Warning, this Author's Note contains an Off Topic plea; skip if you don't feel like reading it. :)

Okaaaay… I seriously wrote that storm, etc, of last chapter before Katrina hit the South… My thoughts and prayers are with those left destitute and endangered by the hurricane, of course.

Begin Off Topic plea: And people, seriously, if you're looking for someone to 'blame' for the hurricane hitting, please find something else to do with your time… Blaming a person or organization for a hurricane is like blaming someone for the sun! Yes, relief efforts have been a bit more disorganized than I think most people are happy with, but remember: They didn't know exactly where the storm was going to hit—after all, it changed path at the very last hour. They also didn't anticipate that the levees holding the lake would break—no one ever saw such a huge storm before!

Natural disasters like Katrina have been happening as long as this Earth has had weather, and the human race has always managed to survive 'em, even if it meant abandoning a town or leaving behind a job to preserve the lives of their family members. All it took was the help of those fortunate enough not to have been affected severely by the disaster. And in our modern times, we have tons of stuff going for us to help fix damage caused by a natural disaster—the people in the Middle Ages or the Roman Empire didn't have such advantages, but they managed not only to survive, but to thrive as much as their times would allow. Our times allow for quite a bit of 'thriving,' so count your blessings!

If you're the praying type, keep all affected— people stranded, rescue workers, government officials, people rescued—in your prayers; who knows but that someone in charge of something might have a God-given epiphany and see a good way to help a lot of people quickly; who knows but that one more prayer might save someone's life. If you're not the praying type, please, just keep them in your thoughts—no one knows what effect your thoughts might have on them,but thinking about the needs of others before your own will have a big effect on you, and how you act—it tends to make people nicer, thinking of others... And if you want to physically do something, there's lots of stuff you could do: some church group in Houston, TX, is asking for freezer baggies of toothbrushes and Clean-Wipes and stuff to be given to people who have nothing left (if I find the website or contact info I'll e-mail it to anyone who asks for it); you could kick in a buck or two, if you can afford it, to the Red Cross or whatever local charity is in your area. If you're of age and qualify (weight, health, etc), you could donate blood—there are a lot of people who were hospitalized in the cities affected who couldn't get out who need blood. There's lots of stuff to be done, but if we all pitch in even a little tiny bit—half an hour out of one day is all that's needed to donate blood—if we all help out a little, we can make this disaster not-quite-so-bad to clean up and rebuild (or relocate!). Here endeth the Off Topic plea. Thanks for reading it!

OK. So. OT over, I am still writing "Xanadu," but the next chapter is giving me…issues… so here is the next bit of "Black is the Color." LOTS of ghostly activity here—or is it only a dream? Read it and tell me what you think! And it becomes blatantly obvious which poem I'm basing this fic off of… Who Can Name That Poem? Bonus points for the author!

Enjoy!

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Black is the Color

Chapter 3. Dreams, or Visions?

About twenty minutes later, they were all trudging through an inch of mud in a sudden, sleeting, freezing October rain. They had tried to move Old Trusty out of the ditch, but even Colussus' strength couldn't move the hunk of ancient metal from the ditch. They had to leave it where it was.

Amanda had had the foresight to stuff a poncho into her carry-on bag, so she was all right, and Kitty surreptitiously phased herself and Piotr so that the rain fell through them. Bobby was freezing his skin ever-so-slightly so the sleety rain bounced off of him. Remy draped his beloved duster around Rogue's shoulders, and wouldn't take it back, despite her protests that she was fine and some rain wouldn't hurt her. She kept protesting 'til he threatened to start singing "Rogue's Favorite Ghosts" at her again, and pointed out that he was already soaked now, so what was the point of her getting soaked, too? She stopped arguing, but did half-glower at him all the way to the village. Kurt and Lance simply had to deal with getting drenched. Logan, of course, ignored the weather, and Old Robert remained as cheerful as ever, keeping up a running patter of comments like, "Not much further, now," and "Watch that puddle—it's deep."

At first, they hardly noticed when they entered the village. The small houses sat low against the surrounding hills, and seemed to blend into the stormy, dark landscape seamlessly. Candle or firelight could be glimpsed through the windows as they passed, but most people seemed to be well tucked-in for the night.

