Author's Notes: Thoughts are signified by 'these'. Emphasis, telepathic conversation and the voices in Rogue's head are in italics.
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"Anna? Is there a copy of 'Hamlet' on your cart?"
Rogue checked the cart of books she was putting back on the library shelves and found the book Sara, the head librarian, was asking for. She handed it to the older woman and smiled.
"Another student from the high school?" she asked.
"Mm-hm," Sara confirmed. "Another one asking for Cliff's Notes, if you can believe it. He just needs the actual book to show his teacher he has it."
Sara rolled her eyes and Rogue laughed softly. With a soft smile at her favorite employee, Sara left Rogue to finish putting away the reference books from her cart.
Rogue had started coming to the New York City Library a week after finding a small apartment in a not so good part of town. Erik was still a strong presence in her mind, mostly because of how much she relied on his companionship, Rogue knew. And he still liked reading. Rogue had grown to love it as well. Anything was possible in books.
Rogue had found work fairly quickly as a dishwasher at a small diner. She was paid cash by the owner and was fed by the cook. She made just enough working the morning and afternoon shifts on weekdays to make ends meet, and she didn't have to have a lot of direct contact with people. The owner's nephew worked weekends, giving Rogue time off. It suited her well.
Ernie, the cook, had looked at her strangely when she laughed at the gloves he had given her the first day to wear while washing. Ernie, a large, jolly man, had gotten past his initial curiosity about her and now treated her like favored niece, joking with her and giving her the left over groceries he knew the diner wouldn't use before they spoiled.
She had been going to the NYC Library several times a week for over a month before Sara had asked her why she never checked any books out. Rogue had given Sara the same name she used at the diner, Anna Stewart, and told her the same background story that had landed her the under-the-table gig at the diner. Anna was a runaway who, though now a legal adult, was still hiding from an abusive father and therefore used a fake name and couldn't get a library card.
Sara had taken Rogue under her wing and given her a library card based on a letter Rogue sent herself for address verification. Two weeks later, Sara had asked if Rogue would like a job at the library putting away books a couple hours a day. Sara paid her under the table as well, and had no problem with Rogue wearing gloves. Rogue had long since settled on a cover story of being germaphobic to explain her constant wearing of gloves. She had now been working at the library for nearly five months.
She kept the diner job, too, and was saving up to buy herself a bicycle, a lightweight one that she could carry up the stairs to her third floor apartment. In a couple more months, she would have enough. Walking helped her keep in shape, but she wanted to explore the city more and the subways bothered her nose too much to use often.
The Logan in her head had wanted her to return to the X-mansion since the day she had left, and after a week of arguing with him mentally, Rogue had asked Erik to help her find a way to silence Logan. Through trial and error, they had discovered that concentrating on Logan's abilities instead of his personality and memories helped suppress his voice. Every once in a while he still surfaced, mostly after particularly bad nightmares, but with effort she could bury him again. When he was there, he wasn't happy with her. But he was glad she had friends in Ernie and Sara.
Rogue often discussed books with Sara, since both women were avid readers. Sara had often commented on Rogue's intelligence, which secretly Rogue attributed much of to Erik, and had encouraged Rogue to sign up for community college classes. But Rogue knew there was no way she could do so without using her legal name, and then she could be found. She wasn't ready for that.
Finished with the reference books, Rogue rolled her cart to the fiction section to put away the last of her books for the night. Reading the jacket covers of a few of them, Rogue chose one to take home and put the cart away in the employee room. Sara was waiting at the counter when she came out, even though technically the library had been closed for five minutes. She always waited to let Rogue check out books at the end of her shift. Two books on yoga Rogue had picked out earlier sat on the counter, and Rogue added her novel to the stack.
"Did you give up on meditation?" Sara asked, indicating the yoga books as she scanned Rogue's library card.
Rogue often read up on different things, like self-hypnosis or meditation, she thought might help her with the voices in her head, though of course Sara didn't know that was the reason. The older woman probably thought Rogue was looking for religion or something.
"Not physical enough," Rogue replied with a smile as Sara handed her the library card and books. "My mind wanders too much when I sit still too long."
Sara smiled again. "You be careful walking home, Anna."
"See you tomorrow night," Rogue said with a goodbye wave.
Sara constantly worried about where Rogue lived, but Rogue couldn't afford a place anywhere nicer. Not to mention the lack of good apartments that didn't care if you had references and an available credit check.
Rogue was often skittish walking home at night, but she had only been approached once. Luckily, the guy had been drunk and had thought he was hallucinating when she sent his knife flying with a flick of her wrist from five feet away. Rogue thanked Erik and kept her fingers crossed that no one else tried anything. She knew she would have to leave the neighborhood if anyone found out she was a mutant, and that meant leaving New York. The city had become her home, and she hoped that didn't happen.
Rogue stopped outside the library's main doors and glanced over at the payphone. It was the fifteenth today, the day she always called Xavier's school to let them know she was okay. She had no idea if her mind block would hold up against Cerebro, or if the block still existed at all, so she had taken to calling the school once a month so they knew she was still breathing.
Rogue always spoke with Scott, since he had been so kind to her before she had left and never asked her to come back. Somehow she knew that he knew it wasn't going to happen anytime soon. And he accepted that.
Sighing, Rogue dug some change out of her pocket and dialed the school's main number.
A young female voice answered with a simple, "Hello?"
"May I speak with Scott please?" Rogue asked.
"Hold on," the child said.
Rogue could hear the phone being set down and the girl walking away from the phone yelling, "Mr. Summers, phone for you!"
