11

The news that Bobby and Kitty had finally become an official couple after a few months of dodging the issue was just what those at the Institute needed to cheer themselves up after their loss to the Brotherhood. Amara, Tabitha, Dani and Laura were the first to see the new couple walking back to the mansion hand in hand as the larger group returned from the mall. When Dani glanced over and saw the two holding hands she let out a scream, dropped her bags and ran to throw her arms around them. Amara and Tabitha were soon joining them, leaving Laura standing confused at the whole scene. After a moment she decided she didn't really care and walked back into the mansion, passing Kurt and Alex who had stuck their heads out the door to see what the commotion was. They rushed over and joined the girls in congratulating the two, though they were much gentler on the still wincing Bobby then the ecstatic girls had been.

Bobby and Kitty eventually moved the crowd back into the Rec Room of the mansion, where others came in to see the new couple. Scott shook Bobby's hand with a grin while Jean hugged Kitty. Even Rogue gave a careful hug to Kitty, finding herself surprised that she was more happy for the girl she secretly considered a sister than depressed at the thought that she would never have someone the way Kitty now had Bobby. The rest of the New Mutants came into the room to join in the impromptu celebration, and Tabitha jumped up on the couch to announce the winner of the betting pool was Sam, who joined her on the couch and began to give a speech thanking all those who lost and explaining how he had picked the day the two would finally make things official.

Logan was leaning on the doorframe watching the scene with an amused smirk when Laura walked through and leaned on the opposite side of the door. "I don't understand what is going on," she said, a small frown on her face.

Logan chuckled a bit to himself. "I don't really get it myself, it's not like they're getting married or something. But it's a big deal to them so let them celebrate. It gets their minds off the beating they just took."

"We should be focusing on that. Training more, preparing for next time so we don't lose again, not worrying about other people's relationships or shopping."

Logan chuckled a bit, a low guttural half laugh. "Heard about that, how did that go?"

She shrugged. "I bought clothes, they talked non stop. It could have been worse."

"I'm surprised it wasn't with those girls dragging you around. And don't worry, we will be training harder. They're going to hate me even more then they do now when I'm done with them this week. But they can't keep dwelling too much on it. Something you'll learn kid. You need to learn from the past to make sure you don't keep making the same mistakes, sure, but you also need to move on from the past too. Keep your mind there too long, you're not going to make it. And on top of that, this gives them one more thing to keep fighting for." With a sniff he moved out of the way and the Professor came into the room, his wheelchair softly whirling.

The party soon broke up as the others left to finish homework for the next day, and the Professor took Bobby and Kitty to his office, where he gave them a speech on proper conduct he expected from them now that they were each dating someone living under the same roof. It was a speech he had thus far only had to give to Scott and Jean, though one he had prepared long before opening the door to students, and mostly consisted of acting responsibly and respecting curfews. Both agreed, picking up the unspoken warning of having to deal with an angry Logan if he started smelling scents in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Meanwhile, as the two mutants left with the Professor, and the others dispersed, Rogue watched them with a mix of happiness and longing, sitting down with a huff on a couch and pulling her book back out.

"Dey make a cute couple, non?" came a smooth voice from one of the doors. Leaning where Logan had stood earlier was Remy in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. He was playing with a deck of cards in his hands.

"Ah'm happy for them."

"To be young an' in love, it is a beautiful feelin'."

"Wouldn't know."

"I doubt dat Chere. Even an' ice queen like you feel love sometime."

"Ah think you have meh confused with Jean," she let out a quick laugh, "or Kitty now, if ya think about it. Ah thought Ah was the Queen of Hearts?" Her momentary smirk turned to a frown. "But Ah don't feel much of anything, ya know that. Ah can't touch..."

Remy cut her off with a laugh. "Love ain't 'bout touching Rogue."

She decided to just ignore him, turning back into her book. She had thought he had taken the hint and left, because he didn't say anything and the card shuffling sounds had stopped. But then, from right next to her she heard, "Love is two heart's touchin' Chere, an' dey don't need ta be kissin' or holding hands." Glancing sideways, she quickly pulled away as her cheek almost came in contact with Remy's, who was leaning in over her shoulder.

"Are ya crazy Swamp Rat, ya can't keep getting tha' close ta meh!" She pulled herself over to the opposite end of the couch and turned to face the grinning Cajun, who vaulted himself over the armrest and sat down where she had just been.

