The Ripple Effect
Chapter 6
Goodbyes
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She was going out on a date with Kurt. How cool was that? It had been freaky yet cool how they had both blurted out the same thing at the same time. It was nice to be on the same wavelength as someone else for once.
Kitty sighed happily as she climbed the stairs, heading to her and Rogue's room to check up on her. She gained the top of the steps and could already hear the rock music blasting from behind the closed door of their room. Great, checking up on a seriously pissed off Rogue was seriously her pure definition of fun. It sounded like that one band she usually played when she was really upset or angry. What was it, Mushhead or something?
Who cares Kitty thought. All I know is that I'm losing years off of the life of my eardrums right now. She grabbed the doorknob and pushed it open, bracing herself against the assault of what sounded like a howler monkey playing a guitar all the way cranked up. Covering her ears, she went over to the stereo and flicked it off, resisting the temptation to just phase through it and short it out.
"Rogue?" She called out in the new silence, dropping her hands. "…Hey, what are you doing over here?" She mumbled to herself, finding Lockheed across the room from where he usually was perched on her bed. She picked him up and looked around the room more. The drawers were left open and upon looking inside, it looked like clothes were missing.
Oh no…Kitty poked her head into the open closet, making sure that Rogue wasn't playing games with her. She turned around and saw that the doors to the balcony were wide open. "If I ever get my hands on her…." Kitty breathed, dropping Lockheed on the bed and racing out into the hall.
The trip to the Professor's office was probably the fastest she had ever made it, even with phasing through all the walls and rooms in her way.
"Professor!" Kitty called out, frantically banging on the closed door. "Professor!"
The door swung open and revealed Charles sitting at his desk and Jean was across from him. It looked like they were having a talk of some kind. "Like, sorry to like barge in and stuff but Rogue's gone again."
"Again?" Jean repeated, eyebrows rising on her head.
"Yeah." Kitty nodded. "I think she's serious this time too; there was a bunch of clothes missing and stuff."
Kitty looked to the Professor who seemed to fall into a trance for a few seconds, his eyes becoming glassy and unfocused. After a few moments of quiet anticipation, he blinked and frowned. "Damn." Charles breathed and then focused his attention on Kitty. "Kitty, would you please inform Ororo as to what's happened?"
"Got it." Kitty nodded and phased through the wall.
Charles turned his attention to Jean. "It looks as though we'll have to cut our talk short."
Jean nodded. "Yeah, I think this is a bit more important." She smiled wryly and got up to leave.
"Jean, could you do me a favor and tell Scott to put together a small team of some of the older students while I call the police?"
"Sure thing." She replied. "War Room in ten minutes?"
The Professor shook his head. "No, no need for any of that. Let's meet in the garage in ten minutes."
Jean nodded again and left while Charles picked up the phone and dialed. Rogue was either somehow not anywhere near the Institute already or was trying her damnedest not to be found. He sighed while waiting for an operator to pick up. He had hoped that she would be more reasonable and mature than she had been about this. Apparently she was farther gone than he had thought.
Rogue shifted her gaze around the bus depot, scanning over the faces of the people there. So far, no X-Men. Not that they would be hard to spot around this group of people. They would stick out like sore thumbs against a backdrop of drug addicts, other runaways, and nervous looking normal people that the depot provided. Rogue sat back in her chair, bag in her lap and closed her eyes with an even breath. She was going to need a hit of something, anything, soon. She didn't care if it was a joint or a line of coke, long as it stopped the tingling sensation in the back of her head and tremor under her skin. This feeling wasn't unfamiliar and she knew it to not be withdraw. It was her powers slowly returning as her brain figured out how to work around the damage done by the various chemicals and compounds she regularly ingested. The tingling in her head was the psyches reforming and the tremor was from whatever mechanism inside of her that absorbed the psyches slowly awakening. The first time it had happened, she had been finally coming down off of a pot high about a week later. Getting tremors and weird tingling for seemingly nothing had made her freak out a bit and consider that she might be dying. So she hit up the Internet and found that it actually took about a week for weed to mostly leave her system. A stupid pamphlet from the guidance office at Bayville High (a trip that had been sponsored by Jean) also said that it could be in her hair for months, but she couldn't believe everything she read. Why the fuck would weed go to her hair? That was just stupid. The wonder of modern science, puh-lease.
"Rogue!" Someone shouted behind her while clamping their hand down on her shoulder. "Ah'm not goin' back!" Rogue shouted, twisting viciously out of her seat and whoever's grasp.
A startled Risty looked back at her. "That's great, but no need to shout it in my face."
The Southerner sighed. "Sorry Rist. Ah thought ya were Kitty or somebody."
