: HOUSE OF CARDS :
PART TWO : CAPTIVITY
(5) - Mission -
Autumn 2008
She thought about the Diaries a lot, in between Mystique's relentless training regime. She wondered what was so special about these visions that had caused both Raven and Irene to chase them so single-mindedly for so many long decades.
If only she could understand those vague and symbolic drawings…
Cocoons, phoenixes, shadows, each symbol as personal to Irene as Rogue's own inner machinations were to herself. All mutually incomprehensible. It was better that she accept that she would never truly understand the motivations of her foster-parents, and that to do so would probably be dangerous. If she was going to die, she was going to be a slave to no one, especially not those accursed Diaries.
And so, for a while, she put all thought of them aside.
It was not hard to switch her mind off after a hard day's work. She had little time for leisure, and by the time her training sessions had finished she was too tired to do anything except trudge upstairs to her bed. And even then she found little respite. For many nights on end she would lie awake until the small hours, staring up at the ceiling and listening to the screams of those she had absorbed, screams that railed against her mind, that fought to be freed. Sometimes she slept, only to wake later sweating and weeping, her own screams joining the cacophony in her head. Often she would not know where she was, until she would hear the light tread of slippered footsteps outside her door, the soft tap-tapping of a mahogany cane. Irene was about, wandering and listening. Rogue would turn and bury herself under the covers, press her face into the pillow and try to convince herself it was all a dream, that the screams, the memories, the psyches, the Brotherhood were all a horrible, lingering dream.
No. It was no dream. She would hear the tapping of the mahogany cane come to a standstill outside her door, feel the presence of Irene as surely as if she had stood by her bedside and placed a mouldering hand on her shoulder.
But there would be no comfort from her demons, nor from Irene.
After a few minutes she would hear the tap-tapping again, fading off into the distance, disappearing only behind the baleful creaking of Irene's bedroom door.
-oOo-
Winter crept a little closer, on spindly hands and feet - the day of Raven's mission began to approach, filling her with an anxious, gnawing restiveness. Whatever Irene or the Diaries had in store for her that day, it was making its presence known in a quiet, lingering dread that left her lying in bed most evenings with a listlessness she hadn't known before.
At last the day came; Mystique's briefing was a formality she could have done without, but beggars couldn't be choosers and so she said nothing whilst she changed into her black, leather bodysuit and Raven talked at her.
"Forge has provided you with the tools you are to use on this mission," she said, indicating to the various contraptions laid out on the bed. "I think you'll find them useful, Rogue. Take good care of them."
There were a great many things that Mystique admired in the solitary Forge, or so Rogue had noticed, and his mutant ability to make anything he put his mind to was one of them.
"Don't worry," she replied firmly, going to the bed and clipping the various gadgets and gizmos to her utility belt. "Forge and Ah ran through them the other day, like you asked us to. Ah can fire those retractable rope do-hickeys better than Ah can use chopsticks."
Mystique looked sceptical, but Rogue ignored her, going to the mirror and tying back her hair into a rather severe ponytail. The last thing she needed was for her hair to get in the way of the job. She regarded herself in the glass with a slight frown. Her own reflection perplexed her. She rarely looked in the mirror these days. It was like looking at herself from a new perspective, from outside of herself, as though the creature she saw in the mirror was more alien than her. But there was no time to mull over such things. She dropped her hands and quickly tugged the zipper up over her neck. She'd consciously neglected to take off her pendant, and she didn't want Mystique to notice. If anything was going into battle with her, it was that necklace. She grimaced. If Raven knew she'd have a fit.
"I heard you had a talk with Irene," Mystique noted airily from behind her, not quite done with the conversation, or, Rogue suspected, with listening to her own voice speak. Rogue frowned.
"That was weeks ago." She half turned. "What did she say?"
"That you looked in the Diaries." Raven's tone was slightly accusing.
"So?"
"They're not for you to look at," Raven returned peremptorily.
"Well sorry, but Ah figured that since you two are the ones sendin' me out to mah so-called destiny, Ah had a right to know what it is y'all are sendin' me out to."
"Your impertinence is wasted on me, Rogue," Raven replied coolly.
"Like Ah care," Rogue muttered rebelliously.
