Chapter 11

"Well," Kitty observed, trying to look on the bright side, "at least we don't have to do Danger Room drills anymore."

The gym was . . . big surprise . . . bare metal and fluorescent lights. The floor was at least covered wall-to-wall with training mats. But there were no windows, no basketball hoops, no equipment. It was more prison than gym.

Rogue snorted. "Ah'd take the Danger Room any day over bein' up here. Less dangerous." She flicked another glance toward Amara, who was seated at the edge of the gym, still sipping at the mug of tea she'd brought from the dining room. Kitty only noticed because every time Rogue did it, she did it, too. It was making Kitty jumpy . . . or, maybe, everything in general was making her jumpy. She was a jumpy person, and this was not a relaxed and casual day.

"All right, guys! Form up!" Scott's voice, clear, strong, and positive, preceded him into the room. Even though she kind of hated training, Kitty felt herself relax the tiniest bit as she stepped into her 'spot' in a grid formation with the rest of the team. Scott's voice telling them to form up was so wonderfully, joyfully normal. Thank goodness for Scott.

"Okay," Scott began. "We're all thinking it, so we might as well say it. What did we have yesterday morning that we don't have today?"

"Homework!" Bobby yelled from the back of the room. Kitty, and a lot of other people, made undignified snorting noises as they tried to keep their faces looking appropriately grim and serious.

"If that's what you think, young man, you're sadly mistaken," said Hank. He and Storm were sitting out the drill with Amara, Storm with her injured leg stretched out in front of her.

"What else?" asked Scott.

"Windows," said Rogue. She'd gotten a lot more bugged about enclosed spaces since she'd learned to fly—this place had to be driving her nuts.

"Our house," said Roberto.

"A planet," said Amara, sounding queasy.

"Half a box of A&W root beer," said Sam, forlornly.

"Contact with our parents."

"A future."

"A swimming pool."

"A safe place to sleep."

"Mp3 player."

"You're all forgetting the most important thing," Scott told them. "My car."

There were nods of assent around the room. No denying that it had been a nice car. Kitty hoped, for Scott's sake (and Gambit's and Logan's and Sam's and for anyone else who was secretly in love with that car) that the soldiers would take good care of it and not let the paint get scratched.

"And what did we have yesterday morning," Scott continued, "that we do still have today?"

This one was a little bit harder. People took a second to think about it. Finally, Bobby offered, "We've still got the X-Jet. That's something. And our uniforms and stuff. And hey, I'm not dead, so a million points for that."

"We've still got the team," said Kitty. "I mean, we're still together. We didn't scatter and run away, and we didn't leave anybody behind. That's a pretty big deal, right?"

"Yes, it is," Scott told her. "It's a really big deal."

"We still got our powers," said Rogue. "Ah'd like to see 'em try'n take those away from us."

"And we've still got our freedom!" said Roberto. It came out louder than he seemed to have meant it too; he'd watched Braveheart more than was good for him. In a more subdued tone, he added, "Kind of, I guess."

"Yeah," Scott agreed. "I'm no more excited about being up here than you guys are, but let's face it . . . it's a lot better than where we could have been this morning."

"We've got our training," said Ray. "We practice, every day, for hours, on how to fight and work together and take care of each other, and . . . and, well, knowing those things might get to be pretty important, things going the way they are."

There was a sound by the doorway. Kitty whipped around, as did everybody else. Lance Alvers, who'd been trying to slip in unnoticed, failed to do so. His brown-eyed glare daring anyone to comment, he took a spot behind the back row of X-Men. Toad, Blob, Pietro, and Wanda followed behind him.

Kitty felt a warm, excited shiver run from the soles of her feet all the way up to the roots of her hair. Lance was here. He caught her eye as he looked over the team, and an embarrassed little smile quirked up the corner of his mouth. Without warning, her heart gave a real, physical little stutter inside her chest.

