: HOUSE OF CARDS :
PART FIVE : COLLUSION
(17) - Confessions -
It was a thirty-minute bus ride to her bike, which she'd hidden a couple of blocks away from where she'd first made contact with Guess the day before. It was another half-hour before she arrived back at base, only to find an irate Raven waiting at the door for her, literally foaming at the mouth.
"So this is how you reward my patience, is it?!" Mystique screamed at her as soon as she'd walked in through the door. "By turning up now of all times?!"
Rogue glanced at her watch, which read eleven thirty. Okay, so she'd spent an inordinately long amount of time hanging around the safe house, but she had said she'd return in the morning and technically it was still the morning…
"Ah said Ah'd be back in the mornin'," she replied calmly. "And it's still the mornin', Mystique. So cut me some slack, okay? Ah ain't in the mood."
She walked into the kitchen, Raven hot on her heels, fuming with rage.
"Mood? Don't talk to me about what fucking mood you're in, Rogue, because I've been worried sick about you the past eighteen hours, and frankly your call last night was fucking inadequate! Why did you turn your cell off again?! Anything could've happened to you and I wouldn't have been able to call!"
"If anythin' had happened t' me, you wouldn't have been able to get through anyway," Rogue noted dryly, opening the fridge and grabbing some juice.
"At least if you hadn't answered I would've known you were in trouble," Mystique reasoned in irritation. Rogue ignored the statement, poured out the juice and went for some cereal. Raven seemed to realise that her ranting wouldn't get anywhere, so she sighed, pulled up a chair and sat at the dinner table, saying in a taut tone of voice: "All right. We'll come back to your blatant display of idiocy later. Now why don't you tell me exactly what happened with that little shit Guess yesterday?"
Rogue sat down opposite Raven and ploughed straight into her story, somehow managing to shovel down her breakfast in the meantime. Raven made several interruptions here and there, questioning Rogue as to exactly what happened - of course, Rogue found it challenging to remain coherent, seeing as she was trying to keep any mention of Remy out of the anecdote. But she'd had the entire morning to come up with a plausible tale, and by the time she'd finished it, Mystique seemed reasonably convinced.
"This presents us with all sorts of problems, of course," Raven noted sourly. "Trask knows there was a concerted effort to break into the Trask Technologies database that night, and that a considerable amount of planning went into it. He'll be on the look-out for a girl with a white-streak in her hair as well," she added, staring at Rogue's skunk stripe with a certain amount of distaste.
"Don't worry," Rogue muttered. "Ah'm on it."
"And I suppose we're going to have to take some precautionary measures and leave this place," Mystique added peevishly, ignoring Rogue's comment. "Fortunately Forge and I have considered such an eventuality and we've already got a place lined up. I want us out of here by tomorrow morning, Rogue. If there's anything you need, I suggest you have it packed by tonight, am I clear?"
Rogue said nothing, merely giving a half-hearted nod by way of reply. In truth there was nothing she owned that was particularly invaluable to her, apart from the butterfly pendant. All that was important was her equipment, and the few items of clothing she possessed - all other items she owned had been jettisoned when her previous life had ended, and so she was not unduly concerned about Mystique's desire to vacate.
"Still, you've managed to recover some useful information," Mystique was continuing thoughtfully. "We now know that Trask has already gone to great lengths to discover what really happened with Rifkind that night, and that he'll obviously be stepping up his efforts to uncover the whole truth. He also suspects a shapeshifter was involved." Her smile was twisted. "He's not stupid, I'll give him that."
"He's also potentially linked me to the X-Men," Rogue pointed out in a murmur, dipping her spoon into her cereal and suddenly deciding she couldn't stomach anymore.