There was a short silence, an almost glacial one; Rogue busied herself with rearranging the things in her belt, hoping Mystique would get the message and back off.
"I know why you're doing this, Rogue," Mystique spoke at last.
"Do you?" Rogue snapped hotly. "What'd you do - look it up in the Diaries?"
This time Raven refused to take the bait.
"You're doing this for your own entirely selfish reasons," she continued flatly. "To prove you are still an 'X-Man', am I right?"
Rogue said nothing. She wanted to goad her foster-mother, she wanted to get her own back. She wanted to say that Irene had told her that the X-Men still had a part to play in all this, however nonsensical it sounded; that perhaps she was the only one left to play that role, and that that was her part in this whole deranged prophecy. But to have said so would have been to admit that she believed in it, and so she kept quiet.
Raven stared pensively at her reflection for what felt like a very long time. Then she stood, laid a hand on her shoulder, and said:
"It's time you stopped clinging, Rogue. Even if the X-Men are still alive, you have changed, inexorably; what wickedness has been done to you can never be undone, not now. Why don't you accept what you are? Why don't you accept that you've changed?"
Rogue stared at the floor; after a moment she stepped aside, letting Raven's hand slip from her shoulders.
"Maybe Ah have accepted it," she murmured bitterly, shucking on her jacket. "Maybe Ah'm doin' what Ah'm doin' now because Ah have nothin' left to lose but my own integrity and a whole bunch o' useless mem'ries."
She was ready. She walked to the door, but as she reached it Mystique stopped her.
"Have you ever loved anyone, Rogue?" she asked. There was an odd note to her voice. At the words Rogue stopped, but did not turn.
"No. Ah never loved anyone. And even if Ah did, it wouldn't matter. He'd be dead now anyway."
You see, there really is nothin' left to fight for, so stop pretendin' there is, Mystique.
She opened the door and slammed it shut behind her.
-oOo-
The thickset guy at the door was gaping.
Men often did that, when they looked at her. The only exception was the men closest to her, the men in the Brotherhood. Forge was more enamoured with bits of metal, St. John despised her, and as far as she knew, Dominic Petros had never had any stirrings in his life. Perhaps it was just as well, because she'd never been comfortable with the way men ogled her. Especially now that they could touch her.
"Ah'm the maintenance crew," she told the man brightly in her best magnolias accent. "Ah've been called out t' see to the air vents in Sector C."
She flashed the fake ID card Dom had prepared for her for the second time, but the security guard was too busy looking at her chest to notice, even though the hideous yellow overalls did her no favours at all.
Lucky for me Ah decided to wear my trusty push-up bra today…
"There must be some mistake, miss," he drawled thickly, his eyes still otherwise occupied. "The only problem we have with those vents are the rats. Besides, ain't it a bit late for us to be calling out maintenance?"
"Well, someone was obviously gettin' complaints about it over in Head Office," she replied, the false smile still plastered on her face, "because they rang up, and Ah was the lucky gal that got sent out. It's mah first week on the job," she added in a more conversational, honeyed tone, "and Ah keep on drawin' the short straw, if'n yah know what Ah mean."
She leaned against the doorjamb, put a hand on her hip and showed him her teeth. He could only smile rather dazedly in return.
"Well, lady, if it's a bother to you, then you might as well save yourself the trouble. We'll call in the exterminators tomorrow…"
"Uh-uh, no can do, sugah." Her countenance changed from dazzling to doleful in a trice. "Ah gotta make a report when Ah get back. Ah'm on probation the first month, yah see - gotta make an impression on the boss, or they're gonna cut me loose. Think yah could let me in and have a peek at your vents, just for the sake of appearances, hon?"
By this point she got the impression he would've let her have a peek at his anything if she'd asked, and so she wasn't surprised when he grinned slowly and held the door open a little wider for her.
"Sure thing, honey. But I'm kinda busy right now…" He indicated to a small TV at the back of the office, which was fuzzily displaying a heated game of football. "D'you think you could let yourself out when you're done?"
"Sure," she nodded. "No problem."
She lifted her toolbox and slipped inside. The office was dingy and cramped, and she suspected that she was the most exciting thing the security guard had seen in months.
"Sector C's on the left outside the office," the man explained, already sitting back down in front of his game. "Just follow the signs and you won't miss it."