"Good to see you guys," Scott told them. There was no trace of gloating in his tone or in his expression. "Okay, everybody, we're starting off with some tai chi forms. Keep your focus and pay attention to your breathing."

Kitty straightened up and took a deep breath. She was glad Logan wasn't here to run this drill; he always knew when she wasn't concentrating, and this morning, tai chi was the last thing on her mind.

"Gambit. There you are."

Gambit looked up from the engrossing work of making his bed . . . or, at least, tossing sheets and a blanket onto a mattress, making sure they were all fairly flat and stacked in the right order . . . to meet the eyes of Professor Xavier in the doorway.

"Here I is," Gambit agreed. "What'd you need, Professor? Trainin' over already?"

"Not quite," Xavier answered. "Will you come downstairs with me? I need your help."

Gambit stood up and followed.

Xavier's power wheelchair was back on the planet with the rest of their crap. His new ride was just the emergency backup from Velocity, a plain, bare metal frame that could fold up and be stored without needing too much space. And he had to work to move it. His arms forced the wheels forward in a steady, unconscious rhythm. He got a lot of distance out of each push; from the waist up, Xavier was as well-conditioned as any of his students.

"We've actually got rather a lot that falls into your field of expertise," Xavier qualified. They rounded a corner Gambit hadn't explored yet and found an elevator. The station was handicapped accessible; Magneto had been expecting Charles to come here. "You may be very busy very soon."

"Well, y'know my rates." Even as the words fell from his mouth, they bothered him. When had he ever cracked a joke to Professor Xavier about being paid? To ease his own discomfort, he added, "I'll do most any'tin' for free Diet Coke."

Xavier chuckled. He hadn't picked up on the glitch; Remy took a second to once again be very, very thankful for that telepathic block around his head. "Scott has a plan," he started, and explained the outline of what they were going to do as Gambit followed him back to the conference room.

"So y'need me to get Four-Eyes into de press conference so he kin get arrested on camera?"

"For a start, yes. But if he's to have any hope of winning a trial, we need the records of our surveillance cameras, which are still in the house. Do you think you could come up with a way to get them out of there?"

"No problem."

"I don't want you to accept this assignment without thinking, Gambit. The mansion is surrounded by U.S. military, and—"

"Professor Xavier," Gambit interrupted, politely, firmly, and with the faintest tone of reproach that implied he'd taken insult, "I'm a Master T'ief of de Guild, an' a LeBeau to boot. I kin break into my own house."

"All the same, I would be happier if you'd agree to take Shadowcat with you."

"Kitty?" Gambit took a second to consider the possibilities, then grinned. "Professor, you give me Kitty Pryde, an' I steal you de keys of heaven offa Saint Peter's belt."

"Just the security footage will do fine."

Rogue had had the good sense to bring a towel down to the gym, to mop her face after training, but she handed it off to Kitty rather than use it herself. She hadn't pushed herself very hard in the drills. Soreness was something she hadn't had to deal with in a long time, and she wasn't enjoying her re-acquaintance with physical pain.

"Okay, next mystery," Ray announced. "Where do they keep the showers in this place?"

"Let's find them fast," said Jamie. "I feel disgusting."

"You smell disgusting," Ray told him.

"You smell really disgusting," Amara affirmed. "Can some non-disgusting person give me a hand? My head's spinning."

Sam offered her a hand. "Best you're gonna get," he told her cheerfully, pulling her to her feet. "Where to?"

"Back upstairs. The Professor's calling me. Thanks, Cannonball."

Rogue hesitated as Amara and the other younger students filed out of the room. Scott, the other teachers, and Kurt were already gone, along with Betsy and most of the Brotherhood. But Kitty was lingering. She was trying to be subtle about it, carefully and nonchalantly mopping her neck and face with the towel. Which would have been fine, except that Lance, at the drinking fountain on the other side of the room, was lingering, too.