"Well, I'm not." She shoved at Rogue's bag. "What's with the bag? Roadtrip?"
"Sorta." Rogue replied, shifting its weight on her shoulder. "Ah've decided ta take a break from the Institute."
"Wonderful!" Risty clapped her hands together once, looking as if Rogue had just made some great, beneficial decision. And in her eyes, it was. "They were entirely too strict with ya, luv." She paused and her face lit up with an idea. "Hey, you could stay at my house with my host fam. They won't notice."
Rogue bit her lip, unsure. "Ah don't know….they're pretty dense, but Ah think they'll notice a whole other person."
Risty rolled her eyes. "Then make up some rubbish about a real-world lesson. They think you're all sodding mad anyway….Which means they won't let them in if you-know-who comes looking." She added on in a sing-song voice.
Rogue snorted, a slight smile on her face. "They're not that far off," she mumbled and scrubbed at the back of her head with a gloved hand before adding, "Alright. Sounds like fun."
"Excellent!" Risty exclaimed and grabbed Rogue by her gloved hand. "C'mon, if we hurry, we can be in and out of the house before they remember I came back from England today."
"I don't get it. It's like she vanished into thin air." Scott pushed his bangs out of his face, looking in all directions at the intersection.
"Looks like she was listening during those Danger Room sessions after all."
Scott turned to see Jean standing behind him, leaning against a street pole with her arms folded across her chest and a ghost of a smile on her face. Scott smiled at her.
Jean looked back at him and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. "What? Do I have something on my face?"
"You could say that."
What little smile there was vanished. "I'm depressed, Scott. I'm not dead." She snapped.
"I didn't—"
"That is just so typical! I just watched one of my friends fucking die and I can't even have two seconds to myself to grieve because everyone wants the popular redhead back! You know what? Maybe I'm tired of being her, maybe I wanna be like Rogue and hate everyone and sulk all the time!"
Scott blinked owlishly behind his visor, unseen, and a silence hung in the air between them, filled only with the surrounding sounds of the neighborhood.
Jean sighed and cleared the hair out of her eyes that had become dislodged during her venting. She was being ridiculous. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to snap at you like that. It's just…"
"I know." He simply replied, putting an arm around her as they walked back down the quasi-urban street towards Scott's car.
"Do you?" Jean asked, stopping and pushing his arm off of her and looking at him directly. "Do you really, Scott?"
"Yeah." He looked at some point past her ear before looking back at her. "How do you think I felt after the plane crash and being shipped right off to a foster home?"
The guilty realization hung thick in the air for Jean. "Oh."
"Yeah. People sort of forget that I didn't just appear here one day, dressed like this."
"I'm sorry Scott. I didn't mean—"
"It's okay." He waved her concern off. "It's better in a way 'cause then I don't have it hanging in my face all the time, ya know?"
"Yeah, I guess." Jean replied, flashes of Annie being hit by that car going through her mind. "Then every one expects you to act one way, all the time. Don't you ever get tired of it?"
Scott shrugged and started walking back towards the car again, motioning for Jean to follow him. "I never really cared about what everyone thought. I mean, people like the Prof and Ororo and you are different but if I feel like staying up 'til three in the morning playing Halo with Kurt one night and then going to be at ten the next night, that's what I'm gonna do."
Jean shook her head. "That's different. The Institute's like home—we can do whatever we want there. School's different…there's so much stuff that goes into it for me. The soccer team's one way and the yearbook club is another and then there's tutoring…" She trailed off with a sigh, feeling tired at the very thought of going back to all of that once the school reopened after grief counseling and short classes on Thursday, before the funeral.
Scott shook his head and smiled slightly. "You know, Jean, high school isn't going to last forever. In three weeks, we'll never see those people again probably." If there is any kind of kind God that is, he added on silently to himself.
She gave him a light shove. "I heard that. You're so horrible—but right."
"I know I am." He grinned cheekily. "But seriously, no one's going to remember everything that ever happened in high school. I bet you that you don't remember half the people you know now five years from now."
A frown formed on Jean's lips. "You're not doing a very good job of cheering me up."
They reached the car and Scott opened the door for her. "Look, all I'm trying to say is just chill out." He explained as he shut the door once she got in. "You've got more important things coming up. Like pre-med at NYU." He walked around to the other side of the car and got in.
"Ugh." Jean groaned, rolling her eyes. "Don't remind me, I think I might have a panic attack."
"Don't, or I'll have to take you out for another milkshake. Free of bitchy Taryn and all her harpies though."
Jean smiled and shook her head and Scott put the car into gear. "You are so detrimental to my grief-wallowing depression right now."
