: HOUSE OF CARDS :

PART ONE : CONSEQUENCES

(4) - Purpose -

She learnt to touch.

It was a pyrric victory, because now there was nothing left to touch in this sad, cold world.

Perhaps if her heart had not stopped beating long ago, it would have made a difference, but now it did not. It was probably that indifference that made it so easy for her to finally conquer the terrible curse that had afflicted her ever since her powers had first manifested. Because now there was nothing left to fear, no consequence to shy from, no psychological barrier to break through when every other belief had already been broken down.

There was no one left to love, no one left to hurt anymore.

It didn't stop her from dreaming about him at night, even though such dreams never made a difference, because even if she possessed the ability to touch another human being, she couldn't touch him now just as she hadn't been able to touch him then. The only pinpricks of emotion she possessed were saved for him; stark and lonely, isolated moments of tenderness in the night, when she would hug herself tight and gaze at a luminescent moon, wishing to be borne away on this tide, far away to a place where there was no existence. She came to believe, over time, that she loved his memory far more than she had ever loved him, for the sole reason that now she could never possess him, and one always wants what one can never have.

Death makes the heart grow fonder…

If Mystique noticed any such pining in Rogue she said nothing. If anything, she preferred this silent, detached and aloof Rogue.

"Aloofness always makes the best kind of soldier," she always declared with the quiet satisfaction of the self-righteous.

Despite her newfound control over her mutant abilities, Rogue still did not stop hearing the voices of those she had stolen whenever she lay in bed at night.

She suspected that if she tried hard enough, she could lock them away inside of her, perhaps even erase them if she wanted to.

But she never did because they were the only conscience she now possessed. They were a constant reminder of who she was and why she did what she did. She was a fighter because it was her penance, her penance for all the terrible sins she'd committed. Every last day of her life, the lives she had stolen would be the ones she would be avenging, and as long as they existed she would have a cause to fight, and thus, a cause to live.

-oOo-

"Do you ever dream at night, Rogue?"

It was autumn. Almost two years had passed since she'd awoken from that coma, since the waking dream had begun.

Rogue sat on the edge of the mildewed windowsill and stared out onto the shadowy vista that stretched out before her. A whole district of houses, nexus to an industrial wasteland that had been vacated long ago. The people who had lived here had been scientists, lab technicians and engineers on the Sentinel project way back in its infancy some fifteen years ago, on the outskirts of New York City. Since then, the Sentinels had become big business, and their inventor and owner, Bolivar Trask, had become a multimillionaire, the director of his own company - Trask Technologies - which manufactured and patented a vast variety of products, from household appliances to the very latest in mutant-killing machinery. Their latest headquarters were a far cry from the abandoned factory that now lay just over the horizon through the window that Rogue now sat at. Trask Technologies now had their base in a swanky high-rise building made of glass and chrome slap-bang in the middle of Manhattan.

Mystique had thought it wittily ironic that the Brotherhood should now have their own headquarters in a run-down residential area where Trask had first started out. Supposedly it appealed to her sense of poetic justice, but at the slow rate the Brotherhood appeared to be working, Rogue wasn't sure any type of justice was round the corner at all.

Raven was not unduly concerned about all this.

She'd been trying to change the world for the past hundred years or so, and another hundred probably wasn't going to make much difference.

She was behind Rogue right now, a mug of coffee in her hand as she, too, stared out onto the endless rows of dilapidated houses that reached out into the distance.

"Do you ever dream at night, Rogue?" she asked.

Rogue pressed her palm against the mottled windowpane and stared at the dark clouds that were gathering over the horizon, thick with the premonition of rain.

"Ah don't remember my dreams," she lied blandly. She didn't want anything for Raven to pick up on. She didn't want to impart any of herself to her foster-mother, not anymore - the less Raven knew the better.

"Don't you?" Mystique's tone was faintly ironic. "Don't you hear the cries of those who died around you? Your comrades, your friends, your loved ones? Don't they plague every waking moment, every darkened dream?"