Dang it. Rogue, fiercely protective of her own privacy, had the class to afford it to others (unlike some people she could name), but she didn't like Lance and didn't like that Kitty did. But Kitty was a grown-up and didn't need a chaperon. And, added a mercenary part of her that she wasn't sure she liked, if they were all going to be stuck on this station together for who-knew-how-long, they'd have to find a way to keep Lance and the Brotherhood under control, and Kitty could be very useful that way.

But Amara was the one Logan had told her to keep an eye on, and Amara was walking away, leaning on Sam's shoulder.

"You be careful," she breathed to Kitty, shooting a glance in Lance's direction. "Ah don't trust him."

"Who?" asked Kitty, opening her eyes wide in what she seemed to think was a look of innocent confusion.

"Don't even," Rogue warned. She left, not bothering to close the door behind her.

Sam and Amara were already on their way back upstairs, the way they'd come down from breakfast. Feeling like a stalker, Rogue followed behind them, at least until she saw them enter the dining room and heard Professor Xavier say, "Sit down, Amara." She was safe enough in there.

Rogue turned to follow the others up to the dormitory level, then hesitated. Dirty as she was, she didn't want a shower that badly. What she really, truly wanted was a few minutes alone.

It had been less than twelve hours since this whole mess had started, and every second of that time she'd been intently focused on some task or completely unconscious. It still felt like a dream, or a movie with the volume turned up too loud. She felt like she was playing a character in somebody else's life, somehow disassociated with the self that had to be still in bed in New York, dreading the last-minute homework-finishing rush that would arrive with the break of day.

She zipped back down the stairwell and let her feet drop underneath her outside the carpeted room where they'd all slept. Even that, now, was just a fond and distant memory. Logan and Jean gone, Sabertooth breathing down their necks, Scott stressed and worried and in over his head, Kurt tight-lipped and defensive . . . it had been a hard morning. She missed the brief hours she'd spent sleeping here, listening to the regular, reassuring breathing of her team.

She could smell blood in here. A side effect of having Logan in her head so frequently for so long was a hypersensitivity to scent. She couldn't smell with any more detail than an ordinary human, but she noticed it more. There'd be Logan-blood and Bobby-blood and Storm-blood and Gambit-blood in here, and the dried brown blood of the soldiers on the rear guard's clothes and skin and hair. And under it all was the cold, silvery, sterile stainless-steel smell of the recirculated air. Never so acutely had she missed her daily morning 'run' over the waters of the Atlantic.

She could see the Atlantic out the picture window. She walked across the room to stand right up next to the glass — or whatever transparent material was holding back the vacuum of space. It was glaring bright noon over North America; the sun was behind them. Rogue wondered absently if Avalon was casting a tiny shadow somewhere in Indiana.

She felt gooseflesh rise on her arms, and wrapped them around herself. Temperature didn't bother her, but this place, this shining, silent prison that was their only sanctuary from the ripped-up wreck of their home, felt cold . . . not just on her skin, but deep down in her heart and her gut.

She heard a footstep behind her on the short, dense carpet. Remy. Anyone who wanted to do her harm would have been absolutely silent, and anyone else on the team would have been louder. She didn't turn to look at him . . . just let her eyes keep exploring the planet below her as the soft footsteps approached. She felt warm breath in her hair. His big, strong, familiar hands fitted into the curve of her waist and held there for a moment, feeling her abdomen expand and contract as she breathed. Then they slid forward across her stomach, crossing around her, pulling her back until her weight rested against his chest. Her neck settled onto his shoulder, and she leaned her head against his jaw.

"Hey," he murmured, and Rogue closed her eyes, the better to feel the enticing shivers of heat and excitement and safety and happiness that were running along her spine and everywhere she could feel the warmth of him through their uniforms. He was bigger than she was; he breathed slower. She forced herself to slow down, meet his rhythm, inhale and exhale in deep, steady, measured beats. Her heart rate slowed down. She was calmer.