Unlike the villagers' houses, there was no mistaking when they approached the inn; it was an imposing structure of wood and stone which loomed up from a flattened hilltop that overlooked the lonely moors that lay to the west. The inn was two-and-a-half stories tall, half-timbered at the top, and had very few modern changes—like Old Trusty, it seemed to not have been changed since its building. A low, thick wall around the building enclosed a perfectly preserved cobblestone courtyard, and an old stables lay to the rear. Most of the heavy shutters were closed, but a few were cracked open, enough that the straggling group could see people inside.

For an instant, as Rogue peered through the pouring rain, she could have sworn the women inside were wearing long dresses, and the men were mostly in some uniform—then she blinked the rain out of her eyes, and saw they were dressed normally. She shook her wet hair out of her eyes, frowning at herself. Remy turned to her. "Y'okay, chere?"

"I think I'm more tired than I thought," she admitted. You were just seeing things badly through the rain, Rogue, she told herself, and she almost believed it… except that the closer she got to the inn, the colder she felt. She shivered suddenly, more of a shudder, stilled by Remy's arm across her shoulders. "I think I just need some food."

"We're almost there." He told her, and they all trudged up the hill. Rogue could feel Logan's gaze on her; he hadn't missed her sudden shiver, nor, she was sure, had he missed the jerk of her head at what she thought she had seen.

They trailed through the gates of the wall in ones and twos, stamping the mud from their frozen feet and wiping streaming rain out of their eyes in the relative shelter between the inn and the wall. The front door burst open suddenly, and a large woman beckoned them in.

"Come in, come in, get out of the rain, there's a good duckie," she shouted over the howling wind and sheeting rain. "In, in, come, dry y'salves by the fire, it's big enowt f' all o' you," she waved them inside. Old Robert entered without hesitation. They all looked at each other, shrugged, and followed him inside.

The inn was everything an eighteenth-century inn should be on a rainy, sleety October night: warm, and cozy, and well-filled with villagers, who welcomed the strangers with claps on the back and offers of blankets. As most of the group lingered by the large stone fireplace, drying their soaked feet, the inn workers brought them bowls of hearty stew and thick, crusty bread—apparently the eighteenth-century rule applied even to the food, but at least it was good food.

The locals bought "the puir soaked kiddies" pints of the home brew, a good, sweet, bubbly ale. They were informed by one and all that this inn had been famous for this ale since the inn had been built in 1729, and didn't they agree it was the finest ale they'd ever had?

Most of them never having had ale before, agreed cheerfully enough that yes, it was the finest ale they'd drunk. The warmth and cheer of the place was even enough to drive away the chill Rogue had felt, and as she wasn't seeing anyone in anything other than twenty-first century clothing, she wasn't going to complain.

"So I wonder where we are going to spend the night," Kurt said, turning in front of the fire to dry the fur hidden by his image inducer. He looked across the inn, to where Logan was gesturing violently (well, more violently than usual—Logan did everything violently) as he spoke with the large woman who had welcomed them in.

"I dunno," Amanda said, her dusky face concerned. "But if Mr. Logan thinks we're going to walk through that—" she gestured at the window "—for thirty-six miles, he's got another think coming. At least, I'm not walking that far. We'd all freeze!"

"Yeah," Rogue agreed, her Southern accent drawling across the cozy space by the fire. "Ah'm a Mississippian; we don't do freezin' northwestern European winter weather—especially not weird freezin' northwestern European winter weather when it comes in the fall."

"I agree, cherie. Too cold here for dis Cajun's blood. However," he leaned close to her, a mischievous glint in his eye, "You get too cold, y' give ole Gambit a holler, hein? He'll come and warm you right up—"

"You'd better be giving her an extra blanket and leaving, Cajun," Wolverine's familiar grate came from behind them. They all turned to face him. "Turns out we have to stay here tonight, kids," he said grudgingly, and ignored the muffled cheer from Bobby. "The villagers have no room, and the water's rising too fast for the few cars to get out of town, anyway. But Bettie, the landlady there," he jerked his thumb toward the large woman, "says there are plenty of beds upstairs that we can use, and even enough rooms for all of us, pretty much. The villagers are going to loan most of the group extra clothes for the night—sorry, Colussus, they don't build 'em like us around here. So let's go upstairs and pick out rooms."

Kitty wrinkled her nose. "Like, are we going to be sleeping in three-hundred year old beds? That's so, like, gross."