"Thanks," she replied, and slipped out into the adjoining corridor.
She wandered as far into Sector C as was necessary, before sliding into a nearby storeroom and setting down her box of tools. Then she set about relieving herself of the horrible yellow outfit and stuffing it in a cupboard, which looked as if it hadn't been used in years. She blew a loose lock of hair out of her face and bent over the toolbox. All that running around in two sets of clothing had made her hot. She unzipped the top of her bodysuit to cool herself off, then opened up the toolbox. Inside was the gun Forge had neatly packed away for her that morning.
Rogue unpacked the gun and put it together with an almost loving sensation that was quite unnatural to her. Using guns of any sort had never been in her nature, but any invention Forge made was an invariable work of art, and she couldn't help but appreciate this particular contraption. Besides, this was a gun with a difference, and wouldn't be used to maim or kill.
If anyone gave her any grief, they'd be on receiving end of her mutant powers.
Rogue grimaced and slipped the gun in the holster at her belt. Then she rummaged inside the toolbox, finally finding the neat set of blueprints Dom had procured for her; she unfolded it and laid it out on the floor, trying to pinpoint her position.
There were two distinct parts to the building. The factory, which took up the east portion. A weapons testing facility, which took up the west. And a large storage plant, which housed the approved and finished products in a separate, highly defended north wing.
Her target was the latter.
Rogue folded up the map and stuffed it into her jacket pocket. She closed the toolbox, stood up, and shunted it into a corner with her foot.
Time t' rock an' roll.
She exited the room quietly, closing the door softly behind her, making sure that the corridor was empty. There was nothing but the humming drone of the overhead lights, the walls of off-sickly white, everything standard government issue, claustrophobic, stale, sterile.
Just like every darn factory anyone'll ever see… S'like walkin' through a labyrinth. Lucky this place is sign-posted. She set off in the vague direction of north. Even luckier Ah have a map.
To all intents and purposes, the place was dead. There was the odd guard she had to dodge, but on the whole security was rather lax. She didn't mind particularly - it made her job all the easier. It wasn't long before she found herself outside the storage facility and facing her first real obstacle of the evening.
The warehouse door, made of metre thick titanium, was something not even Forge's gadgets and gizmos could break through.
Rogue pulled at her lower lip with her teeth and hovered uncertainly by the door.
Ah just need to get in there and get to those Sentinel parts…
Footsteps rounded a nearby corridor and she scooted back into a nearby niche just as an armed Trask Technologies security guard rounded the corner and began to walk in the direction of her hiding place. She watched him advance with a growing sense of trepidation. The way into the storage facility was effectively barred, and tempting as it was to prove both Mystique and Irene wrong, an innate sense of pride refused to let her walk out empty-handed.
She bit her lip hard and closed her eyes. The man was drawing nearer, an opportunity presenting itself to her with every tread of his footsteps, unfolding little by little and as he walked past suddenly she knew…
The leather gloves were off her hands in a trice. A second later she was whipping out of her hole, reaching for him from behind, her fingers grasping the contours of a craggy and unfamiliar face… An instinctive moment of horror pulsed through her but it was too late now…
And she pulled… …
…swear I could've heard something up there in the air vents… Must be rats… The number of times I've complained to Groover about the fuckin' rats and still he doesn't bother getting the fuckin' exterminator in… But who the hell am I to complain, I'm just Trask Technologies' freakin' dogsbody round here and my job's already on the line… Mandy's gonna kill me if we can't afford to get Frank into grad school next year… I was meant to have done better than this by now, I was meant to have my own studio now and be making music, but I'm still here in this fuckin' building day in, day out, with these godforsaken rats, and just what the hell IS making that sound up there anyway?… …
She came to a minute or so later, crouched back inside the niche panting heavily; the guard she'd absorbed was lying in crumpled heap in the middle of the corridor only several feet away. She shuddered and shucked the gloves back over her fingers. This man's psyche was noisy and stubborn - it took her a while of focused effort to shake off the last vestiges of his personality and finally step back out into the passageway. The upside was that a little of his burly strength had been conferred onto her; she hoisted him over onto her shoulder with little difficulty and carried him cautiously back down the adjoining corridor.