"Hey," she breathed back, her voice slow and languid and dreamy . . . like they were waking up on a Saturday morning with sunlight streaming through the window. She loved how he could make her feel like that, even here, even now. Her eyes drifted open. She was still surrounded by cold steel and cold black space and a cold far-off planet full of cold hateful people, but encircled in Remy's arms everything was warm.

One of his hands slid up to cover hers, coaxing it open so he could press her fingers into his palm. "Vache sacrée, cherie, you freezin'."

"Didn't have time to grab my jacket on the way out."

He brought her hand up to his mouth and breathed on it, chafing the fingers to stimulate blood flow.

"Sure Ah kin just pop back and get it, though," she added. "Ah mean, just look. Not that far. If you squint, you kin see the house from here."

He chuckled, fitting her hand underneath his chin to press against the warmth of his throat. "An' get a good view of de tanks all over our lawn."

"We're probably gonna have to re-sod the whole thing. What a headache. The army better at least pay for the damages."

"Oh, dey will. If dey don' wanna write a check, den maybe dey notice one or two t'ings go missin' in de next couple weeks. Dey'll pay for it. Don' worry."

The arm still around her stomach tightened a little, protective and possessive. Normally, Rogue had no problem with Remy holding her tighter, but without meaning to she flinched and gasped. He loosened his hold at once. "Bruised up?" he asked gently.

She nodded. "Just a little."

He let go of her hand and took her shoulder, gently turning her to face him. His hands met at the base of her throat, where her uniform zipped shut. He took hold of the zipper pull with one hand and the collar of the uniform with the other. Rogue felt her heart speed up, more fear than excitement. She caught one of his hands with hers. "Remy . . ."

"No funny business. I promise. I just wanna see."

He waited a long second, until she gave him a brief, embarrassed nod as permission, then gently drew the zipper straight down to her navel. The sound of the teeth coming apart sliced through the hum of the climate system that was the only other noise in the room. The cool air rushed inside her clothes, raising goosebumps on her skin.

He drew the sides of the uniform apart, exposing her chest and stomach. All she had on underneath was a plain, black Nike jog bra, the same style she always wore for training. For underwear, it covered a lot, but the sense of exposure and vulnerability hit her hard all the same. She felt flushed and almost shaky, and her heart had begun to beat so hard she could see it, a tiny flicker of movement in the black fabric.

"Hey," she whispered, following his eyes to their careful examination of her chest, "you said no funny business." A lot of her was afraid that he'd been lying . . . and a part of her almost wished he had been.

His old, wicked smile drew up the corner of his mouth. "Be rude if I didn't stare just a little bit. Don' want you t'think y'ain't got nothin' worth starin' at." His warm red eyes flicked up to meet hers, set to charm her in case she was mad. Then their gaze dropped again, past the bra to the multicolored skin of her upper abdomen.

The patriot had hit her just under the ribcage and plowed her straight backwards into the ground before it exploded. The deep-tissue bruise from the impact was wider than her hand, the top edge of it disappearing under the band of her bra. Most of it was a solid mass of blue-purple, but the edges exploded in riotous swirls of lavender, lime green, jaundice yellow. And punctuating the skin all around it were the smaller, fainter bruises left by the bullets, like the polka dot markings of some new pox.

She heard him suck in his breath between his teeth. His fingers explored the bruise, the touch as light and delicate as if he were handling a top-of-the-line security system or a ticking bomb.

He smiled again, but it was sad, ironic. "You look for all de world like I been beatin' on ya."

"Nah," Rogue rebutted, trying to smile. "Ah'm just clumsy is all."

The eyes flicked up again, flashing a little with intensity that bordered on anger. "Not funny, chère."

Rogue dropped her eyes, acknowledging that no, it hadn't been.

The hands fitted into the curves of her waist again, this time under the uniform, and he pulled her gently toward himself. "Ma chère, ma Rogue, ma bien-aimée. It'd make a man crazy, seein' his femme ripped up like dat."

"It's not that bad," Rogue insisted. "It'll heal. Ah'm lucky it didn't hit high enough t'crack my ribs."