Logan gave her a look, and spoke with exaggerated patience. "Half-Pint." He sighed; it had been a long day. "The actual frames are apparently built into the walls and floors, but there are real, modern mattresses in the frames. D'you think I'd make you sleep on straw, or whatever-it-is they slept on back then? I'm not that mean."

"Says you, you Danger Room fanatic." Someone muttered, and they snickered, following Logan up the narrow stairs.

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For once, the damn powers are working in my favor… Rogue mused to herself, looking around at the two-room mini-suite she had snagged. In every other room, she had gotten 'flashes' from nearly every object; she could hardly stand in a room without receiving some image from something. This room, however, was 'quiet;' it was merely a bonus that it was quite pretty, and so cozily built it even made her feel at ease.

The first room seemed to just be a sitting room, with a wide, large window in the wall opposite the hallway door. The window, like all the other ones in the top floor, was heavily barred, secured against the hellish weather outside, but Rogue could see that the glass was a beautiful casemented window, which she'd bet was original to the building. The room was sparsely furnished; a large chair, nearly big enough for two, sat in the corner by the window, and a long narrow chest of drawers, built into the wall, ran along the left hand wall, nearly meeting the doorframe. Candles covered its surface; Rogue had them all lit, since there was no other source of illumination. Elaborately carved scrollwork framed the window and door and decorated the chest of drawers. The right hand wall was unadorned, merely serving to separate this small room from the equally small bedroom next door.

The bedroom itself was so small that it seemed to have been built around the bed frame. One of the "long" sides of the bed was barely a step inside the door, and there was an equally small space between the opposite side of the bed and the opposite wall. The headboard was actually a carved-out part of the wall, like the rest of the furniture, and had built-in candleholders, in which Rogue had placed lit candles. They gave the room a cozy glow, especially with the borrowed handmade quilted comforter covering the bed. The foot of the bed had tall corner posts which served as extra candleholders; they stretched higher than Rogue's head. The foot of the bed faced the window, which matched the window in the sitting room and was as wide as the wall permitted: from the bed, one could see hardly anything of the window's frame. This one, too, was barred over, but even the heavy metal bars did not distort the view. Well, what view there would be if there wasn't a freak sleet storm going on outside… Rogue thought, in a much better mood than she'd been before. Everyone was feeling better after a hot bath and fire-warmed clothes; they all had just come upstairs after a final drink with the locals, and were all settling in for the night.

There was a tap at the outside door; Rogue went through the bedroom door and crossed to the hallway door. Upon opening it, she found Remy lounging in the doorway, somehow looking like he'd just fallen off the cover of Cajun GQ, despite the lack of modern amenities

"You going to be all right in here, cherie?"he asked softly, brushing her hair behind her ear. "Most o' the rest of us have some roommate, or someone right next door, at least…"

She smiled at his concern. "Yeah, Remy, I'll be fine. Y'all are just a holler away, anyway, right?" She said. "This room… I don't know. It feels…safe. Warm. Familiar, somehow, though I've never seen a room with built-in furniture like this. I'll be fine."

"You sure?" His dark eyes searched her face intently. "You had some bad moments today wit' dose new powers o' yours…"

"I know. But this room doesn't bother me. At all." She said, and he sighed.

"All right, ma chere. But you need anyt'ing at all, you give a yell."

"All right. Good night."

"Bonne nuit." He dropped a kiss on her forehead, turned, and headed down the hall to his own room, which he was sharing with Piotr. Smiling, she turned, doused the candles in the sitting room, entered the bedroom, blew out the last candles, and snugged down beneath the warm comforter.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

And Rogue dreamed, dreamed deeply…

Rogue? She was no rogue, nay, no knave at all! No, her name was Bess, the daughter of Landlord David Dawson, who was the innkeeper by the high moors. The name was given her by her mother, who had been one generation removed from a Gypsy; she had died when Bess was eight. Bess' given name was the exotic "Arabessa," but she was a friendly, kind soul, and went by the far less imposing "Bess," a nickname given her by her father, who was a native of the shire where they lived.

In looks, she took after her mother far more than her father; she had her mother's rich, wavy black hair, not her father's blonde (well, he had been blonde before he went bald). Her mother's own deep, dark eyes stared out of her face, as opposed to her father's light blue. She had received her father's own paler complexion, however, her skin a pure alabaster, only a sheen of her mother's gold-toned skin coming through. Her lips were full and red, the deep red of a rose's heart, or of the good Finnish red wine her father kept in the under-cellar; he said he was saving it for her wedding-day.