There are lockers back near Sector C… They should be out of the way of any bomb blasts… Ah'll just leave him in there… There ain't no way Ah'm gonna let anyone get killed on mah watch.
She grimaced.
Mah stars and garters, wouldn't Xavier be proud.
Once she'd safely ensconced the man inside a nearby locker, she stood a moment to draw upon the well of memories she'd stolen from him, carefully analysing and picking details in the way Mystique had so diligently taught her. Diving into the stream of psyches was always a dangerous business - their querulous, often aggressive nature could easily have dragged her under with the threat of no return. But Mystique's training had been formidable, and within seconds Rogue had obtained all the information she needed. The annexed Sentinel parts storage facility was indeed locked by a titanium door that she had little hope of breaking through. But there was a hatch on the roof that was used both for maintenance purposes and for goods brought in and out by helicopter, one that wasn't so rigorously fortified…
If Ah could get up there…
She paused momentarily, hearing the faint sound of scuffling in the air vents above her. She looked up, smirking.
Looks like there really are rats in here…
She turned and made her way back towards the exit.
Looks like Ah'm one of them.
The night was still and silent, but for the indistinct wail of sirens from somewhere over the horizon.
Rogue padded alongside the building, keeping inside the inky comfort of its shadows, her ears pricked and her eyes peeled for any sign of presence. Already the guard's memories were starting to leave her, each image she recalled becoming more blurred and hazier than the last. A sense of acute urgency filled her, lest she forget the precise minutiae of what she was looking for; she quickened her pace, the soles of her boots slapping a little too loudly on tarmac. It was something of a relief when, finally, she rounded a corner and found herself at the back of what appeared to be the storehouse; she pressed her back up against the wall of stark, grey, ugly architecture, catching her breath slightly.
And there was the ladder, exactly where his trusty memories had told her it would be.
She cast a quick look over her shoulder.
The coast was clear.
Quickly she heaved herself up onto the first rung and scaled the ladder, fluid as the widow spider. Once she'd reached the top she launched herself up onto the ledge, crouched down low and surveyed her surroundings.
Clear.
She edged her way towards the corrugated metal hatch that led down into the factory's main storage room, slapped her back against the adjoining wall.
Clear.
She swung round, flipping the gun out of the holster at her side and aiming it at the padlock on the hatch.
Thik.
The silenced bullet shattered the lock, and she wasted no time in kneeling down to hoist up the door, which gave with an ominously loud series of rumblings and clankings. All she could do was inch it open as carefully as possible, her teeth set so hard it was painful. Then, finally, the hatch was fully open. She peered down the gaping hole and into the storage room.
It was a thirty-foot drop into the centre of the dimly lit warehouse, which was piled high with industrial metal crates. In each were vital components of Trask's Mark 2 Sentinels, the most effective mass-produced mutant killing machines in existence. Rogue peered down over the ledge, gauging the length of the fall.
Land on the nearest pile of crates… Should give me a good enough shot at the others… Maybe twenty feet at the most… Okay…
Graceful as the gazelle, she sprang from her ledge and into the space below, turning a perfect three hundred and sixty degrees mid-air and landing with a resonant thunk, crouched, atop the nearest stockpile of crates.
Glad t' know all that trainin' in the Danger Room is still somewhere in there…
She swallowed on the memories, standing slowly.
Time t' get to work, Roguey.
She flipped out her gun again, ejected the magazine and slipped it into her utility belt, before producing and loading Forge's bombs one by one.
Five chances… Better not fuck up.
She was enjoying this too much. For the first time since she'd woken up from that godforsaken coma she felt the buzz of simply being alive. It was dangerous, to have a reason to live, however ruthless, however cold - but she'd have to run with it now. Armed, she aimed the weapon at the pile of crates furthest from her, pressed the trigger. Forge's bomb arched across the room and attached itself to the side of one of the crates with a reverberating thud. As soon as it was fastened to its host, it automatically primed itself, the red light in the centre of its spider-like frame flashing intermittently.
They worked.
Holy shit, Ah really am gonna blow this freakin' place to holy hell…
In deploying the first bomb she had crossed an invisible barrier, and after that it wasn't so hard to deploy the rest, methodically and systematically; a stillness had fallen over, a calm repose. What she was doing now, it wasn't so much terrorism as it was protecting her own people, her own kind; she was doing mutantkind a service, this was a badge to wear with pride. No casualties, no fatalities - her conscience could rest at ease. It was the perfect crime.