"The only cries Ah hear are from the people Ah once absorbed," Rogue murmured, removing her hand from the pane. The warmth of her gloveless hand had left an imprint on the cold glass, which faded rapidly and was lost forever. She swivelled slightly and looked back at her foster-mother with a neutral gaze. "Ah try not t' think about what happened t' the X-Men."

Mystique raised an eyebrow.

"And yet you continue to let those other voices haunt you?" she queried.

Rogue shrugged. "Ah s'ppose those voices tell me who Ah really am," she replied. She didn't want to tell Raven what she really dreamt of. That was her own secret, and the fact that she kept it close to her chest was one of the few things that kept her going, that made her feel that she had any separate, internal life at all.

For a long while, Mystique said nothing, but also leaned against the pane, and stared out into the distance with her daughter. Thin streaks of rain were now staining the foggy windowpane.

"We're the same, you and I," she said at last.

"How so?" Rogue asked quietly, begrudgingly. The last thing she wanted was to be compared to her foster-mother, but if Raven noticed the hostility in her daughter's voice, she made no allusion to it.

"Because we have no idea who we truly are," she said instead. "Because we've lost our identities in our mutant abilities, because we've become something more and yet paradoxically less than who we really are. You steal other people's lives; I become other people's lives. We spend so much time being other people, we don't really know who we are." She paused, her gaze far away, her lips contorting into a thin smile. "In many ways, Rogue, we are like the chrysalis," she murmured, "waiting to be born into the butterfly. We are the faceless and the formless, waiting to become something complete and beautiful and whole, striving to become human."

Rogue looked up into her foster-mother's cold, grey eyes, and it was only then that she understood that Mystique was performing her own form of penance, for her lost humanity, for her dead and murdered son.

"What is it you want?" Rogue asked at last. Ever since Mystique had entered her room she had been aware that her foster-mother had done so with a hidden agenda. Mystique always had one agenda or another, some more opaque than others. Today she was being more reticent than usual, and this irritated Rogue.

"I'm going to give you a mission, Rogue," Raven announced beside her. Rogue looked up. Raven made no move to return the glance, her eyes remaining on the window, her mouth hard. This was not an unusual statement on Raven's part - over the past year or so, Rogue had often carried out missions for the Brotherhood - and yet something in Raven's voice now suggested something different about this particular assignment.

"What is it?" Rogue asked, trying to maintain her insouciance.

Raven made no reply, but moved away from the windowsill, and planted herself casually in one of the two chairs that resided in Rogue's room. Reluctantly, Rogue turned away from the window to face her mother, recognising instinctively the business-like expression on Mystique's face.

"Rogue," she spoke after a momentary pause to gather her thoughts, "I believe it is time for you to prove yourself to the Brotherhood."

Her tone was even, yet not without an apologetic air. Rogue stared at her.

"Ah don't understand," she said. "Ah've gone on missions for you before… Ah thought Ah'd already proved myself…"

"So to speak," Raven nodded. "And you have performed your tasks admirably. But up till now, they have been minor tasks. Nothing that has involved any great sacrifice on your part."

"Ah don't understand," Rogue frowned. "Sacrifice…?"

"Physically, emotionally, morally," Raven explained peremptorily. "For the past year and a half, I have endeavoured to train you, and you've responded well. But I have merely given you the tools with which you yourself must work with. And those tools I gave to you with the intention that you use them to the benefit of the Brotherhood - of the cause."

"The cause?" Rogue half-laughed. "Y'mean freein' mutants from oppression? Can it honestly be done?"

"So you don't believe it can be done, when you believed in such improbabilities as mutants and baseline humans living in harmony?" Raven replied pointedly. Rogue looked away.

"That was different."

"Perhaps. Xavier's dream was an ideology, a creed, something insubstantial, ephemeral. But what I believe in is feasible and workable, something that can be brought about by achieving a set of clearly stated goals, goals that can be accomplished through practical means - that are being accomplished, one by one, even as we speak. The same could not be said for Xavier's dream. He was an idealist, Rogue, and I am merely a realist. In these times especially, there is no room for idealists, not where the emancipation of mutants is concerned." Her eyes flickered over Rogue's face intently. "Do you understand me?"