"Hmm." Raven propped her elbows on the table and steepled her fingers together. "Things are getting interesting. But I wouldn't have it any other way. We'll just have to play things cautiously from now on, Rogue. Trask knows we're out there - at least we know he's actively looking for us now. It does give us something of a head start. This couldn't have come at a better time, really. Irene's pinpointed a series of very interesting visions in her diaries that may yet turn the tide against Trask and the Sentinels… We just have to play this right…"
Rogue grunted, thinking on what Remy had said about Irene's predictions the night before. What if it was true and Irene's visions of the future were nothing more than ghosts that could never be chased down? What if they were all fighting a hopeless fight?
"Which leaves the question of what you were doing last night," Mystique broke in archly, her eyes narrowed. "Just what were you doing that was so important?"
"Ah told you last night," Rogue replied irritably, getting up to shove her bowl and glass into the already over-filled sink. "Ah was takin' care of business."
"Business that kept you up all night long?" Raven's tone was disbelieving.
"Look, if you're so bothered about it, why don't you ask Irene what Ah was doin'?" Rogue growled uncharitably.
"You know Irene's power doesn't work like that."
"Yeah, but she coulda seen what Ah was doin' ten years ago… hell, she might even have written about it in her Diaries!" Rogue retorted sarcastically. "Why don't you go have a look?"
"Rouge, I will not hear you speaking in such a disrespectful tone about your foster-mother," Raven's voice wavered with anger. "She is our one hope in this venture - without her everything falls apart at the seams!"
For a moment, Rogue would have answered back sharply - but then thought better of it.
"Sorry," she apologised instead, though grudgingly. There was an awkward quiet, during which she decided to wash up the dishes - all the while she could feel Raven's eyes, cold and accusing on her back.
"Are you seeing someone, Rogue?" she suddenly asked out of the blue. Rogue stared at the dishes, her heart beating fast as she scrubbed them even harder.
"No," she replied firmly.
"No? Why else would you be spending whole nights away from headquarters, supposedly sorting out mysterious 'business'?"
"If Ah was seein' someone, dontcha think Ah'd be seein' him on a regular basis, rather than once every year or so?" she sniped roughly.
"I don't know," Raven's tone was shrewd. "Times like these don't always allow for stable relationships…"
"Ah'm not seein' anyone," Rogue returned in a dead tone. "And what the fuck would it matter if Ah was anyhow?"
"It may not matter at all. Or it may matter a very great deal. It would depend on who he was, what he did, what he was committed to… How much you cared for him…"
Rogue dropped the dishes back into the sink and spun round, her expression glacial.
"So that's it, isn't it! Yah want me to be committed to one thing - the mission! The fuckin' cause - your fuckin' cause! Ain't that right?!"
"Are you committed to it Rogue?" Raven asked, her eyes watchful as an insect's.
"Ah… yes. You know Ah am! But that doesn't mean Ah don't have feelin's outside of mah job! Ah ain't your puppet, Mystique, or Irene's! Ah'm still a fuckin' human bein', goddammit! Do you even notice?!"
Raven's countenance was stoical.
"I have noticed," she retorted calmly. "And I am very much aware of the sacrifices you've had to make for the cause. We have all made sacrifices, Rogue. And when our fight is over, we shall bear those sacrifices with pride."
"And bein' with someone, is that somethin' we should be ashamed of?!" Rogue yelled back, her temper flaring white-hot. "Aren't emotions somethin' t' bear with pride as well, now that people are too tired and scared and screwed up t' feel them anymore?!"
Raven was unruffled.
"Are you seeing someone?" she echoed softly.
"Even if Ah was, Ah wouldn't tell you!" Rogue screeched, storming out of the kitchen and slamming the door behind her.
-oOo-
She lay face-down on her bed, unable to cry - she was so used to holding back tears that it was as though she couldn't shed them anymore. Underneath her shirt, the butterfly pendant was pressing into her breast; she could feel its imprint on her heart, marking her flesh, making her chest throb with pain; but she wanted to feel the pain, she wanted something cruel and vicious to hold onto, to make her feel alive, to keep her feeling angry and hurt and abandoned. She was furious - furious at Mystique, at the Brotherhood, at Remy, at herself. No one could help her, no one could understand her, no one could save her, not even from herself. She was alone, and it hurt. She'd been alone all her life, even when she'd been in the X-Men, and she was sick and tired of it, she wanted out.