"I know."
They scoured the city, breaking it up into sections with a team of two to search for Rogue. Risty's house was to be checked by Charles Xavier himself, but Risty's parents would not allow him in and there was no mental sign of Rogue on the inside. No one reported back with even a sighting of Rogue. The Professor could have dragged everyone to New York City and search for Rogue there, but by the time they all realized that she wasn't in Bayville anymore (or so it seemed) it was too late in the evening to do so. The police promised to keep an eye out for her in both Bayville and in New York, but weren't making any kind of promises. Thursday, the day of Duncan's funeral rolled around and there was still no sign of Rogue. It was the farthest thing from Jean's mind though as she put simple post earrings in and looked over her black dress suit one last time. She checked her hair, pulled back into a simple yet elegant low ponytail, and, satisfied, grabbed her matching bag and left her room. Some of the members of the mansion were already milling about in the foyer, mostly guys as the girls that were going were still getting ready. Jean just hadn't had the energy to really go all out and put on make up. It seemed too macabre to primp for the funeral of her former boyfriend. Kitty met her at the top of the stairs in a simple black dress. It was going to be murder in all this black with the summer sun.
"So, like, ready?" Kitty awkwardly asked. Jean knew that she didn't want to go, like most of the teens that were going, but at least the brunette was being nice enough act like she cared.
"I guess." Jean replied on a sigh. Could anyone ever really be ready for the funeral of a friend? Was she ready to see his pale face lying in that glorified pine box, ready to be returned to the earth? She offered Kitty a weak smile before they started down the stairs, knowing that whatever happened, she would have friends here to help her get through it.
The members of the Institute sat in the back of the church, or stood since seating was limited and it was already a rather large funeral due to Duncan's rock-star-like status at the school. The football team was there, big stone pillars of meat that screwed up some of their faces every once in a while in an effort to remain a big stone pillar of meat. The cheerleaders were there too, dabbing at their eyes so their precious mascara wouldn't run. Other members of the school, members of the "in-crowd" were there too, mixed in with other jocks and athletes and all of them were fake. Jean cast her eyes around, at anywhere but Duncan. The girls, delicately dabbing at their supposed grief were still open to the possibility of hooking up with someone here. Or else they wouldn't care that their mascara would run and their foundation would smear and clothes would get rumpled. If his friends truly cared, they would break down and cry like the men they were trying to be, damn those who dare to say anything. But none of them did. Except for his family, whom Jean was sitting with. His mother cried quietly throughout the whole service, a sob breaking through and echoing around the church briefly. She was comforted by his father, silent sobs shaking his shoulders at some parts.
The procession past the casket came and Jean felt herself go pale. She swallowed hard and folded her shaking hands together as Mr. and Mrs. Matthews looked at their son one last time. Jean ran her hand along the smooth polished metal of the casket as she approached Duncan. She remembered their first date; he had been such a charming and sweet gentleman of an eleventh grader, cutely awkward in his attempts to woo her. He wasn't a bad person when he was away from his friends. And no one here knew that except for maybe herself and his parents. And now no one would ever know, because it died with him. Her stomach clenched painfully as she finally laid her eyes upon him, unflinching. Green eyes took in every nuance, defining death. He wasn't as pale as she thought he would be; he looked like he was sleeping. The morticians did a good job of covering up the stitches and the bruising, but then again, most of the trauma had been on the back side of Duncan's body.
The rest of the service passed by in a mixed blur of happy memories of dates with Duncan and the service until suddenly Jean was standing next to Duncan's grave, dropping a single rose onto the casket that was six feet below her. This was it. It all ended here. This was where he was going to spend the rest of eternity. He was never going to come back. Ever. It hit her like a ton of bricks: this was all real and she wasn't going to wake up. It forced her to take a shuddering breath in. Oh God, how she just wanted to run. Run and run and run and just keep running, until her legs gave out and her body was left as a shaking, heaving, gagging mess on the ground. But she didn't. Jean took another shuddering breath in and slowly returned to her seat. This was the last time, the last time that she would slip into her cover and hide what she was truly feeling. It would get her home and there she would lock herself in her room and let herself fall apart. After today, though, she was saying goodbye to her old life. She had spent the past five or six years of her life trying to please everyone, be everything for them in order to keep things like this, things like Annie from happening. It didn't work and she was tired of trying. She was tired of trying.
She was tired of trying.
A/N: Hang on to your hats people, because it's about to get real intense in here. Next chapter, a whole bunch of shit is going to happen, so make sure you don't miss it! And make sure you don't forget to review! I'll thank you in advance for being so kind
Merce