"Ah understand," Rogue conceded, somewhat mutinously.

"But that doesn't mean you have to believe in what I say, does it?" Raven noted with a hint of irony. She leaned forward in her chair and said almost despairingly: "You are a child of Xavier, through and through. What happened to you that day at the mansion - it killed you, Rogue, and yet still a part of you clings to the past. Why do you not let it go?"

This time Rogue did not look away.

"Because it's the only thing I have left," she replied unwaveringly.

"Like the voices in your head?" Raven questioned, an eyebrow arched. It was only then that Rogue averted her gaze.

"What's this mission you want me to do?" she asked instead.

Mystique settled back in her chair, considering her foster-daughter a moment.

"There's a Sentinel parts factory in Manhattan - a subsidiary of Trask Technologies. It's not just one of the peripheral factories the Brotherhood's hit before. This one is Trask Technologies' major supplier of Sentinel parts - it's a known fact that they're also the supplier of parts for his latest prototypes." She paused, then added darkly; "I want you to go in there and blow the place to hell."

Rogue stared at her in surprise.

"We're gonna hit a Trask Technologies' parts factory? But--"

"Until now the Brotherhood has only taken small stabs at the system, but now I believe the time is ripe for us to make a firmer stand. If you are truly with us, Rogue, then you will take this mission. Are you willing to do so?"

Rogue frowned slightly, looking out of the window again, at the blurred vision of the urban wasteland beyond the rain-slickened windowpane.

"This ain't just about takin' a stand, is it?" she said softly. "It's about Irene's diaries. You've been followin' them the past hundred years, and you still are now. Ah saw you readin' them the day Ah agreed t' join the Brotherhood." She turned back to Mystique, her eyes flashing. "What's so important about a Sentinel parts factory? What difference does it make?"

She had thought Mystique would get angry, but instead her expression was sardonic.

"As with all these things, my child, it may make all the difference in the world, or none at all."

"Then why do it? Why be dictated by a bunch of unreliable predictions?" Rogue could feel the temper rising within her, the only emotion she'd felt in weeks. "If they meant anythin', Irene woulda been able to predict the military attackin' the mansion, and you woulda been able to stop it all! We wouldn't be in this fucked up excuse for a world right now! Why didn't she predict it!"

"Maybe," Raven replied calmly, "because it had to happen."

"Bullshit!" Rogue raged. "Why! Why did it have to happen!"

Silence. And then it hit her.

"You don't know why, do you?" she breathed, the truth illuminating her for the very first time. "You've never known why. For all these years, you think you've both been workin' towards somethin', some agenda, some secret goal, but when it comes down t' it… y'all don't actually know what it is you're fightin' for, do you? You don't know what lies at the end of all…this."

At the words Raven's eyes flashed dangerously, and in that moment Rogue felt a querulous sense of triumph, the realisation that she held certain cards that her mother didn't and never would.

"Will you do this thing for us?" Raven asked again, after a long, tense moment, and this time her tone was dark. Rogue thought about it. She neither felt the need nor the desire to prove herself to the Brotherhood. What she wanted to do was prove them wrong. Prove that they had no hold over her, that she could still believe in Xavier's teachings and be one of them. That Irene's predictions were mere stumblings in the dark, that following them could bring you no closer to the truth, no matter how much you tried to bend reality around them. What mattered was faith, and integrity. And Rogue was going to hold onto that whatever they made her do. She was going to prove them wrong even if she died in the process.

In that singular moment she made a decision that she had no idea would change the course of her life.

"Ah'll do it," she said.

-oOo-

Irene had a little room on the second floor into which very few entered, and from which she only rarely made an appearance.

Rogue knocked quietly on the door, only to receive no reply. It seemed it was one of those unusual periods when Irene was out. Here, an opportunity presented itself very clearly to Rogue, and she couldn't resist the urge to enter the small room and see what was inside.

