Ten hours later Rogue was on a bus headed towards New Orleans. She's made the decision to go there after staring at the bus schedule for twenty minutes. New Orleans was similar enough to Mississippi to feel like coming home, but different enough to be exciting. After all, the big easy was an exciting place.
Rogue looked out over the rapidly passing landscape and sighed; flicking John's Zippo open and closed. She could feel his presence swirling in the back of her mind, applauding her for leaving Xavier's school. Rogue looked around her at the passengers and noticed a small boy of about five looking at her. He had dark hair and dark eyes. She waved at him and smiled. Then she felt the world shift around her as one of John's memories pushed to the forefront of her consciousness.
It was Christmas and John was about the same age as the little boy on the bus. Everything was decorated and there were a lot of adults around him, singing loudly and drinking egg nog. John was happy, but fearful also. Some of the adults were angry because someone named Uncle Rory was in jail again. There was another boy, several years older than John. John was pleased because the boy, his cousin Alexander, had let him play with his comic collection. Alexander was walking towards him with a plate of cookies and tripped over the rug, shattering the plate and sending cookies flying everywhere. John grew frightened as his Uncle Tony started yelling and dragged Alexander up the stairs. When the came down twenty minutes later, Uncle Tony looked much calmer but Alexander was sporting a bleeding lip and an eye that was starting to bruise.
Rogue was dragged away from the memory by someone tapping on her shoulder. Shaking her head quickly, she turned and faced the person. He was a man, with shoulder length reddish hair, wearing sunglasses and a trench coat. "Bonsoir ma cherie. Now you a pretty girl, so you be understandin' da concept of beauty sleep non? Remy be needin' his, so stop clicking dat thin' s'il vous plait," he, apparently Remy, said.
Rogue sighed and levelled him with glare. She clicked John's lighter shut and slipped it into her coat pocket. "There are yah happy now? Next time yah want something, just ask. Don't touch. Ah don't lahke to be touched," she replied, dismissing him with a wave. He wandered off muttering to himself about feisty femmes making his life difficult.
Rogue rolled her eyes. Who did that guy think he was fooling anyways, with that trench coat and cheesy accent? Talking in the third person was also not a turn on. He was probably some Cajun swamp rat on his way back home to the bayou. Yawning deeply, Rouge did agree he had a point about sleep. She was tired. Her day had been long. She'd been cheated on, run away from home and had to figure out a way to explain her actions to Logan without him going ballistic and doing something drastic, like killing Bobby or driving down to New Orleans and dragging her back to the mansion. There was also the problem of Professor Xavier. He could see her wherever she went. What was to stop him from sending a team to take her back regardless of Logan?
She sighed. It was too much to think about right now, and she was tired. So she closed her eyes and, after a few minutes wriggling in her seat to get comfortable, fell asleep.
In her dreams she danced with John while the school blazed around them.