Chapter Three

Pyro was waiting for Magneto by the helicoptor.

"Come on Pyro!" Said Avolance.

Pyro growled, but climbed into the helicoptor. They had escaped the X-Men, but Magneto still wasn't out of the building. He knew though that they shouldn't get caught. If they got caught then they couldn't break Magneto out if he was caught. Besides, they had done their jobs as best as they could and held the X-Men off for as long as they said they were going to.

Mystique lifted the helicoptor into the air. For a moment, they hovered close to the building, waiting just a little longer for Magneto. And then they were shot at by the army on the ground.

"We gotta go." Said Avolance to Mystique. Mystique was worried about Magneto too, but she knew Avolance was right. She began turning the helicoptor when Pyro shouted, "There he is!"

Mystique looked to where he pointed, and there, indeed, was Magneto emerging from an explotion in the building, a magnetic field protecting him. His cape covered most of his body for protection and his helmet shielded his face.

"Open the door!" Mystique yelled at Pyro as she focused on keeping the helicopter steady for a little longer, before taking off. Pyro moved to open the door and in came Magneto.

"He's in. Go!" Yelled Avolance and Mystique turned the helicoptor away from the building, heading in the opposite direction from the white house.

Pyro quickly closed the door behind Magento so no bullets could get in. When he turned around, he was worried as Magneto was crouched over as if he was holding his side. Pyro was about to rush to Magneto's side and help him stand, but then Magneto straightened and the members of the Brotherhood in the back of the helicoptor saw that there was a girl underneath his cape. She had her arms tightly wrapped around Magneto (much tighter than he had his around hers).

Rogue felt conflicted. She hadn't been held this close, this gently for such a long time and she hadn't been around anyone she knew in such a long time neither. She didn't want to let him go for fear that if she let go of him, she'd lose the only person left in the world who actually remembers her existance.

But she forced herself away from him, remembering her new way of thinking; you can't trust anybody. Rogue slipped her arms away from his waist and found her footing. But still, she was confused about wheather to be happy she'd finally found someone, or upset and disapointed that it was Magneto. A man who once tried to kill her and succeded. She couldn't look at him, but she kept her head held high. She wasn't going to show she was afraid.

Magneto looked down at Rogue and watched her, checking her over for gun shots. She wasn't hit.

"Who's she?" Asked Pyro from behind him.

Both Magneto and Rogue turned to face him, confusion iritaing Magneto. "One of your old teams mates." Magneto said.

"What?" Laughted Pyro in disbelieve. He looked Rogue up and down. Rogue turned away. She couldn't bare to see another person she used to be close to reject her like a stranger once again. It was too painful. Magneto watched the exchange and saw the look of hurt in Rogue's eyes. He did feel some what sorry for her, but his hard nature made him not do anything to comfort her. Instead his thoughts went on to the only man he felt made this situation make sense.

Magneto moved to sit down. The other Brotherhood members joinned him. Rogue stood still looking at the spot she had focused on as Pyro took her in. "You can sit down, my dear."

Rogue peeked a look up at him. His cold eyes were just that. Cold. But, somehow, in those eyes she could see and understand why they were so cold and cruel. She could see all the pain and torture he had been through due to the hardened darkness within his eyes. It was horrible to see once one knew it was there and even worse to have lived through something so painful to make the eyes that harsh and holding of pain. Rogue didn't know why Magneto wanted to know why every one had forgot her. She would think he'd have other things in mind, but for some reason it was comforting knowing that someone wanted to hear her story. The only real comfort she had gotten in quite a while, though she already figured he wanted to use her in some way or that later on, she was going to be betrayed and hurt. So she slowly sat down next to him anyway, passing and pleasing as she waited for the time to come when she would make her get away.

He attempted to give her a small smile. It seemed strange and almost disturbing. She looked away out the window to see they were over sea. The sea was calming and relaxing her fears.

"What's going to happen after I tell you? You gonna try and kill me again?"

"If I see you as a threat to me or my Brotherhood, then yes." Answered Magneto truthfully.

"Am I a threat?" Questioned Rogue.

"Are you?"You are a mutant after all Rogue. Aren't all mutants dangerous?"

Rogue found him answering her question with another question iritating, but didn't say or show it.

