Notes: Ah, introspection, how I love thee. This chapter is rather important to how I will end this fic, so please don't just skim it, take the time to really read it. Also, updates on this fic will stop for November as I will be writing for NaNoWriMo, which means I have thirty days to write fifty thousand words of original fiction. I'll be posting more chapters of Caged because they're already written. For more information, visit my LJ.
Chapter Twenty Eight
Rogue hesitated, staring at the door. Half of her wanted to run away, to hide from the moment she knew must happen, but the other half of her wanted to tear open the door and collapse on the floor and just let it all pour out. And that was the point of this whole thing, wasn't it? Half of her wanted one thing, the other half wanted the opposite. The killer and the human being, the sociopath and the woman, the dark and the light.
Rogue took a deep breath and gently rapped on the door with her knuckles. There was silence for a few moments, Michelle was probably trying to bring herself out of a deep state of meditation, and Rogue used the time to gather her scattered thoughts. If she didn't do this now, she knew she would never regain the courage to do it in the future, and she had to get her head clear before they faced off against the Agency; before she faced off against Mitchell.
The door opened, and Michelle ushered her inside. Rogue glanced around the room, noting as always about the contrast in personalities. Kar's side was unbelievably messy, clothes and magazines littering the floor, his quilt half-off the bed, posters coating the walls, and an electric guitar was propped up in the corner. Michelle's side of the room was neat and orderly, with various candles and sticks of incense dotted around to lend it a peaceful, tranquil air. The window was open, making the curtains flutter and letting in the soft sound of birdsong. Rogue liked Michelle's half of the room better, but stayed in Kar's half, near the door.
Michelle sat cross-legged on her bed and waited patiently for Rogue to begin talking, knowing that if she tried to pry the words out of her leader, she would get nowhere. She watched as Rogue paced around for a few moments before finally stopping to lean against the wall. Her arms were crossed over her stomach, meaning that she could touch her gun in its shoulder holster. She was looking everywhere but at Michelle, her grey eyes dancing around the room nervously.
When Rogue finally began to speak, her voice was soft and uncertain, nothing like the strong, confident tones Michelle was so used to.
"I need… I'm all… I don't…" Rogue took a deep breath and let it out in a big whoosh of air. "I'm confused," she stated plainly. "It's like… there's two different people, inside my head. Not the psyches I absorb, I learned long ago to control them, but… two different me's. One of the me's is… the person I was trained to be, the cold, ruthless killer. She'll sacrifice you all in a heartbeat to complete her mission and she won't think twice about it. She doesn't feel, she just thinks. But the other me, is the exact opposite. She's the human, the one that Cathryn and Xavier didn't manage to destroy. She's the one that laughs and smiles and cherishes this family dearly. She wants to protect you all, to keep you away from danger, keep you safe. She thinks with her heart and not her head, letting her emotions rule her.
"And they're fighting, inside my head, drowning out everything, until I can't think or feel or even breathe. One of them wants one thing, and the other wants the opposite. I can't focus, can't think, can't do what has to be done, because one of them wants to sacrifice you, and the other refuses to. I don't know how I can… survive, with these two people warring inside me. I need… I need help."
Her words hung heavily in the air, weighted with anxiety. And though there was no sound in the room except for the two girls' breathing, it was not silence. There was a tingle of something in the air that prevented silence and kept it merely as… quite. A dreadful quiet full of fearful waiting.
Michelle frowned, chewing thoughtfully on her bottom lip. She stared at her hands, examining her short nails critically whilst not really seeing them at all. After a moment, she got up and moved to the window, folding her arms over her stomach like Rogue was. The soft breeze toyed with her hair and raised goosebumps on her flesh.
"I have been sensing strange things from you lately," she said quietly after several minutes. "I know I'm not to intentionally read you, but every now and then I have been getting little flashes of emotion, strong enough to break through my defences. They are like little sparks of life from the deadness I usually get from you, and it's been confusing me to no end. You're at war with yourself, that I will agree with, but I'm not entirely sure how to help you. A war is generally fought between two opposing forces, in this case the killer and the human, yet one is usually right and the other is wrong. Which is right and wrong for you, Rogue?"
The question caught Rogue off-guard, and she hesitated in answering. Her first instinct was to say that the human was right, that calling the sociopath the correct person was ridiculous, but then she thought about it for a moment. The sociopath had saved her life and the lives of her friends by killing her enemies, she had protected the lives of mutants everywhere for years. That wasn't a bad thing, was it? The human hadn't done anything like that, but the human felt, she experienced emotions and revelled in the simple sensations found everyday, like taking a bubble bath or smelling a nice perfume, and that wasn't really a bad thing either. So which was the right one?
Michelle noticed Rogue's confusion and sighed. "Alright, perhaps I was asking too much with that question. We'll approach it another day. For now let's just stick to the basics. You were trained to be emotionless, to be cold and efficient, but Chalice specialises in genetics, not psychology. She didn't realise that you cannot kill emotion, it is a fundamental impossibility. You can repress emotion, ignore emotion, deny it, but you cannot kill it. What your training did was shove your emotions so far back that you, and everyone else, believed it had actually been killed, but it was just hiding, waiting for the chance to break free. You've erected some very strong walls around yourself, but now, with the revelation of Chalice's betrayal, those walls are cracking, and emotions are seeping out, forcing you to deal with your heart, when you're used to dealing with your brain. I know you came here looking for a quick, easy, overnight solution, but I'm afraid that it's not that simple, not when we're dealing with your heart. What you need is to find balance, and that takes time and effort. If you'll allow it, I'd like to walk you through some exercises that will help you."
Rogue nodded uncertainly, and Michelle smiled encouragingly at her. "Good. All I ask is that you trust me, okay? This is going to be hard for you, but you have to always remember that I am trying to help you and that I really do know what I'm talking about. I may ask you to do things that seem silly and a tad childish, but just please do them because I assure you, I have a reason."
Rogue wasn't sure she liked the sound of that, but moved to sit cross-legged on Michelle's bed, opposite the blonde empath who was also sitting cross-legged. As instructed, she closed her eyes and focused on her breathing, easily dropping into a light state of meditation. Michelle instructed her not to go too deep into meditation, just enough to keep her mind clear and free of thought.
"Is your mind clear?" Michelle asked, keeping her voice soft so as not to be too disruptive.
"Yes."
"Tell me what you feel."
Rogue's answer was automatic, "I feel calm. Relaxed. At peace."
"No, you don't, that is the meditation talking. Underneath that, what do you feel?"
A slight frown creased her brow as she thought about that for a second, and then realised that she was doing the wrong thing. She stopped thinking, and for just a second, she let herself feel. The answer to Michelle's question came in a wave of knowledge so shocking that it shattered her meditative state and left her gasping.
"Scared," she whispered. "I'm scared."
Michelle opened her eyes and gently asked, "Of what?"
"Of what I've become, of Mitchell, of completing my mission, of losing you guys, of so many things. I'm scared."
For a moment, silence hung thickly in the air, before Rogue jumped up and fled.