And so, she did.

She had entered Irene Adler's room several times before, but only briefly, and never by herself. Of all the rooms in the Brotherhood's headquarters, this was one that none of the other members - except Mystique, of course - had normal access to. It was a stark, sparsely furnished little study - the inner sanctum of a scholar, a writer, a thinker. Irene had, for a long time, been known under the moniker of Destiny. That was her mutant power - the power to look into the future, and whilst those visions were most often confined to the immediate and peripheral future, there were rare and brief occasions when her powers would flare into something altogether more dramatic.

In her younger days, many years ago, her power had manifested itself in a magnificent and all-encompassing spurt of activity that had robbed her of her sight. The product of these prescient visions was thirteen diaries that predicted many things - more often than not pertaining to the evolution and ultimate destiny of mutantkind. The story was old hat to Rogue. Irene too had been her foster-mother, as well as Mystique - the pair had been lovers for well nigh a century, and these thirteen diaries had guided them practically all of their adult lives. Whilst Rogue had never looked into the diaries, she'd grown up hearing about them, and had learned to accept references to them as normal.

She had been young then. What she believed now, as an adult - as someone who had experienced pain and loss and death - was far more prosaic than a bunch of old prophecies.

As she stood there, looking at the thirteen thick volumes either lined neatly on their bookshelf or spread out across the desk, she had the strong desire to burn them, slash them, tear them apart, do anything to destroy them.

Fate could not dictate her. That the rest of the Brotherhood members - Pyro, Avalanche, and Forge - allowed their own lives to be dictated by it appalled her. The books were the enemies. And she had come to this room with the express purpose of getting to know the enemy, however forbidden the subject matter would be. So she went to the little writing table, and peered down curiously into the book that already lay open on faded green baize. It was open near the beginning - she wasn't sure which volume it was, but this hardly seemed to concern her. Drawn in old-fashioned, purple ink, in an elegant and florid hand, was a spider web. And in the spider web were drawn faces she recognised from her own past. Scott Summers and Jean Grey. Charles Xavier and Erik Lensherr, once known as Magneto… There were other faces, but she didn't want to know.

Dead, all dead…

Swallowing hard, she flipped to the middle of the book, her hand shaking slightly.

She nearly let out an audible gasp.

It was her, unmistakably her - she could tell from the white streaks clumsily painted in with watercolour. She was holding something in her hand, a small, brown, oddly shaped thing, like a pod, or a…

A cocoon…

Almost involuntarily her eyes wandered across the page. Latin text had been inscribed beside the picture, words she didn't understand.

And then there he was.

A man, with cards, the ace of each suit fanned out in his hand, a trickster with a knife at his belt. He was looking towards her, but there was a figure wreathed in shadow, standing behind him with a hand on his shoulder, drawing him back into the darkness.

She recognised the image straight away.

Remy…

Horror filled her and she couldn't understand it.

Without thinking she turned to the back of the book, expecting there to be nothing but a few blank pages, but instead, on the very last page, there was a final drawing, emblazoned with fine, neat calligraphy in Latin…

A strange, rather crudely drawn picture of a bird that seemed to be on fire, reminding her of something she'd read about a long time ago, back in her old life…

"The phoenix," a mild yet conversational voice interrupted from the door, "rising from the ashes. The symbol of rebirth, of resurrection, of new beginnings."

Rogue slammed the book shut and spun round to see none other than Irene standing in the doorway. She wore the same plain, austere clothing, the same old rose-tinted shades, the same old innocuous charm of any little old lady one might meet; yet there was something formidable and indomitable about Irene Adler - the tenacity of old trees, or castles; of something impregnable and infinitely wise. Even the fact that she walked only with the aid of a mahogany cane did little to dispel this image, and her blindness, behind the perennial dark, rounded shades, only added to the unmistakable air of the sage. And as she entered, to Rogue's surprise, she was not angry. Instead she was smiling.