"Are you taking me back to your base or kicking me out half way there?"

"We'll just have to wait and see what you tell us, won't we."

Rogue looked at Magneto. She found his whole attitude to this situation annoying. One minute he was straight and wanted answers, but the next minute he was scriptic.

"Are you actually going to give me a real answer, or are ya seriously just refusing to answer me?"

"My dear, I don't see why I should do you two favours while you have yet to do one for me. The deal was I save your life and you tell me what Charles has done this time. If you wish to know what happens to you next, and if you wish that it is od fate, then I suggest you forfill your first favour and begin telling me your tale before I get annoyed and regret my decision."

It was an annoying reply, but a truthful one. One with a threat behind it too which Rogue knew Magneto would carry out. Rogue turned around and looked to the sea. It was calming. She wondered what it would fell like to fly right besides it. "It was wet. The night I got kicked out of the Institute, I mean. It was raining." Rogue strugged her shoulders. "One night I got a knock at my door, told to pack a bag and leave. Not much else to it."

Magneto raised his eyebrow. "I don't believe that."

Rogue looked to him with a meaningful glare. "You never clearafied how much detail I had to give out. If you want more details then we could always do another deal. More detail from me in exchange for knowing what your gonna do ta me after I tell ya."

Magneto raised his eyebrow, cleaver, yet he was irritated at her cheek. "I asked you why no one could remember you, not what happened to you."

"Technically, you were asking about me and my life including what had happen to me. But I think we both know the answer to your question. "

"Indeed, I think we do."

There was a moment of intense silence where Rogue and Magneto just stared at each other. An exchange of understanding passed.

"I don't see the need to make any annoying stops to drop you off or any reason why you cannot be brought back to the Brotherhood."

"Wow, wait." Cut in Pyro. "She gets in just like that. Really, how do we know we can even trust her? She's an ex- X geek, right?"

Magneto turned slowly round to look at Pyro. He backed down quickly at the cold warning in Magneto's eyes.

"Erik." Came Mystique's voice from the front of the helicoptor. It was Mystique's warning to Magneto that she didn't agree on this. He looked to her. She was still focused on flying the helicoptor. Then he looked to Rogue who was trying to hide her frightened look. It seemed that she was ready for the worst. Worst being that they'd throw her out of the helicoptor or imprison her, but Magneto didn't know they were her worst fears at this moment. All he could see was what he himself could understand.

"She killed the president." Declared Magneto. There were gasps and looks of shock from the Brotherhood members. Even Mystique peered out of the corner of her eye to look at the girl. Rogue couldn't face their eyes so kept looking straight at Magneto's calm blue eyes. "I believe she is one of us now." Magneto said. He held out his hand to her.

Rogue looked down at it then back to Magneto's gaze. His eyes were welcoming (well as welcoming as he could make them with that forever cold hardness to them) . She was tempted to take his hand and agree to another family once again. But then all her past families came to mind. As Rogue looked back down at that hand, she backed up, moving furture away from Magneto. Finally she looked back up to him and said,

"I ain't apart of anybody's group. I work alone."

Magneto raised his eyebrow at this while taking his hand back. "A lone Rogue then. How terribly sad you must be."

Rogue looked away from him and back out the window. There was silence. "The Wolverine knocked on my door, told me to pack a duffle bag and meet with the Professor. So I did as I was told, thinking I was going on some kind of mission with the other X-Men or something. I soon realised that wasn't the case. The Professor gave me some money and told me to leave his home and never come back. Told me to go as far away from his home as possible and that if I ever did try to come back nobody would remember me."

There was silence as the Brotherhood digested this information; waiting for more. Magneto was bewildered. This was not the normal actions of his old friend. So what had changed him?

"Really? Professor Charles Xavier did that? I always knew he was lieing about not abusing his powers." Came Pyro's moody voice. Magneto looked to Pyro, giving him some what of a warning glare. He and Charles might have been enimies, but they were good friends too. Pyro backed off a little on the insults. "But what's so special about you? Why would he go to so much trouble to make everyone forget you? Did you do something really bad?"

Rogue looked away from the window to Pyro. Rogue actually found it strange and rather touching that he had asked. That someone who didn't remember her had asked her (kind of) who she was and why they couldn't remember her. Pyro seemed to get annoied by her true answer.

