un_gloved | (no subject)

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Rogue's room had the air of one that was unlived in. It had been almost half a year since she'd begun sleeping at other people's places. Mostly Spike's, a few times Wolverine's, but almost never in a room alone. She spent time her in her room, and kept things there, but it didn't feel the way it had when it had been constantly a mess and fully hers.

That kind of thing seemed to be going around. At least, her room wasn't the only thing that felt half-alien and unfamiliar.

After more than two hours of not moving, Rogue's eyelids twitched. Her lashes fluttered open and she took in the room with a calm, steady gaze. Not sedated- not any more- although a certain lethargy clung to her initial movements, turning her head and and shifting against the mattress, pushing herself up on her elbows and frowning a little as her head fell forward, heavy.

"Mnh."

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"Ah c'n feel it," she said quietly, opening her eyes, picking absently at the bedsheets.

"That 'n Ah don't think you've ever stuttered in front o'me in your life." She looked up at him, scared and trying not to be.

"The things Ah was sayin', it... I was afraid for somebody? Tryin' to help someone. But-" Her brow furrowed and she dragged a hand across her face, trying to smooth it out.

"That wasn't Creed. Ah heard his voice but it was- I was hearin' it, it wasn't... the memories weren't his." She was aware of how deeply uncomfortable Gambit was. It didn't make her feel any better, but it made her somehow much more secure in the feeling that she was angling toward the right thing. That wasn't a good sign for their relationship or whatever memories she was missing, but it also didn't mean she could back away from them. She slid her fingertips along her temples and into her hair, closing her eyes again, trying to utilize the techniques the Professor had taught her so long ago, and that Emma Frost had been reinforcing more recently. To not dig, to sift, to try to be open to what was there without being overwhelmed by it.

So when it hit her from a purely intellectual angle that clearly the source of the dark impenetrable memories was the person next to her, she couldn't help but feel startled and a little betrayed, though not by him.

Not yet.

She opened her eyes and slid her hands down to cover her mouth with the both of them, and looked at Gambit with an expression of dawning horror. How the hell was she going to explain this? And how was he?

"...It's you," she said, barely whispered, "isn't it? Oh, God, it's you."

Rogue stared at Sean for a prolonged moment, before she shook her head once and started to extricate herself from the bed.

"You're easier to withstand when you're barking out threats like a good little Interpol agent, Cassidy" she said, voice suddenly and drastically devoid of accent.

"This saccharine garbage is too much."

Rogue blinked a few times, and she stared at Emma a little harder. Her hackles were starting to raise.

"A crush? He's the first person Ah ever loved, Emma, 'n th'only one Ah ever kissed outta passion- back home. It ain't some school-yard hang up Ah'm tryin'a blow up into somethin' more. Ah know what Creed's thoughts feel like, and this wasn't him, but he was in it, somehow. 'n Ah don't think it had anythin' to do with Wolverine!"

Emma just watched her, apparently unfazed, and nodded calmly. "Alright," she said, "you're the only one who would know." Unfortunately. Helping Rogue never failed to make her more irritable over her loss, although even that was preferable to breaking down over it. "What did it feel like, then? You were concerned for the safety of someone, several people. What else?"

"Ah dunno, it's all a jumble," Rogue said, now thoroughly agitated and ill-equipped to work around it.

"But Ah heard Sabretooth's voice 'n Ah didn't know where Ah was, but Ahg ot- scared, Ah guess, because Ah coulda' sworn the Marah..." The wind left her metaphorical sails and she stared at the wall as threads of information tried to spool together in her mind.

"....The Marauders?"

I don't react. I can't react, not when everyt'ing she's dredging up is stuff I never anticipated needing a reaction to. I was s'posed to be long gone out o' de X-Men's lives by de time all dis came out, but dat's not exactly an option dese days. Nowhere to run to.

Dat don't stop me from throwing a quick glance over my shoulder just in case.

"When did it happen?" I ask quietly, and it isn't just my way of keeping her talking, keeping her from realizing dat what she's remembering might be familiar for all de wrong reasons, keeping her from hating me for at least a couple more minutes. I really do want to know.

Emma slowed, stopped, looked quizzically at Rogue. That particular set predated her affiliation with the X-Men, but she was familiar enough to find that — and, moreover, Rogue's reaction — interesting.

"Does Gambit have some special association with them?" she asked. "An especially traumatic incident, a particularly bad fight, something you might inadvertently have found yourself reliving?"

Sean's reacting to her movements, heading closer in case she needs help, before he even processes her words, at which point he slows considerably.

"Excuse me?"

He knows that voice. It's a pretty rare thing these days that he can say that when somebody recognizes him, so when it actually happens, it doesn't take long for it to be obvious.

"You heard me," Mystique replied, "every syllable. Don't pretend like you didn't, it does us all a disservice. Yes," she added, smiling thinly as she fished around for and grabbed up something resembling a sweater.

"The last time I saw you, you were a pup for Interpol. It's nice to see you mature, of course, but only in an abstract, promise-of-the-future sort of way." She finished slinging the sweater on and looked at him with a narrow, leery gaze.

"She's better than I thought, really. You have no idea, do you?"

Rogue shook her head, tilting her chin down into her hand.