One, two, three, four, five. Within a minute she'd planted all the bombs and it was time to mosey on out. She had five minutes to get out before the place was blown to smithereens - she didn't even need to think anymore. With a detachment she hadn't known she possessed, she reached inside her belt, brought out another attachment, fixed it into the muzzle of the gun, and aimed at the open hatch above her.
Fire.
A clawed arm shot out, trailing a length of prehensile rope behind it; it flew out the hatch, arched slightly, and embedded itself in the roof. Rogue tested the strength and tension of the rope, and satisfied, began to shimmy up it with all the nimbleness she could tease out of her limbs.
Tick tock, tick tock.
She'd never been so acutely aware of the time, and despite the calm that had till now kept her emotions in check, her pulse began a steady ascent, her breath was getting heavier, and sweat was beginning to bead on her forehead.
Shit…
She must have been within a foot of the hatch when she felt something give in the necklace round her neck, and she paused, catching herself, waiting with bated breath as she felt the chain uncoil itself… begin to slip out of her neckline…
She reached out a hand, instinctively going to catch it, but the movement jarred the rope, and she swayed precariously, jolting the broken necklace out of her neckline… A thin streak of silver, plummeting to the floor, and she grasped for it again with her heart pounding in her head, the rope swinging dangerously back and forth…
Clink.
Swaying atop the rope, with only a foot or so between her and freedom, Rogue looked down and saw it, lying in an elegant pool some thirty feet below her, shimmering faintly in the semi-darkness. She looked up. She looked down. Indecision tore at her.
Leave it, go, and your life remains unchanged. Drop down, get it, and risk death.
Each bomb is timed to explode in 5 minutes…
She was cutting it fine, so fine… It was ludicrous that she should go back for something so trivial, and for those few precious seconds she fought violently with herself… Because it was only a thing, it couldn't speak to her, there was nothing it could intimate to her that she did not know already.
But it was what it represented. It was what she felt when she held it in her hands.
It was the last thing in her possession that linked her to the life she had left behind.
She couldn't leave it behind.
And suddenly she was letting go, she was sliding back down the rope faster than lightning, defying all logic, all reason, denying every rational thought screaming through her brain, telling her that this was madness, this was suicide…
She dropped back into the ticking time bomb, and suddenly she realised…
She wasn't afraid of death anymore.
The feeling she got, going back into a death trap of her own making, was pure exhilaration. Joy mixed with dread, a sense that for the first time in months she was truly alive, she was flying in the face of death and she didn't care if it took her anymore, because nothing was precious to her but that pendant, and if she didn't have it she would have nothing, no heart, no purpose, no reason to carry on living…
Death would be freedom.
She jumped clear of the rope, not caring that her escape route was now completely out of reach. All that mattered was that puddle of white gold on the floor and as soon as she landed, heavy and ungainly, she pounced on it, grasped it in one gloved hand.
She was still alive! The bombs hadn't gone off!
How long she had left she wasn't sure.
But she was alive, and now there was a reason to carry on living…
She didn't even think. She was running before she knew it, running to the only possible escape route she now possessed, the row of windows that lined the facing wall, and it was lousy cover, glass was always lousy cover… All she could hear was the laboured internal sound of her own breathing as she pounded back towards her exit with a speed and agility she felt sure she'd never possessed before. And there was a window, and she was never going to make it in time, and even if she did she wouldn't even be clear enough of the building to avoid the blast… …
But her survival instinct had kicked in now, it was either do or die, do or die…
The window frame careened in and out of her range of vision, swaying to and fro, just out of reach. And then, abruptly, there was a stillness in the air; such a silence she had never known before, hanging about her as if the earth itself could sense the impending impact, was readying itself for it…
With all the force of will she possessed, she hurled herself at that window.
Behind her, the air pulled inwards, a sharp, tangible tug and…
KA-BOOM!