"I knew you were going to come, of course," Irene explained, shutting the door behind her as she did so, "so naturally, I'm not going to be angry with you. But I must protest at your lack of manners, Rogue. I would at least have thought you'd ask before looking."

Rogue said nothing, her emotions careening somewhere between anger and embarrassment. Irene merely continued to smile, and Rogue moved aside to let her take her seat at her desk.

"Ah'm sorry," Rogue garbled at last. "Ah just--"

"Wanted to find out if there was anything about a Sentinel parts factory in there?" Irene mused humorously. "Well, I can tell you now that there isn't. And before you ask, no - I haven't had any visions of you going into any factory. That was Raven's idea, and she told me you had some doubts about any part that I may have had to play in the mission. Rest assured, I have had none."

Rogue frowned. She hadn't been expecting this, and Irene's constant nonchalance unnerved her.

"So there isn't anythin' about my mission in there?" she asked rather dubiously. Irene merely sat back and seemed to regard her, although the idea was patently ridiculous since she was blind.

"Sometimes, what appears to be is not," she answered cryptically. "Sometimes, that which is of true significance is veiled behind that which seems to be of import. Never take anything for granted, my child."

"What do you mean?" Rogue retorted, brow creased in sudden frustration. "That there is a reason for this mission after all?"

The smile faded from Irene's lips and for a moment she almost seemed as frustrated as Rogue herself.

"There's a purpose in everything, Rogue. Surely you must see that by now. Your actions will naturally affect others - have already affected others."

"Then why can't Mystique or Pyro or Avalanche 'affect others'?" Rogue reasoned. "Why does it have to be me?"

"Raven has already given you her reasons for choosing you," Irene replied, mild again. "Are they not enough?"

Rogue pouted. She should have learnt by now never to expect straight answers from Irene Adler.

"You had pictures of the X-Men," she muttered after a moment. "Are the X-Men still important then?"

"Very much so," Irene nodded.

"But they're dead."

There was a short moment of silence; Irene's eyes flickered.

"Did you not see the phoenix at the end of the book, my dear?"

Rogue considered it.

"Rebirth? You mean, the X-Men are gonna come back to life? But that's ridiculous. It ain't possible… There are no phoenixes…"

"But there is hope," Irene replied airily. "Why do you still wear that pendant round your neck, Rogue? Because it looks pretty?" She gestured to the necklace that rested, as ever, at Rogue's breast. "I think not. I think you wear it because it gives you hope. Because it holds memories. Not just any old memories, the random and insipid ones that come and go and hold very little significance. I mean specific memories, memories cut short by a tragedy that severed yourself from your past. But as long as you wear that pendant, the past is never truly gone, is it? The old you is never truly dead."

Rogue sucked in a breath, her ears ringing.

"Yah don't know…" she began, but Irene interrupted her gravely.

"No. I don't know. But I infer, from what I see." She tapped a finger against her head. "Prescience is to do with the future, Rogue, but Time itself is mutable. In reality, there is no past, and there is no future - only eternal presents. The past that you believe is dead lives. And the future is already all around you. Embrace it, Rogue, don't fight it."

"So you're sayin' Ah should go on this mission?" Rogue translated slowly. "That to do so would be to… embrace my future?"

Irene nodded, her smile returned.

"All futures, Rogue."

We are the faceless and the formless, wanting to become something complete and beautiful and whole, striving to become human…

She took in a deep breath.

"All right," she finally returned. "Ah'll take your word for it, Irenie. But then, Ah guess that's all Ah have, isn't it? Your word."

"I prefer pictures," came the pointed reply. "They do, after all, say a thousand words."

Rogue shook her head hopelessly and went to the door. It was only when she placed her hand on the handle that the thought came to her, and she stopped short. But the words wouldn't come, and in the end she opened the door, putting it to the back of her mind.

Remy…

If Irene knew her thoughts, she said nothing, and Rogue stepped over the threshold and quietly pulled the door to behind her.

-oOo-

-END OF PART ONE-