Leaning back against the armrest, one arm draped over the back of the couch, he tried to look confused and innocent. "Wha're you talkin' about Chere? I was jus' tryin' ta see wha' it was you were readin'. Can't blame a man fo' bein' curious 'bout de unkown."

"Curiousity killed the Rat, an' in this case it's going ta kill you Remy. Fah mah sake an' yall's stop trying ta get too close ta me, please."

"Fair 'nough Chere. Don' want ta make you uncomfortable."

"Ya always make meh uncomfortable Remy. Must be the way ya lie and use meh all tahme. How ya try an' be mah friend but ya always are playing some game. Rahght things, wrong reasons Remy."

Remy's face went dark with a frown. She could tell she had hit a nerve there. "I mean it when I say I'm sorry 'bout dat Rogue, I really am. If dere were another way I woulda used it. It was family."

"Ya coulda asked!" she said. "Ah woulda hated doing it but Ah woulda helped!"

"Wasn't too sure 'bout dat Chere. I'm gunna make it up ta you, I promise."

"Fahne, since ya ain't gunna stop trying, ya can start bah givin' me mah space. Last thing Ah want is more of you in mah head." She got up and headed to the exit, hoping the privacy of her room would keep Remy away. "An' yeah, they're a cute couple. Ya mess that up an' Ah'll kill ya." She left.

"Don't worry Chere," he said to himself. "Gambit got somet'ng a bit harder to do in mind."

-------------

Despite the joy the teens of the mansion felt that two of their own had finally come together, the next week in the mansion was a long and stressful one. Kurt and Alex had slipped out of the party early and had decorated both Kitty and Bobby's rooms with wedding decorations and just married banners. Bobby's retaliatory act of pasting pictures of a sleeping Kurt curled up with a teddy bear and sucking on a thumb all over the kitchen the next morning sparked a prank war the likes the mansion had never seen. As he got ready in the morning for school the next day, Bobby found his entire wardrobe switched with Jean's, and an angry redhead banging on his door. That night, with Jean using her power to ensure Kurt stayed asleep and Kitty getting them into the locked room, Bobby shaved "I -heart- Alex" into the fur of Kurt's chest.

Things spiraled out of control, with more and more people being drawn into it. It ended with Kurt's retaliation to Bobby switching all the shampoo in the bathroom with Nair (which Kurt and several others narrowly avoided). Bobby was pulled out bed Saturday morning by an irate Logan, who demanded to know how Bobby, his bed, and Kitty, who was still sleeping peacefully on the other side of it, had ended up on the roof. When Bobby finished explaining the situation, Logan ended the war by declaring the next time anything happened, the entire institute would be getting triple Danger Room workouts, including the injured Bobby.

This put an end to things instantly, as they were already experiencing enough of the Danger Room. Logan had been running them all twice as hard as he normally did, focusing on teamwork and strategy more than ever. Often they would run the Danger Room in the morning before school, then the outside obstacle courses in the afternoon after school. He was also giving them homework, demanding they write reports on known Brotherhood members, or proper tactics in various situations. While he could not participate in the Danger Room itself, Bobby found himself swamped by just as much of Logan's homework, if not more, as everyone else.

The rough regime calmed down after Logan's threat of triple Danger Room sessions. As he overheard them leaving that morning's session he realized that the majority of them, particularly the New Mutants who hadn't been on the mission in the first place, were focusing less on the implications of the team's failure on a grander scale and more on the fact it forced them to spend more time in the Danger Room. Most of the X-Men recognized the training as helping them to prevent a similar loss, but were getting to the point of just wanting to win to ensure normal Danger Room training afterwards. So Logan put them back on a normal training schedule, though he did keep assigning them the profiling homework.

-------------

Rogue was in the middle of outlining ways she could beat Pyro if she was ever in a one on one battle with him when she decided to take a break. She pulled away from the keyboard and took her headphones off. Rubbing her eyes as she stood, she walked a few laps around her room as she stretched her arms above her head. She stopped her walk as someone knocked on her door.