Less than a minute later, Scott came on the line. "Hello, Rogue."
"Hi, Scott," she responded simply.
"Doing okay?"
"Just fine. Things there okay?"
Scott sighed, "Yeah, everyone's okay. Have you been watching the news lately?"
"No TV, but I read the paper once in awhile. I take it you're referring to the death of the Mutant Registration Act?"
"Yes, I guess Mystique pretending to be Senator Kelly isn't all bad."
Rogue stiffened and had to push Irene's voice out of her head as she did each time the shapeshifter was mentioned or remembered.
The operator came on the line requesting more change for the next three minutes, and Rogue said in a strained voice, "I have to go, Scott, I'm out of change."
"Okay," he responded, a disappointed note in his voice. "You know, you could call collect next time."
"I'll remember," she said softly. "Goodbye, Scott."
"Bye, Rogue."
Rogue hung up the phone and began the long walk home. On the way, she argued with Erik and Irene.
You must break all ties with Charles and his students, my dear, Erik told her. He did so every time she called Salem Center.
'And if they come looking for me? I won't fight them off, Erik. No matter how much you disagree with their ideals, they've never done anything to hurt me. Calling is more than a courtesy to them, it's a preventative measure.'
Erik made a noise and fell silent. Irene's turn.
Find your mother, Marie. You must discover why she didn't come back for you, why she let what happened to you occur.
'Mama Irene,' Rogue sighed. 'What good would it do? For whatever reason, she's forgotten me. It's the only explanation. Why else would she have let Magneto kill me? Even she isn't that unfeeling.'
Find a way to remind her about you.
'Even if I could, how would I get to her? She's a Senator now.'
Irene didn't have an answer to that, at least not yet, and Rogue had only her own thoughts in her head for the rest of the walk home. Unfortunately, the fact that Scott and Irene had both brought up Mystique inevitably made her think of the woman who had adopted and then abandoned her, the woman whose real name was Raven Darkholme.
Rogue still hadn't completely come to terms with the thought that her 'Mama' was the same scaly creature who had tried to stop the X-Men from saving her, and she knew someday she would have to confront 'Mystique' for her own peace of mind. And she had a lot of questions. One of the most puzzling after the fact that Raven obviously didn't remember her (and the fact that only after a lot of prodding from Irene had Rogue remembered bits of that part of her life) was the fact that her natural form had changed. Raven had often used her own form at home instead of the dark-haired beauty she was in public. But she had never had scales. Her hair too, had been different, falling in a soft bob to her shoulders. And she certainly hadn't walked around naked. Realizing she had almost passed her building, Rogue pulled herself out of her thoughts and began the climb to her small apartment.
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The next afternoon, Rogue had to call Sara from the diner.
"I'm not going to be able to come in tonight," she told the other woman.
She quickly explained that the dinner shift washer had called in sick and they didn't have anyone else who could fill in on such short notice.
"That's fine, Anna," Sara responded. "Why don't you come in sometime tomorrow so I can pay you?"
"Thanks, Sara," Rogue responded gratefully.
She said goodbye and got back to work. The dinner shift was twice as busy as the breakfast one, and there were a lot of dishes to keep clean for new customers. Making sure no one was watching, Rogue used Erik's gift to swish the silverware at hyper speed in the hot soapy water, lifting the utensils physically to rinse in the second sink. Sometimes she was very glad to be able to control metal.
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"Thanks for staying late, Anna."
Rogue waved to Ernie as she left the diner out the back door. She was too tired to smile. She stuck her gloves in her jeans pocket, her hands too tender from being wet for hours on end to feel comfortable in the slick material. She trudged twenty feet down the alley before she realized she wasn't alone.
A young man stood in front of her, a wooden bat smacking threateningly against his palm. Rogue tried not to show too much fear, digging a small wad of cash out of her pocket.
"It's all I have," she said, holding it out to the man.
He snatched the money and counted it quickly.
"Twenty-five bucks?" he scoffed, and Rogue realized he was talking to someone behind her. "You think that's enough, guys?"
"Hell, no," chorused two voices behind her.
Run, child, Erik commanded roughly in her head.
Rogue tried, but as soon as she took a step forward, the man who had taken her money shoved her roughly backward. One of the men behind her clamped a hand over her mouth before she could scream. At the same time, the other man behind her grabbed her wrists, yanking her hands roughly behind her, and the man in front of her reached for the chain around her neck. As strongly as she didn't want it to, Rogue's power kicked in, shocking all three thugs when they started to feel weaker.
They let go of her abruptly, but the damage was done. Three new voices had been added to her head at the same time, something that had never happened before. The angry presences swirled in her head, and her control snapped. Rogue fell to the ground. All the voices she had suppressed and buried broke free and began talking at once. Rogue barely felt or heard it when the thugs who had attacked her whacked and kicked her a few times, swearing at the 'mutie' before leaving the alley, staggering in their weakened condition.
Rogue couldn't tell if she was crying or even breathing, so strong were all the voices. Erik, Logan, Irene and even Xavier tried to help her get the others under control, but they only barely managed to keep Rogue's own personality at the surface. Rogue had no idea how long she lay on the dirty alley floor, curled into a tight ball.
When a white boot stepped into her field of vision, Rogue drew what strength she could from Logan and Erik to raise her eyes. Her gaze traveled up the boots, thigh high, then over blue skin and white clothes before it met a yellow gaze.
All Rogue could choke out was, "How?"
"Destiny," Mystique answered simply.