Gambit made a half-hearted attempt at a chuckle, but it resulted in no more than a twitch of his mouth and a contemptuous breath of air. "You're lucky, huh? Dis you bein' lucky?"

"Ah ain't dead. Ah'm with mah team. So yeah. I'm lucky."

One of his hands strayed up to her face, tucking her errant white streak back behind her ear. The backs of his knuckles brushed carefully along her temple, her cheekbone, down to her chin, his eyes noticing every smudge of congealed blood under her skin. "When did you get t'thinkin' dat de universe owed you so little?"

Rogue shifted her head a little, catching his eyes with hers, drawing his attention to her instead of the bruises. "Universe ain't never given me much more," she observed, plainly, without self-pity. She reached up and fitted her hand to his jaw, feeling rough, prickly stubble reach her skin through the fabric of her glove. "Except you."

He took her hand before she could start stroking his face; Rogue felt herself just the slightest bit annoyed at the faint rejection. "An' me, just me, dat's enough for ya? Your friends shot up and your home destroyed and a price on your head . . . none a'dat bothers you, even a little bit? You willin' to just lie down an'take it."

"Ah'm strong enough to take it."

"You shouldn't have to be."

She suddenly found herself with her face trapped between his hands. The gloves were a fine, lightweight knit, just enough to keep his skin off of hers, and she could feel through them the calluses that their constant wearing had yet to erase.

"Rogue," he breathed, drawing her face close to his. "As long as I've known you, the world's thrown everyt'in' it's got at you. An' I've seen you wanna fight. But you bite it back, every time, over an' over again, year after year. Because Charles Xavier told you to."

"Because it's the right thing t'do, Remy. Somebody's gotta be the example."

"For how long? When's it gonna be over, just you and me, safe?"

"Ah dunno. Someday."

"Maybe I don't wanna wait dat long."

He combed all her hair back, the loose mess of curls he always said was so fascinating, and though his touch was still gentle, it was firm now, the muscles of his hand and forearm tense.

"I wish you could fight. I wish I didn't have to see you believin' you somehow deserve all dis, like you should have to be humanity's whippin' girl, like dat's lucky, like it's fair. You got your whole life stolen out from under you. Where's your anger?"

She recoiled a little bit under his grip, tossing her head free. "Of course Ah'm angry! Of course Ah wanna split the heads of the sons'a . . . of the guys that took our home. But we can't fight like that. Y'know we can't. That's just gonna lead t'more fightin', and more fightin', and more people's homes taken and families broke up and lives destroyed. Yeah, Ah want it to stop. Ah want t'be normal and safe. An' if Ah have t'hold my temper 'till the sun goes out t'get it, then that's what Ah'll do." Her hands found the zipper of her uniform and drew it closed as her gaze dropped away from his. The fire in his eyes scared her.

Gambit's hands fell away from her face. "An' how long do we wait, chère? When do we decide enough's enough?"

"Ah don't know!" She heard panic edge into her voice, cracking it. "Stop it."

"Bébé, Xavier's been tryin' for years to talk himself a world full'a peaceful coexistence. Scott an' Jean been standin' up as examples since dey were kids. Every year more X-Men comin' t'join de team from all over de world. An' when's any of it made de world any better for us? Someday we might all have t'sit down and talk about what we're gonna do if peaceful resistance flat-out don'work."

"It will work."

"How do you know?"

"Ah just do. It has to."

"But you never stopped t'think about what happens if it doesn't."

Rogue recoiled farther, leaving open, cold air between the two of them. She didn't give herself time to think before the next words spilled out of her mouth; they just came, and she knew they were justified. "Has Magneto been talkin' to you?"

"No," he snapped, and it was a lie, and she know it. She caught her breath, and couldn't seem to get it un-caught.

He stopped himself, turned away from her to pull himself together. "Yes," he corrected. "He talked. Paid de stuff he owes me. Asked questions about de team."