Glass splintering around her, the sweet smell of fresh air, her body curling instinctively, hitting the ground, rolling…
The stillness had erupted into an almighty, unholy sound that left her ears ringing. For a few seconds, all her senses switched off; it was as if the world itself had shattered, as if everything - even herself, even time - had dissolved into mere molecules, and something flashed before her eyes, that day at the mansion, of hearing the screams and the gunshots and searching for him before feeling the explosion in her back, before feeling herself split apart into atoms before plunging into the blackness… and everything had begun, and everything had ended…
She was caught in an acute awareness that this event and that event were somehow inextricably linked. Yet there seemed to be no connection between time and her movements. One moment she was on the floor, the next she was running, running blindly, her vision clouded, her ears still ringing from the blast. And then there was colour, blotches of red and orange and white whizzing past her at top speed… Fireballs and shrapnel…
The factory was churning out everything it had at her, chunks of metal and masonry were sailing above her head and landing in twisted, burning heaps all about her in a deadly rainfall and…
Something grazed her right arm, sharp and stinging as a pinprick, and her mind was screaming at her, the only thing she could hear…
Duck and roll!
She ducked and rolled.
Rolled right through the gravel and hit the perimeter fence headfirst.
Get out, get out, get out… Get the fuck out…!
Scrambling up that fence was like climbing Everest but the adrenaline was pumping too hard, her muscles were working with manic fluidity and somehow she managed it, she had reached the top and was practically free falling out onto the other side.
By this time her sense of hearing had partially returned and behind her she could hear the deafening roars of the other bombs going off. She paid them no heed. Again she ran, stopping only when there was sufficient cover to lie low in and reassess the situation.
She ducked quickly into the alleyway between two buildings and crouched, shivering, against the damp and drooling brick wall.
Screams, sirens, the thudding of footsteps, lights twisting out on the street like the whirling, coruscating colours of a kaleidoscope.
She curled into the shadows like a wounded bird coming to nest, opened her gloved hand. Wonder of wonders, the butterfly pendant was still there, ensconced tightly inside her palm. At the sight of it her breathing eased. She had taken a gamble, she had risked everything she had and she'd survived…
A peculiar sense of triumph flooded her.
She was alive. She had cheated death for nothing, for everything…
She tucked the pendant swiftly into her belt pocket. It was too dangerous to stay, she didn't have time to gloat over her small, strange victory. She had to get back to base point, collect her things and move on out. And she had to do it without attracting attention.
Her breathing now regulated, she stood and propped herself up against the mouldy brick wall.
It was only then that she realised it.
Her right arm, the arm that had clasped the pendant so tightly, was wounded. The pain crashed over her in a wave, stealing her breath away again, making her dizzy. There was a gash in the upper arm of her leather jacket, a large slash that was already oozing blood. Lodged inside the wound was a fair-sized splinter of shrapnel, half-embedded under the skin.
Shit…
She stood for a moment, leaning against the wall, eyes closed with her left hand cradling her injured arm protectively. For a long while the pain was almost unbearable and she could barely stand straight with the agony. It was a few minutes before it had subsided enough for her to see properly.
It was now or never. She had to go, while she could still make it.
Clutching onto her arm, she slipped out of her hiding place and walked east.
-oOo-
It was an effort not to run. Her whole body was screaming for her to do as the crowds where doing, to race for the nearest cover, but she simply couldn't, she had to get to base point… And the pain in her arm was radiating, warm and sharp, throughout her body, making her belly ache and her head swim. She'd been stupid, so stupid… she was never going to make it…Her vision was blurring, she could barely see, her nostrils were burning, ash was flitting over her eyes and she couldn't see… …
God, please don't let me faint, Ah can't afford to lose control, not now, please…
A rain of ash was flittering over the city. Rogue stumbled down the street, clutching her arm - even though this pained her, it was essential she stem any bleeding. The jostling of the panic-stricken crowd made it almost impossible to keep from jarring the injury - several times along her allotted path she thought she would pass out.
And then, there it was, the prearranged back alley, marked by the distorted red cross that had been painted, slapdash, on the side of an old dumpster. At the mere sight of that crooked red cross her survival instinct kicked in again with a vengeance. Somehow she managed to stagger the few steps towards the alleyway before gratefully sliding in. The crowd was in too much of a frenzy for anyone to notice.