She pinched the bridge of her nose and rubbed it in hopes of relieving some of the pressure that just exploded into her head. She really hoped it wasn't Gambit knocking again. Ever since he moved to the mansion with Colossus, Remy had been bothering her seemingly non-stop. If it wasn't overt flirting with her, it was his attempt at sad puppy dog eyes at her in hopes she would forgive him for what happened in New Orleans. In truth, she sort of had. Rogue realized she had a short temper, and she could hold a grudge like no other, but her anger towards the Cajun had died down not long after the incident. Seeing him again as he stood over her a few weeks ago after a moment of weakness on her part, her anger had certainly flared back up, but his sins against her paled in comparison to her mother's. He had at least genuinely wanted to help someone other than himself when he had used her. Rogue had thought of telling him she just wanted to drop the whole thing and forget about it, but she knew that would be an invitation for more flirting on his part.

Not that there was anything wrong with that, part of her mind said. With a frown she tried to push those thoughts out of her head. She had an inkling that it was some part of Kitty still floating around in her head whenever she thought about Remy as anything other than a disgusting annoyance, when she thought about how sexy his eyes were or how dashing he could be. At least, she hoped to God it was some part of Kitty. Her last crush, on Scott Summers of all people, didn't end very well, putting her through far more heartache then she had ever let on. She had managed to keep a friendship with her team leader, but his choice of little-miss-perfect-except-for-a-complete-lack-of-personality Jean Grey over her still got under her skin.

Depression washed over her as she remembered she wouldn't have been able to touch Scott anyways. And even if those thoughts about Remy were hers and not just bits of all the psyches she had absorbed over the last few years, she couldn't touch him either. It was pointless for her to think about love, of romance, of ever being anything other than alone because she could never touch anyone.

But her mind involuntarily slipped back to Remy's words from earlier, "Love is two heart's touchin' Chere, an' dey don't need ta be kissin' or holding hands." She remembered Remy coming into her room a week ago, the night of the dance and before their trip to the Vault, and holding her bare hand with his gloved hand. "It more den you allow yourself ta have Rogue. Cuttin' yourself off from da world ain't goin' solve not'in'. You have ta make do wit what you got."

"Idiot," she said to herself. "What the hell does he know? He's just playin' meh."

The knock on her door came again, louder this time. "Rogue, you in there?" Amara's voice came through the door.

Staring at the door for a second before realizing Amara was not Remy, she went to the door and opened it. "Hey Amara, didn't hear ya."

"It's okay, I figured you had your headphones on. Someone's here to see you. She's in the parlor."

"She?" Rogue asked, suspicious. "Who is it? It better not be Mystique."

The look on Amara's face said everything: she hadn't even thought about that. "I don't know, maybe? Why would Mystique walk in the front door though?"

"Ah don't know, but Ah'm gunna find out. Thanks Amara." Rogue walked past the younger girl and headed for the stairs, furious that her mother would show up here after everything she had put Rogue and Kurt through. Rogue always knew she would have to see Mystique again, and part of her was glad the inevitable confrontation would take place in the calm of the mansion's parlor and not a battlefield somewhere. Now if Ah could only think of something ta say, she thought as she walked into the parlor.

Sitting on a sofa patently waiting was a woman in her mid thirties. She had short brown hair and though she was plainly dressed in jeans and a blouse was quite beautiful. Her beauty was diminished somewhat by the large, dark glasses she wore. Leaning close by her was a long white cane. She turned her head slightly as Rogue entered the room.

"Irene!" the girl exclaimed. "What the hell are ya doin' here?"

The blind woman smiled in the direction of Rogue. "Hello Anna Marie, it is good to hear your voice again."

"Ah thought Ah told you not to call meh that anymore."

"I'm sorry Rogue, but you'll always be my little girl in my mind."

Rogue scoffed. "Was Ah your little girl when ya gave meh over to Apocalypse?"

"Rogue... Raven and I were only doing what we thought—"

"Was best ta keep meh safe, yeah, Ah've heard it."

The sat in silence for a full minute, Irene sitting on the couch while Rogue stood near the door, her back slightly to Irene and her arms crossed over her chest in anger. Eventually it was Irene who spoke first. "Please sit down Rogue. I had come here hoping to heal the rift between us, if just enough to tell you of the visions I've had."

"Visions? What visions?" Rogue said, turning back to her.

"In time, please, sit." Rogue reluctantly sat in the chair next to the chair next to the sofa. "I wish you hadn't stopped calling."

"An' Ah wish you had told meh Mystique was mah mother!" Rogue said, standing up again. She began to pace the room. "Ah wish you had told meh she'd been pretendin' ta be mah friend! Ah wish you an' her would stop using meh! Ah wish a lot of things Irene."