"I don't know."

Pyro throw his hands up in the air and slumped back in his seat. "Right, great! So, your telling us that your this hot chic that was living with the X-Men for, I don't know how many weeks, months, years? And that the Professor just kicked you out and wiped out everyone's memories of you just for the hell of it? Am I the only one thinking this is bullshit? What proof do you have anyway? You could be anyone? You could be lieing to us right now just to get into the Brotherhood so you can spy or something."

And there it was. Rogue felt her shoulders fall with her hopes. She turned to look out to the calming waters instead. Why had she set herself up for another knock down?

Magneto glared at Pyro. "She is not lieing Pyro as I remember her perfectly clear." Pyro became smaller in his chair and there was a frightful silence in the heicoptor at Magneto's harsh tone. Rogue couldn't help but peak at Magneto from the corner of her eye. He seemed powerful and dominate over Pyro and something about that just glorified him. "As for evidance, do you see that little bit of white in her auburn hair?" Pyro nodded his head. "She absorbed that from me when I and some of the older Brotherhood members tied her to a machine on the top of Liberaty Island. I let her drain my powers so she could function the machine and turn millions of people into mutant brothers and sisters just like us. It was only the X-Men's interferance that stopped our plans."

Everyone in the room was quiet and refused to look at Magneto's eyes. Rogue herself had looked down to the floor as he re-went over the events on Liberaty Island. As she remembered how dangerous and crazy this man sat beside her was. She dared peeked up at him and felt so small and intimidated as his cold glare moved to her. She wanted to look back down and away, but a force inside of her told her not to. Magneto found this rather interesting to see a burning fire behind those eyes tat looked back at him. A burning desire to fight and stay alive as she looked at her once murder."Do you know any reason for why Charles would want everyone to forget about you?"

Rogue shuck her head. "No... I-I did try to approach the others afterwards, but they got on the offencive, like Pyro and began questioning me when I said I was apart of the X-Men. They didn't even give me a chance to explain myself. Just turned on me as if I was a threat to them."

Magneto's eyes softened. "They seemed to see you as a threat even before they discovered it was you that killed the president. Why?"

Rogue looked out the window again. "I... I don't know. They just... I wouldn't leave them alone." A sad smile spread across Rogue lips. "I was determined not to lose my home or family, so I kept going back and kept demanding they listen to me and that it was the Professor that had wiped their minds of me. I revealed things to them only X-Men would know to prove my points and they grew suspicious. They were all for defending their presious Professor whom managed to help every kid under that roof, except me, learn how to control their powers, compared to a complete and utter stranger which they thought to be stiring up trouble or was apart of some mutant hunting organisation... They just... turned on me... I still have the scar from where cyclopse used his beams to try and get rid of me... He was the first to attack me. The others soon joined in after and before I knew it I was fleeing New York as if my life depended on it. And, in a way, it did. I was being hunted down by the X-Men. They wanted to take me prisoner and find out just how much information I knew by ripping my mind apart." Rogue shuck her head. "But I escaped before they could do any more damage to me."

There was a silence again. Not a scared silence, but a sad silence. Pyro looked away from Rogue; not being able to face her. He'd had to bite his tongue and not try and cause any arguement with her due to Magneto, but it was hard not to want to fight her and prove her wrong.

"I see... And there was absolutly no reason why Charles would have kicked you out?" Magneto asked.

Rogue shrugged her shoulders. "Not that I know of. Everything was normal. Or as normal as a mutant school can be. I was quiet and a good student, keeping my head down and had a boyfriend. I was moving on with my life, trying to live and work around my powers. But then the Professor just seemed to snap one night and get rid of me. As if I'd insuled him or something by even being there. Like I'd been a stranger in his home for all the time I stayed there. Like, he was sending off an intruder from his home... I've tried to figure out why he sent me away, but I've just found no answers."

"Yet, you moved from being abandoned to assassinating the presedent. I believe there is a big leap in your story which you are not telling us about." Said Magneto.

"Yeah well, that's another story for another time sugar. I've done you a favour and gave you more detail, now you do me a favour and make sure I don't get kicked outta this jet."

Magneto raised his eyebrow at this. He didn't see that move coming.