Her wedding-day! She had hopes that day would soon come, King George's edicts or no. Good King George II, the titular monarch, she had decided, was a moron. "The man did nothing but ponder and plot a war with Spain for ten years," her father told her, "and then when he grew tired of that game, decided he'd give ruling a try." Having no practice at it, he was a miserable excuse for a monarch.

However, he was the only one they had, so she had better get used to the things she couldn't change. The problem for her, personally, was this: she had fallen in love.

Roarke had been a young, new-come lad in the town when she was a child; they had grown up good friends and playmates. When he was seventeen and she was fourteen, he left the village to sign up in King George's army—this was when War With Spain was still the Thing To Do. To the entire village's amazement, he had managed to become a cavalry officer in a relatively short time. His future was looking bright, and every time he visited his parents in the village, he'd make a special trip by the inn to see her, often clambering up to her window, as he'd done when they were small. He usually had some small trinket or other for her, and would oftentimes give her a little money for her to give to the poorest in the town—her sunny nature made 'a gift' out of what would usually be spurned as 'charity'; in this way, Roarke could quietly help those not so fortunate as he.

"But don't you want them to know of your generosity?" She'd asked him once.

"I don't need them to know. I only need for you to know," he'd replied, with a slow sweet smile, and he kissed her hand, his deep brown—red on black?—deep brown eyes warm and intense.

Then King George had tired of playing at War With Spain, and decided to rule. He kicked out the man who had been ruling in his stead, Sir Robert Walpole, a year and a bit ago, and of course that left his army with little to do, and no means of supporting themselves or their families. Many banded into groups of brigands; a few, like her beloved Roarke, turned to highway robbery. Some of these few were in the robbery only to amass a fortune for themselves; others, like Roarke, were trying to be the counterweight to the brigands and robbers by robbing those who were rich or wealthy or sometimes simply too greedy or powerful to be left alone. One good scare was all most of them needed to learn to have pity on those less fortunate. Those who needed more than one or two scares—

—Well, they tended to not be a problem for too long, one way or the other.

Bess was no fool, no; she knew Roarke was breaking the law, even if in a good cause. Highwaymen like him were hunted, good sport for the few Redcoat troops still maintained by the king. So after he was dismissed from the king's service, his visits to her had become by necessity more secretive. A little less money found its way to her hands to go to the poor, but he gave her a very small amount each time he visited to be saved away for their life together.

Her father silently kept track of the money Roarke left for Bess, hiding it in with the inn's own funds, lest his daughter be found with money she hadn't earned. He knew what was going on, of course; he was no idiot. When he heard a man's voice in the inn, quiet in the night, and knew he had no boarders at the time, he knew whose voice it was, speaking so softly.

It was simply fortunate that he liked Roarke, always had, and would like him as a son-in-law very much (if he weren't currently a wanted man). David Dawson made no comment on his daughter's decidedly odd relationship with the man, and did not mention her infrequent nighttime visitor. He did not push her to marry any of the 'eligible' young bachelors of the village, either, though, so his silence on all subjects marital was greatly appreciated by Bess.

Especially on a night like this, when Roarke was on a ride.

She crouched by the window in her sitting-room, intently watching the road that crested the moor, listening intently for his horse's hoofbeats.

What was this? Heavy bars across the window—?

She shook her head. She mustn't let the moonlight trick her eyes.

Suddenly she froze, like a rabbit scenting the hunting-dogs: was it—no, it wasn't—yes, it—no—yes, yes it was, it was his horse, galloping to her as fast as he could.

She rose, her rope of waist-length hair coiling around her, as she worked the intricate catch of the expensive casement window, and threw the panes wide.

Roarke's horse, black as ebony, entered through the gate in the front of the inn. Each step on the smooth cobbles echoed and re-echoed off the inn walls. The horse paused by the front of the house; she heard the flick of his riding-whip against the shutters at the front, a sure trick to spook anyone hiding into giving away their positions. Hearing no stir, he kicked his horse back into motion, guiding it along the inn-wall, whistling his 'all-clear' tune to her: "Black is the Color of My True Love's Hair."

Hearing the familiar melody, she moved into the window, where he could see her waiting. He moved his horse beneath her window, and simply looked at her a moment, drank in the sight of her, which gave her a chance to look at him, in return.