She didn't even stir when she heard the door to her room open and close again; she didn't want to see Raven, didn't want to hear her stupid platitudes ever again…
"Are you going to see him again?"
It was Irene's voice not Raven's - soft, placid as ever, asking the question as if she already knew the answer. Rogue remained where she was and took care not to show her surprise.
"Ah don't know what you're talk--"
"It's a dangerous game you're playing, Rogue," Irene interrupted shortly. "And you both know it, don't you."
It was a statement, not a question. Something hard had formed in the pit of Rogue's stomach, a leaden weight. Slowly she turned her head to see Irene standing, small and innocuous, in the doorway.
"You've seen us," she whispered. Irene half-smiled and seemed to look off over Rogue's shoulder into an imaginary distance.
"It's strange," she observed, her voice airy and conversational, "within this web there are many, many strands of the future open to us, a plethora of possibilities… There are so many conceivable outcomes for any one single event that the likelihood of even one small, random thing being the same in more than one strand of time is nothing short of impossible. And yet," she added lightly, "in a great many of these threads, the two of you are a constant." She paused, her unseeing eyes falling back onto Rogue's face. "Of course, I will not deny that there are several futures where the two of you as a couple are absent, or negligible… But on the whole, these futures are few and far between. It's almost as if Fate had chosen the two of you to serve a certain purpose… And I find that very interesting, Rogue. Do you know how very few people are bonded in this way?"
There was something in Irene's words that sent shivers of foreboding up Rogue's spine. Slowly, she sat up, shook her head. Irene merely smiled serenely, continued.
"There are Scott Summers and Jean Grey - in every future I looked upon, they were bonded. Then there are Charles Xavier and Erik Lensherr. And Raven and myself, of course. And then there are you and him. Sometimes."
"Have you seen us?" Rogue questioned in a whisper, unable to hide the eagerness from her voice. "Are we there?"
"Your future is uncertain," Irene frowned slightly. "I've tried to read it, but I can glean only very little. Which leads me to believe that your paths may splinter off into many different and unpredictable directions… That is why I say it is a dangerous game you play, my child. Are you even certain this man can be trusted?"
Rogue hesitated. She couldn't honestly answer yes. Because she barely knew him, because in everything except her heart he was a stranger. And yet she did trust him. She trusted him more than any of the Brotherhood, more than Raven, more than Irene herself. And for the first time she understood why.
"Ah love him," she murmured. It was the first time she'd admitted it to anyone, even herself; the revelation unfurled something obscure and primitive inside her, a warmth, a secret, the most wonderful and beautiful secret she'd ever known…
"Ah." Irene's voice was sombre, regretful. "Then I am afraid that the danger you may find yourself in may be even more acute…"
"That's what Raven thinks," Rogue stated in a low voice. "That if Ah love anyone, Ah won't be able to think straight anymore… That Ah'll jeopardise the mission…"
"But you would, wouldn't you," Irene answered reasonably. "Next to him, the mission doesn't matter anymore, does it. You'd drop our cause in a moment, if it was to be with him." She paused and smiled, not even waiting for Rogue's answer. "It is this that Raven fears, more than anything. Not that you will abandon our ethos, but that you will abandon her. She loves you, Rogue."
"Well she sure has a funny way of showin' it," Rogue muttered bitterly.
"Raven's displays of affection are less than sophisticated," Irene agreed. "As a recipient of it myself, I too have discovered this the hard way." Her smile was faint, nostalgic. "But if you should ever wish to leave the Brotherhood, Rogue, we would not stop you. Not even Raven would, though she may be most vocal in her objection. We have seen what you have suffered, and all most willingly. Even Raven would not begrudge you happiness."