"It wasn't my place to tell you."

"Wasn't your place! You're mah mother too! Ah had every right ta know the truth!"

"You did. But it was Raven's choice. Somehow she thought it would protect you, I'm not sure how though. I think her fear of how she lost Kurt weighed heavily on many of her decisions regarding you. I have tried to get her to see what she is doing only further damages your relationship, but she is stubborn. Her greatest strength is her independence, but so to is it her greatest weakness. I do know she loves you, and has never used you for her own gain. She has manipulated you, yes, but she always felt she had your best interest at heart."

"Coulda fooled me," Rogue said with huff as she sat down again in the chair. "Where is she anyways, with Magneto?"

"No, she is not. Her mission is important, but it has nothing to do with Magneto. She wishes she could be here to see you though."

Rogue scoffed. "Yeah, right. Ah'm sure she does Ah sure as hell don't want to see her."

Irene's brow creased behind the glasses. "I know you're angry Rogue, but we did what we had to do to keep you safe. The visions I had, none of them showed Apocalypse being defeated. We thought it would keep you safe."

"Without meh he still would have been locked up."

"He would have been released eventually. His power would have grown, and the darkness he unleashed would have destroyed us all. We took what we thought was the best option."

"Ah thought ya saw the future."

"I see possibilities, and only some at that. The visions come and go. But the future is always changing, so we have a chance to change it ourselves. It is what Raven and I have tried to do for years. Sometimes we succeed, sometimes we fail. And sometimes Raven runs off and does what she thinks best, despite what I see."

"Like use her own daughter tahme after tahme. Does she have any ahdea what she's done to meh?"

"She does. She has many regrets about you Rogue. Many times she wished she could be there, wished life could have turned out differently. Where we could have been the family we always tried to be." She reached out her hand and closed it over Rogue's gloved one.

Rogue closed her fingers around Irene's. As angry as she may be with Irene, she was the mother that had hurt her least. "Regret doesn't change things. She's hurt meh, and she's hurt Kurt too many tahmes."

"Don't completely close your heart off to her Rogue."

"Ah could never trust her again."

"I'm not asking you to trust her, just stop hating her so much, so that when the time comes where she is ready to be the mother you wish she had been, you will be able to give her that chance."

Rogue thought for a long time without saying anything. Finally she said, "Fahne. Ah'll do it for you. If she comes looking just ta talk, Ah'll listen. But if Ah find out she's trying ta hurt me or Kurt or mess with us or trying ta use us for somethin', she better hope Ah never see her again, 'cause Ah'll kill her."

Irene's face darkened, but she did not respond to what Rogue said. Instead she changed the subject. "Are you willing to listen to what I have to say about the future?"

"Of course, it must be important if ya came here ta tell meh."

"I've told you the future is constantly changing, but I have seen a darkness coming that does not change. I cannot see what it represents, what danger lies ahead, but in every future it exists. I have seen some futures where it devours the world. I have seen others where it is turned back. I have seen some that a struggle persists against it for as far ahead as I can see. And always in the middle, always close by are the X-Men.

"Dark days are coming Rogue, and like the previous dark times you will play a large role."

"Thanks for actually telling meh about it this tahme," Rogue said with a smirk.

"You are old enough to understand. You were before, but like I said, mother's like to remember their daughters as little girls. Now, there is one path that I have seen, perhaps the hardest to walk but the one with the best outcome. Whatever this darkness is, it clouds my visions like nothing else before has, and I can not make sense of most of it. I wish there was more details I could give you, but I will do my best. This path is one that starts in rising chaos and flame, but I see the darkness pushed away by the light. I do not know what it will take to start this path, or if perhaps it has already begun like I feel. But if you Rogue, if you let despair get the best of you when things are at their worst, all hope will be lost."

"So if Ah stay happy, things will work out?" she asked after a moment. "Ah think we all might be in trouble Irene."

Despite the gravity of the visions Irene was sharing, they both managed to laugh at this. "I know you powers are a curse to you. But if you stay strong, keep the urge to fight, and don't become overwhelmed by what happens around you, you and the X-Men will have the strength to persevere."