She was clad only in her plain nightgown, yards of fabric gathered into a simple shift; he, in contrast, was dressed well, well enough to avoid suspicion by his victims until it was too late for them to run. A fancy, curved cocked-hat rested on his long, chestnut hair; a fine cambric shirt, covered in Brussels lace at throat and wrists, was overlaid by a fancy-coat of deep red plush velvet, "a red to match your lips," he'd told her. He'd stolen the coat a-purpose from one of his victims. High cavalry boots went halfway up his thigh. They kept the fine doeskin breeches she'd given him looking as new as possible; she'd saved all of her money from her crafts to buy them from a peddler, and he treasured the sacrifices of pretty ribbons and Spanish chocolates the breeches represented.

"I've got a target pegged for midnight," he whispered up to her, his voice caressing in the night. "I've got to leave soon, but I couldn't go without seeing you again." He stood up in his stirrups, reaching his hand up to her. "Let me but feel your soft touch, my dearest, and I will fight through all the demons of hell to feel that touch again this night!"

She leaned over the windowsill, stretching her own small hand down to reach his; but the distance was too great, and only their fingertips brushed. She leaned a little further, desperate to touch him before he left, and the coil of her hair slid from behind her shoulder and poured down, reaching where her hands could not.

He sighed, and caressed her hair, which she had washed with herbs for him, hoping he wouldn't have a target picked this night…

He breathed in the scent of her hair, kissed it, then playfully tugged a strand, a longing look on his face. "Remember, my own dear 'Bessa, I'll come back to you before dawn, if I can. But if I cannot make it back by then, midnight tomorrow will see me by your side, whether I have to fight devils or angels to get there, for you see—" his face shone with intensity in the bright moonlight "—you see, my own dearest one, if this ride goes as it should, it will be the last one. I can come back and live the rest of my time on God's earth in love with you."

Her breath caught in her throat, and before she could get it back to speak, he turned his horse toward the westward moor, and was off.

She sighed, once, to herself, and closed the window, dreamily moving off to her bed.

She never noticed the 'ostler, Tim, creep round the corner of the inn, where he had been crouched, watching, burning with jealousy and anger. She never saw him go running off into the night—straight for the nearest garrison of King George's men, Roarke's former fellow-soldiers.

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Review Responses:

Eileen B.— Hey there! Glad to see you're alive, lol. And, yes, it –is- something that would make Mulder launch into a big theory speech—or is it? Dunh, dunh, DUN! And YOU update soon! Or else!

Cat2fat900—LOL. I actually don't despise Scott and Jean, but they're just so much fun to bash.. Glad you appreciated it. And, yes, Logan-threats are always enjoyable. Oh—you loved Kurt, Bobby, and Remy's song? It took me thirty minutes to come up with that drivel! It's good to know the time was well-spent. :)

catti—Heeeeey…. I knew something looked funny about that, but I couldn't place it! Thanks so much—that's been corrected now!

ishandahalf—Ish! Yes, bar scenes are always fun. I think its 'cos of those old film noir scenes in the bar, with the hazy lighting and cig smoke, you –knew- something nifty or dramatic was going to happen… yes, you and Cat2fat900 both are rocking out on the whole, 'you're skeptical about ghosts GUARANTEES you're seeing one soon!' thing. Love Murphy's Law, don't you? I've been on haunted tavern tours actually, they're entertaining. And there's an inn I have to be careful going in to—one of the ghosts there is eternally PO'ed, like, he makes blood cover the walls and ceiling and everything… Well, HE has it in for Irish-descended women… Yay me, right:) Ahh, I'm glad to know someone likes Old Robert, he's somewhat based off this old Scots-border college professor from England with whom I had several pints of Guinness last winter… And glad to know the old setup of 'we're broken down in the middle of nowhere with no supplies' works…! So, please read and review!

PeaceBeyondtheDoor—No, I really did have to rewrite the first chapter, your comment made me look at it again and I thank you :) I made you laugh out loud? Really? Where? And of course there's a wee bit o' drinking, they're young Americans of legal age in another country… :) Glad you liked it, let me know what else you like (or dislike)!

RebelRogue127—Woot a new reviewer! No, it's no relative of Casper… the ghosts in this story are quasi-friendly at best, I think. And you picked up on mysteriousness in Old Robert's village… good eye! Let me know what you think of this one!