Rogue stared down at her hands, followed the pattern of the lines on her palm with her eyes. After a while she spoke, her voice weary.
"Even if Ah turned away from the Brotherhood, there wouldn't be anywhere for me t' go." She looked away, swallowing hard. "Remy and Ah don't have a relationship. It's just a fling. There's nowhere he could take me, nothin' he could give me, no one he could make me. Ah don't even know what he does when we're apart. Ah don't know where he lives, or who he works for, or what he dreams for once all this is over. Ah don't even know whether he loves me back. Ah don't suppose Ah'll ever know."
It felt good, in a way - talking to someone about it in such clear, clinical terms; even if it was only to Irene, who never seemed to speak or think in anything but riddles. It was as if the torrid and passionate affair had some basis in reason and logic, as if something tangible and workable could be made out of the turmoil.
"Does Mystique… does she know?" Rogue asked suddenly. Irene closed her eyes briefly, took a deep sigh.
"Raven suspects many things, but knows very little." She opened her eyes and Rogue saw, to her surprise, that there was real pain in them. "I try to keep it that way - as far as I can anyhow. There was a time I confided everything I knew to her - not just certainties, you understand, but a myriad of possibilities; a dozen different permutations of the same future event. At first it gave us both a sense of purpose, to work towards that which we found most beneficial, beneficial to us, and to the mutant race as a whole. But…" and her mouth trembled, ever so slightly, "that path leads to despair and often madness, Rogue. Do not think I do not see it. In many ways, it is I who is responsible for Raven's…instability." She paused, her sightless eyes falling once more on the girl who sat before her. "Over time, the anguish of such a responsibility has forced me to withhold more from her than I may have done in the past. It is my penance, Rogue. To keep secrets from the one I love most, in order to preserve that which makes her human." She paused and smiled a pale smile. "So now you see you are not the only one who sacrifices much for love."
Something in the statement left a sour taste in Rogue's mouth. Whether it was guilt, or empathy, or bitterness she could not tell. She swallowed the thickness in her throat and stared down at her hands once more.
"Ah won't stop seein' him," she decided at last. "Not even if you or Raven ordered me to, Ah wouldn't."
"I don't expect you would," Irene agreed. "But understand this, Rogue - the two of you walk an uncertain path, and consequently a dangerous one. Guard yourself, my child, both from him, and those around you - even the Brotherhood."
"All paths are potentially dangerous, Irenie," Rogue murmured pointedly. "At least to those who can't see them. You just have to be willin' to take a risk. And Remy LeBeau is a risk Ah'm willin' to take."
Irene smiled faintly and turned to the door.
"You are wiser than you know, Rogue," she observed in a low voice. "And that is a gift you will be in sore need of. Cherish it, Rogue. At least for the benefit of a jaded old woman such as myself."
She placed her hand on the door handle, ready to go; but Rogue stopped her, before she could leave.
"Irene… You won't tell Mystique, will you?"
She did not look back.
"Child, visions of the future are one thing; a dear daughter's secrets are quite another. Raven shall never hear a word of this from me, of that you may be assured." She pressed down on the door handle with a wizened hand, and with a last 'goodbye, Rogue', she left.
Rogue slumped back onto the bed and stared at the door, her expression thoughtful. Irene may have begged to differ, but for the first time in her life, her path was very clear to her. It was more powerful than Xavier's dreams, than vengeance for the dead, than a crusade for justice.
She loved someone, she had someone to live for; it didn't matter if she never saw him again, as long as he was out there her life had purpose, and she would never be afraid of walking this path again.
-oOo-
A/N:- Just a big welcome to all the new readers who have reviewed, faved and alerted this story over the past few weeks... You've put a big smile on this gal's face. :) And a big thanks to all the continued support from the regulars... I couldn't do this without you. Hugs and kisses, Ludi x