Rogue edged her way further and further down the alley, until the shouts and screams and the klaxons and sirens were muffled by the tall, sepulchral concrete buildings that hemmed her in. About ten yards into the alley, there was another dumpster marked clumsily with the red cross. Rogue stopped in front of it to catch her breath. Her vision was clearing now; the pain in her arm had settled somewhat, but her limbs were still like jelly. She had to ignore it. Gritting her teeth against the pain, she levered herself up into the dumpster and began to scavenge around inside the mounds of fetid, rotting rubbish.
It was several minutes before she found her pack of supplies.
By the time she had climbed out of the dumpster, her breathing was laboured. She made no conscious effort to stop shaking now as she peeled off her jacket and examined her arm. It was bleeding freely, and the piece of shrapnel was still lodged inside it. Rogue bit her lip. She'd have to extract that now, by herself, or risk blood poisoning.
The first aid kit in her pack was very basic - the only available sharp tool was a pair of scissors, and it would have to do. She wasn't squeamish about these kinds of things and never had been, but nevertheless, gouging that sliver of metal out of her own right arm was a more difficult and finicky operation than she'd anticipated. The pain was so intense that her vision began to blur again, and she could barely see what she was doing. But at last, it was out - she threw the shard of metal aside, heard it clatter to the floor some way down the alley. It took a few more minutes for her to ease her breathing, and when she had done so she produced some fresh bandages from her kit. Having only her left arm free made tying them even more awkward than extracting the shrapnel - after five minutes she was brimming with frustration. She couldn't do this, she didn't want to, she didn't even care if she bled to death…
"Urgh!"
She threw the bandage aside fiercely, her eyes burning. Suddenly, inexplicably, she wanted to cry. She'd done it. She'd done exactly what those Diaries were supposed to have told her to do. She'd betrayed Xavier, the X-Men, herself. And there had been no point. No vengeance. No pride. No victory. Not even death. Nothing had changed. All she felt inside was a hollow, aching emptiness. Whatever she had sought to prove in doing this, she'd hadn't succeeded. She'd failed. She'd failed.
In the background, the klaxons were still wailing, red and blue lights were streaking past her little hideout, blithely unaware of her presence. The atmosphere was still thick with the scent and texture of burning, a texture that stuck to the insides of her throat and made her cough, but something inside her flared suddenly, a memory…
Even in the face of oppression, Rogue, mutants are still human. We all eat, breathe and sleep, do we not? We all share the same dreams, the same hopes, the same feelings as the baseline humans. Of course, we may hate just as they hate us; but by the same token we are capable of love just as much as they are. Have hope, Rogue. As long as we share the same aspirations, as long as we share the same emotions and have the same ideals, we can never lose the dream for harmony…
Yes - Xavier was right, he had always been right. She wasn't going to give up, she was going to chase down this dream as ardently as he had chased his… Even if it meant sticking with all this Brotherhood bullshit in the meantime…
She gritted her teeth, picked up the bandage, and knotted it over her injured arm with more force than had been necessary. Pain would be her penance. Every day until the moment there was peace, it would be her penance. She made no sound, shed no tear. From now on, all her suffering would be in silence. It would be her sacrifice for the dream, for Xavier's dream.
She was feeling a little better now. She remained crouching by the wall for a couple more minutes to catch her breath, then stood on firmer legs. Her eyesight had cleared, though she was now filled with an overwhelming tiredness. Tending to her wounds had taken more energy than she had bargained for, energy that she would need to return to headquarters.
It was done, it was over. She could leave.
She turned to pick up her bag, heard a sound, started.
And suddenly, through the mist of soot and ash that now permeated the city, there he was, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, staring at her.
Gambit.
-oOo-
A/N: Just wanna say thanks so much to K-Nice for reading and commenting. :bow: Your input is greatly treasured, dear. :) And to Lucia... There's just no hiding things from some people! Although with hindsight, I was a bit obvious about the whole thing, wasn't I? ;) Anyway, I'd like to thank everyone for their great and perceptive comments - but if I say anymore I fear I shall give stuff away. :p But thanks to all who have reviewed, read, faved and supported this story in any way, I am so very grateful to you all! And by the way, for fans of Threads, I'm posting up tidbits of following chapters on my Livejournal. The link's on my main page. Check it out if you're interested. :)
-Ludi x