"And you told him?" If she'd had time to think about it, she'd wonder how she could talk with this pressure building up inside her lungs and throat and heart, no escape for the air and the blood. He'd lied to her. And she wasn't angry . . . she knew anger; anger was her old friend; anger made her blood boil and her breath come in fierce, sharp snorts through her nose. This felt like drowning, in deep, deep water, that blue-black world of crushing pressure farther down than anyone else could dive. He'd lied. He'd slipped, and he'd lied. To her.

"Rude t'just stand in silence in front of a man who's been payin' you good wages. I don't hate him, chère, an' I ain't scared of him. As long as we all playin' on de same team—"

"We are not on the same team as him! He hurts people!"

"People hurt us."

"That don't justify what he does."

"What, savin' all our butts an' givin' us a place to hide? Dat's not strikin' me as destructive behavior. But all dose men an' women who swore to protect de rights of U.S. citizens . . . like us, just for an example . . . shot Bobby in de gut while he was runnin' away. If I had t'pick my team right now, I wouldn't much want to be teamin' up wid dose people. But if somebody were to say t'me, 'Let's go show 'em who dey messin' wid, let's take back what's ours' . . ."

"You're not thinkin' straight. You're mad."

"Yes, I'm mad. An' if you were thinkin' straight, you'd be mad, too."

"Oh, Ah'm the one who's not thinkin' straight, just cuz Ah ain't thinkin' that smashin' a few heads is gonna make everything go back to normal?"

"Well, take a look at where lettin' our own heads be smashed has got us. Dis look like normal to you?" He caught her arm—he was too quick for her; he'd always been—and turned her to the window. Her reflection looked back at her, its face marred and mauled by the purple circles.

"Look at yo'self," he ordered, and his voice was fierce and harsh. "Look at dis. If even one a'dese marks had been my fault, Scott, Logan and Kurt woulda kilt me by now. Dey love you. Dey'd protect you if I hurt you. So who's protectin' you from Xavier when he lines you up to take dis kind of abuse?"

"Ah don't need protectin'."

"Non," he snapped, sarcastic. "You just 'clumsy'."

"The professor didn't do this."

"Didn't stop it, though, did he? An' de only reason all dem marks are just bruises an' not big bloody gaping holes is de powers Mystique give you. She's done more lookin' out for your welfare dan Xavier's doin' right now, with him forever takin' de side of dem as keeps doin' dis."

She twisted out of his grip, away from the reflection, to meet his real eyes and the grim set of his mouth and jaw. "Don't you dare," she hissed, feeling her teeth grit together, harder than she meant them to, "Don't you dare bring Mystique into this. Don't you start twisting around what Ah say. And don't you say one more word against Professor Xavier."

"Why not? You so scared of de idea dat he might just be plain ol' wrong?"

She was angry now, and the anger was hot and familiar, giving her power but taking away her ability to control it. If she'd been more of the girl Professor Xavier expected her to be, rational and self-disciplined, she would have taken a deep breath, said something like I know you're angry . . . so am I, and I'm scared, and I don't know what's going to happen but I know that I need you with me if I'm gonna get through it. She would have remembered that Remy had already had one life cut out from under him, and understood how desperate he was to not let it happen again. She would have remembered that the end of the world was less important to her than Remy being angry at her.

But anger made her think only one thing: I'm right. Her tongue wouldn't cooperate, wouldn't frame the unshakable argument that she knew was in there somewhere, the reason that Professor Xavier's way would always be right and Magneto would always be wrong. She knew it was there, but she couldn't quite spit it out correctly, enough to break through his stubbornness and make him understand.

But they were Rogue and Gambit, weren't they? They didn't need words.

She knew absolutely that the second she got through his defenses and made him feel what she was feeling, he'd back down. He had to. He'd absorb her thoughts and her convictions, becoming her a little, the same way that she became anyone she touched, and this argument would be over. So she reached for him, aggressive and fierce, grabbing the front of his uniform and yanking him towards her. He came unresistingly . . . probably so sure that he was right that he just assumed she'd be the one whose mind was changed. She planted her lips on his, hard, willing him to swallow up her energy and be changed by it back into the man she knew.

