Disclaimer: I don't own Evo or this song.
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'Bout ten years old, hide and seek
I found me in the closet
Ready or not I stumbled on
And opened up that box of
Yearbooks, letters, black and whites
A hundred, maybe more
Next thing I know my brothers and me
Got 'em scattered on the floor (Yeah)
"You're it!" Jacques LeBeau called as he tagged his older brother. The eight-year-old quickly scampered away, leaving ten-year-old Etienne to find Jacque's twin, Adrian. Etienne counted to fifty and went to find either of the younger boys. He found Adrian first.
"Adrian, you're it."
"Okay. Here I go. One, two, three…"
Etienne ran away as Adrian counted to fifty. He hid in the closet in his parent's room. Etienne started looking around as he waited for his brother to find him. A box in the back corner caught his attention. He opened th top of the old cardboard box and started looking through it.
"He tagged me, Et," he heard Jacques calling.
"Come here, guys!" Adrian and Jacques came through the doorway as Etienne lugged the box out of the closet. "Look at this stuff."
They all started grabbing things and pulling them out of the box. There were old high school yearbooks, some letters from various people, and dozens of pictures. The young woman in them looked familiar, but none of them knew why at first. Then they recognized her. It was their mother, but she had two strange white streaks in the front of her hair.
They started flipping through the pictures. They recognized some of the X-Men that they had met in several of the pictures. Some of them had their grandpa Logan. Many of them had an attractive young man with the demon eyes that made them realize that it was their father.
There was one of her, flippin' the bird
Sittin' on a Harley
And a few with some hairy hippie dude
Turns out his name was Charlie
Her hair, her clothes, her drinkin' smokin'
Had us boys confused
I'll never forget the day us nosey kids got introduced
"Look at this one, Et," Adrian handed him a picture. It was their mom sitting on the back of a motorcycle. She was flipping off he camera. The camera was a black Harley with flames and an Ace of Spades on the gas tank.
"Must be one of Dad's old bikes."
"Who's this?" Jacques was looking at a picture of a huge, hairy man with Rogue. He had the typical hippie garb on. On the other side of her stood a huge stage. It had obviously been at some outdoor concert somewhere.
"I don't know. I've never seen him before."
"Is this Mom?" The girl in question had her arm around Remy's waist with a beer bottle in her other hand. There were several more pictures of her with various types of alcohol in them, including one picture of Rogue drinking from a fifth of Jack Daniels. In another picture she was holding a cigarette in one hand while she kissed Remy.
"I didn't think that she drank or smoked."
"Wow. Look at this one!" Etienne glanced over Jacques shoulder to see a picture of Rogue wearing daisy dukes and a belly shirt. There were other pictures of her in ripped jeans and tight tops. Some pictures were even older and she was dressed in Gothic clothes with dark makeup. The most un-Rogue like one was where she was wearing a bright purple tank top and a denim mini skirt.
"Are you sure these are of Mom?"
"I don't know. I mean, the girl looks like her."
To Mama, 'fore she was Mama
In a string bikini, in Tijuana
Won't admit she smoked marijuana
But I saw Mama, 'fore she was Mama
"Is this Mexico?" Etienne glanced at the picture in question. It had the same girl wearing a skimpy black string bikini lying on a beach in some tropical paradise. There were several of her in the bikini, some with Remy and a drink in her hand. There was one picture of her smoking what looked suspiciously like a joint.
We put that box right where it was
And never said a word
But growin' up got hard just tryin'
Not to picture her
In anything but aprons, dresses
Mini-vans and church
Oh and Daddy would have whooped our butts
For diggin' up that dirt
The boys heard a door shut downstairs, indicating that Remy was home. They quickly put everything back in the box and put it back in the spot it was in. They had just finished and wandered out into the hall when Remy came up the stairs toward them.
"Hey, boys. Y' had a good day?"
"Yeah," the three chorused before running downstairs and chasing each other around in the back yard.
"We never tell anyone about this," Etienne told his brothers and they quickly agreed.
As the years went by, Etienne kept picturing the Rogue he saw in the pictures and comparing her to the Rogue that he knew. He was so used to seeing her in mom clothes. She always wore clothes more on the conservative side. It didn't help that she had driven a minivan for years when they were younger, just adding to the mom image.
As hard as it was to imagine her the way she was in the pictures, Etienne never dared to ask her about it. Remy would tan his hide for bringing it up. He had enough respect for his father to avoid that at all costs.
On Mama, 'fore she was Mama
In a string bikini, in Tijuana
She won't admit she smoked marijuana
But I saw Mama, 'fore she was Mama
We laugh and hang it over her head
Right above her halo
Her face turns red when we bring up
That tie-dyed Winnebago
She runs and hides and still denies
That hip high rose tattoo
She burned that box of forget-me-nots
When she found out we knew
After Etienne had graduated and gone off to college, he brought it up. Jacques and Adrian always were more than willing to chime in. They would tease her about the way she dressed and the things she did when she was young. Remy had tried to defend her at first, but ended up laughing along with the boys as he recalled the events that had happened when they were younger.
Rogue would blush furiously when they'd bring up her temporary home when her and a group of her friends had decided to take a long road trip. They had decided to make it look like it was tie-dyed. It was something that Rogue regretted to the day. She hadn't had any idea how stupid the thing had looked at the time.
Even now that her boys were married, she still denied that she had a tattoo. The boys had noticed it in several photos. It was a rose placed on her right hip. Rogue would hide whenever the boys brought it up, denying it even though it was there.
Rogue had burned the box of pictures after she found out that the boys knew back when Etienne was in college. She ad wanted to make sure that there was no way her boys could blackmail her. They were their father's sons after all.
About Mama, 'fore she was Mama
In a string bikini, in Tijuana
Won't admit she smoked marijuana
But that was Mama, 'fore she was Mama
And there's that one down in the Bahamas
But that was Mama, 'fore she was Mama
Rogue had kept one picture from the box. It was her in a white bikini on one of the many beaches in the Bahamas. She had her handsome Cajun on one arm and a huge smile across her face. It was from the first day of their honeymoon.