Rogue was silent again, much longer this time. The fate of the world had just been placed on the shoulders of her emotional state, which was fragile to be at best. Could she handle that? She didn't think so. She decided to push it aside for now. "We're the X-Men Mother," she said softly. "We'll do our best, all of us. We've been training harder. Xavier's had a vision of the future too."

"He has? How? Has his powers developed this far already?" she said, almost to herself.

"Huh? He says when he was under Apocalypse's control he saw into his mind. He didn't tell us specifically what he saw, just that he's worried about what's coming."

"I was going to try and avoid speaking with him during my visit here, but I think I would very much like to speak with him now, if you will take me there."

Rogue stood and offered her arm to Irene, who took it and stood. It was a strange sensation for Rogue, as she lead one of her mothers to Xavier's office. She had done this so often when she was a child, but it had been years since she had done it last. When she had hit puberty and was told she had a skin condition, that she must cover up and not touch others to protect herself and every one around her (she realized now that it must have been Mystique posing as the doctor), she had started to pull away from Irene, both emotionally and physically. Even covered she would not touch her mother. She had stopped calling her Mother and started calling her Irene, at the same time insisting she be called Rogue. Even now she didn't want to be reminded of those times and had stayed Rogue, especially since she found out her Mama's true identity.

But now, with her mother on her arm like so many times before when she was a child, Rogue felt something stirring in her. She stopped them and said softly, "Mother, are ya really sorry about everything?"

"Despite everything turning out alright in the end? Yes, I am."

Rogue hugged her mother, careful not to touch her skin. "Ah'm sorry too."

------------

Sunday morning found Dani and Kitty sitting in the Rec Room playing Super Smash Bros. with Illyana. The two girls had taken a real liking to the youngest Rasputin over the last few weeks of her being in the mansion. She was inquisitive, fascinated by almost everything in their lives, and very smart for her age. She also had come to idolize the two older girls, and while they didn't take advantage of that, they certainly enjoyed the feeling.

"So he's going to take you to New York?" Illyana asked Kitty, a look of awe on her face. "I've always wanted to see New York."

Dani laughed a bit. "But you were in New York."

"Bah!" she said, her face furled up. "I was locked up by that bad man. I want to see the Statue of Library."

"I think you mean Liberty," Kitty said with a smile. "Sometime we'll take you up there. I've never seen it either. Bobby says it'll be the first thing we do."

Dani laughed again. "Sure. I know you Kitty, you'll drag him to a museum and never leave."

"I'm not that big of a nerd, jeez."

"Yes you are!"

"Whatever."

"Okay, then stop playing the video game."

"Just because I like to play video games sometimes doesn't mean I'm a nerd. Besides, you're playing too."

"What else am I going to do, watch you and Bobby make out some more?"

"We totally do not make out all the time."

"Really? What else do you two do? Should we send Illyana away so you can tell me?"

"Okay, we've been going out for a week, we're not doing anything like that, dork."

"Nerd."

"Dweeb."

"Geek."

"Pointdexter."

"You're just jealous I just totally owned you."

"Cause you're a nerd."

"I like Bobby, he is very funny," Illyana said, knowing full well that the conversation would go on forever if she didn't say anything.

Kitty looked away from the screen and poked her in the arm. "Do you have a crush on my boyfriend?"

"Ewww, he is a boy."

Kitty just laughed, which erupted into pure hysterics as Illyana eliminated Dani. Throwing her controller down in anger, Dani left the couch.

"Don't worry 'yana, you'll change your mind someday."

Dani meanwhile had walked to the window and was looking outside when she let out a cry. "Kitty! Oh my god, get over here."

"What is it?" Kitty said, hearing the panic in Dani's voice.

"Look!" she said, pointing out the window.

Kitty ran to where Dani was standing and looked outside. "Oh no, that is not good! Professor!" she screamed in her head. "We have trouble outside!"

Professor Xavier, who was having morning tea and reading the paper in his office wheeled his chair to window and saw the large silver sphere dropping out of the sky and landing on the front lawn of the mansion.

"X-Men!" he sent to the entire mansion. "Emergency on the front lawn! Magneto is here!"

Authors Note: Sorry this took so long folks, life is in the way lately. I was also hoping to have the rest of this episode of the DPV finished and post this at the same time, but I've run out of time to write this weekend. Look for chapters 12 and 13 soon within the next few days.

I am also angry at as I've just noticed that they won't let me use less than 3 to represent a heart.