors involved. She whispered, "I'm really tired, Bobby."

"Are you sure? I hear Titanic is great the twentieth time around," he offered.

She smiled. In a different body, a different future, she could love Bobby. She could have a future with him and enjoy every minute of it. But, in that moment in the school, it was stifling and she fought to suppress Logan's abrasive laugh from spilling out.

She nodded and said, "I'm going to get some fresh air and head to bed." She didn't give him a chance to respond or to offer to go with her. Bobby didn't seem to understand the idea of private time – he was one of those guys that everyone loved to be around and he always loved to the around people.

Rogue looked out at the evening sky. Even Magneto's scorn festering in her mind couldn't ruin her love for the grounds of the school. The grass was a verdant green that played into the backdrop of an early evening sky as the sun clung to its place like an obstinate child who refuses to let go of his blankie. The flowers were in full bloom along the main pathway that led to the school and the trees bent and swayed with the breeze. She could almost picture herself lost in a Normal Rockwell painting. If Norman Rockwell included mutants, maybe.

She took a seat on the bench and inhaled the wind as it blew past her. This bench was the one place where she could find a bit of quiet and think things out. Even when the lawn was overcrowded with other students, no one ever bothered her on the bench, leaving her to enjoy the beauty around her. It reminded her of back home—how the sky was wide open and crackling with energy and sometimes she felt like she was touching the stars—and the life she once lived there before she realized how lonely her future would be. Before she was Rogue and couldn't touch anyone.

You're not alone, kid. You've got us.

Rogue shook her head at the sound of Logan's voice. He would try to make her feel better without actually uttering a lie – when actual people and mutants could stand her no longer, she had the voices in her head. She could never decide if it was healthy to respond to the voices, but she did anyway. "I feel like there's something terrible and wonderful and amazing that's just beyond my grasp."

You've chosen the wrong side in this war. Do you think the humans care if you live or die?

Rogue shut her eyes, again inundated with the vitriol of Magneto's quest. "You want war. Xavier wants peace."

Charles is leading all of you into hell. A girl like you should be ruling, not hiding under a tree in the middle of nowhere.

Even John's voice was there, telling her that she was meant for more, to stop playing around like some stupid kid when it was obvious to everyone that she didn't have that luxury. Kids got to be reckless and messy, and they experimented with each other, touching and kissing and…all things Rogue was not able to do in this lifetime.

She attempted to block out the voices, the beckoning tone of Magneto and John's voice inside her, and concentrated on the future that could be hers if she wanted it. She could fight and train to become one of Xavier's X-Men in the future. It wouldn't be all-encompassing or fulfilling like the great loves of time seemed to be, but it was something. She could throw herself into protecting other mutants and searching for some way to control the surges of power inside of her.

But that was all in the future. In the meantime, she was stuck. She was lost in the vast teenage years as the girl who would never know what it felt like to have someone else's skin over hers, to trace her fingers over a boy's back and pull him closer. She might have been beautiful, she realized, but it was an approximation because there were so many things she would never know. She was alone. No matter how many Bobby's or Xavier's came along, they would never understand the claustrophobic feel of being around other people in close quarters. Logan might be able to comprehend the lost feeling and Magneto's anger, but even he looked at her with pitiful eyes of touches never to be.

She was wedged into the in between time of life as Marie and a life as someone doing something. For the time being, she was no one.

She leaned back on the bench and glanced at her watch – three hours of undisturbed time to sulk, moan, and curse her life without reproach. Maybe movie night wasn't so bad after all.

Fin