It was as though she'd set herself on fire.

Not nice, exciting, metaphorical fire that people used to describe kisses in silly paperback books. Like actual fire, involving matches and gasoline. It started in her mouth and zapped like an electric shock through every nerve in her body, searing. It tasted like Remy, but it burned, and hurt, so intensely that she forgot that she was the one holding onto him and screamed against his mouth for him to let her go.

His hands swept up in a double inside block, pushing her arms out and away, and her hands convulsed open to release the fabric. The kiss broke; she staggered and almost fell. Every muscle trembled. Her lips and cheeks and throat still burned, like the after burn of hot sauce that had been about three alarms too many. She put a hand to her lips and was startled to find them soft; she'd expected blackened flakes of dead skin to crunch onto the tips of her fingers.

Across from her, Remy was leaning on his knees and panting hard. So was she. The magnitude, and the implications, of what had just happened between them were slowly emerging into their minds. But before terror could set in, the thought flashed across Rogue's mind: You stubborn idiot, this is your fault, you should have listened to me . . . and as she glared up at him she saw his eyes go hard and cold, like rubies, shutting her out.

He straightened up, getting his breath back, and she saw his left hand unconsciously rise to his face to wipe away the burn on his mouth. Then he turned around and left. Without one word. Without one backward glance.

Rogue dropped onto the carpet and gasped until her head spun.

She knew what needed to be done. Compared to the possibility of losing Remy, personal dignity became a joke. She had to fly after him, right now, find him wherever he tried to hide from her and tell him flat-out that she was sorry, she'd been wrong . . .

But . . . but she wasn't. They'd been fighting about everything Professor Xavier believed in, everything she believed in. If Remy had decided that he liked the idea of Magneto's war than the Professor's dream, could she follow him into the ranks of the villains, fight against her own teammates, just because she loved him?

She'd told him once, twice, a dozen times, that she'd follow him wherever he needed to go. And she had. She'd stolen, sneaked, lied and fought when he'd needed her to. But in the end, she'd always paid for the shoes. She'd always stayed the Good Guy. Could she follow him to the other side of the line, if that was where he chose to go?

No. Of course not. Never in a million years.

But if he went, how in the world was she supposed to live without him?

You did it before, said the voice of anger in her head. Can't you do it again?

No. No. No no no no no no no. I didn't know what living without him even was, before.

Rogue.

She sat up straight, swallowing hard and scrubbing imaginary tears from her face. It was Professor Xavier's voice.

Rogue, Shadowcat, Nightcrawler, I need you in the conference room. And if someone can find Gambit, please; he's shut me out again.

It was just an ordinary telepathic call, not a conference, so she couldn't hear any of the replies. She stood up and checked her reflection in the window. Her skin wasn't burnt, her hair wasn't messed up. Other than the bruises, she looked fine. With any luck, the Professor would be too preoccupied to tell that anything had happened. She scrambled to her feet and swooped out into the hallway, checking both directions to see if Gambit were still out there.

He wasn't. But Sabertooth was.

He was coming from the direction of the vehicle hanger. Rogue stalled in midair, wary. Had he done something to the Blackbird? She hadn't been that far away; she would have heard it if he'd smashed something, and 'rewiring the ignition system' seemed a little too subtle to really be his style.

He smiled at her, and with a shiver down her spine Rogue got a sense of what frozen steaks felt like. "Leave our plane alone," she told him.

"Whatever you say, Princess," he shot back.

Rogue turned and shot up the corridor.

French Lesson!

Vache sacrée: Holy cow.

Ma bien-aimée: My well-beloved.

Femme: Woman (also 'wife').

Thank you so much, all my awesome and darling reviewers! You're keeping me going on this massive and overwhelming project . . . I can't tell you how much I appreciate the encouragement, feedback, and support.