"Oh God forgive me," she whispered, dredging up fortitude enough to look Gambit in the eyes. It wasn't easy.

"I kissed you. The last thing I did before I woke up here was kiss you."

It only takes a few more words before Sean makes the connection, stunned recognition flickering quickly across his features before he replaces it with an all-business scowl, his back straightening.

"I'm sure we both could've done without e'er crossin' paths again," he says, trying to remember that, whoever's words those are, it's still Rogue saying them. Not another person, just some shadow left over from that baffling curse of a power of hers. "What in the hell're ye talkin' 'bout, Darkholme?" he asks, carefully keeping the question from bleeding into how he spits the name, hiding any scrap of doubt he's got about it.

Heh. Even when she's already got me out on a wire wit'out a net, ready for de absolute worst, she still finds new ways to catch me off guard. A God-given talent, dat.

"Wit' de way t'ings stood between us when I left, always figured a fight was more likely," I say, and I don't actually mean to say it out loud. But no... if she got my memories back home, den dat part likely came right after.

"Don't be... you're not de one who needs to be lookin' upstairs for forgiveness, Rogue. If I was gonna be damned, I can't think of any other way I'd want to go."

And it was always inevitable.

"That Rogue is my daughter," she replied, with a calm born of a desire to really savor the exchange.

"That I raised her to be everything that I was and so much more, with that gift of hers. And that we were doing just fine until Charles Xavier and his X-Men," she said, spitting the name right back at him, "stole her from me. If you think we had bad blood before, boy-o, oh, now it's personal."

"No," she said earnestly, leaning forward and reaching out to catch his hand, "don't say that, not ever. We've all done wrong, we make mistakes, 'n someone's gotta pay for 'em, an' for the longest time it- it feels like it's everyone else, but in the end it's us. 'n whatever you did, whatever Ah'm fightin' pieces of up here, it doesn't negate all the good you've done. You're an X-Man, Remy, that counts for somethin'."

What good?

"Non," I say, shaking my head, but I can't bring myself to pull my hand away. "Rogue, I ran wit' you guys for a couple months 'fore I came here, it was never supposed to be a permanent t'ing. Maybe it mighta turned into dat, but... not for me. I'm no X-Man. Even here, when dere are no X-Men, I'm an outsider."

And yeah, maybe dat's only my fault, maybe I could change it if I made an effort, but it's best to get her used to de idea now, before she goes and wins dat fight in her head.

"An' why in blazes should I believe you over a woman I've known f'r years?" Sean asks, body instinctively relaxing while his guard goes up, ready for anything. From the few scraps he's gleaned of the last few years of his life, what little he's managed to piece together into something that makes sense, it was already personal between them. "This is what ye do."

It stung fiercely to hear, and she felt stupid for a moment. Her fingers curled under her palm, sliding off of his hand, and she looked down. He had a point. She was always aware of the fact that he'd barely been with the X-Men back home, but after the time they'd spent on the island, and the time she'd known him back home, it was impossible to think of him that way.

Liken an acquaintance. Or like she didn't know him. She shook her head and fanned her fingers out to cross his again, squeezing his hand and turning her face back toward him.

"Maybe so. I was the same. They hated me when I joined up, even the professor didn't like me. Thought I'd be in 'n out 'n they became my family. 'n maybe that hasn't happened for you yet, so Ah- I can't expect you to... feel the same, but I know the capacity for good you got in you. I know it, even if you don't."

"I know he has... history with Sinister," Rogue said, reluctantly, because it wasn't really her secret to tell.

"But the rest of it, no. Or, I dunno. He ain't big on sharing."

A very slow smirk curled her lips and she planted her hands on the end of the bed, leaning against it.

"Not a reason I can think of. The beauty of it is, it doesn't matter. Believe me or don't, it's still true. And you can't touch me, here."

"No, I don't imagine he would be," Emma said. That was hardly surprising. Who among them was? It was a trait she couldn't fault any of them for. "But all the same, Rogue, I think you're going to have to speak to him. If you can get to the bottom of what's caused this incident, that might prove very helpful."

"Says who?" Sean grits, glowering. "Rogue's a tough lass." An empty threat unless she forces his hand, to be sure, but they're all that he's got right about now.

"You know de capacity I got for everyt'ing," I say, but it's not much of a rebuttal. 'Specially not wit' her hand on mine and me makin' no moves to change dat situation.

She don't know what she knows.

Rogue let out a breath that, under different circumstances, could have been a laugh, and shook her head.

"Ah don't know what I know," she sighed, "which ain't anything new. Remy... what are these memories of?"

"De past," is all I say, but I don't go any further than dat. It don't matter what kinda looks she gives me, what she says, dis ain't anything I can explain to her. To anyone, really, but 'specially not to her. Let her find out if she has to, but I can't tell her what I did. "One night dat changed me, and not for de better. If you really care 'bout me, Rogue, you'll leave it at dat."

Rogue didn't move for a moment, then ducked her head and nodded. She swallowed, clamping down on her breath, wholly unwilling to let herself so much as tear up. It was difficult.

"'m sorry," she whispered. "This shouldn't even- it wouldn't even be in mah head if Ah coulda just-"

She sank back against the wall and turned her face away so she could make a go at wiping away the traitorous tears that were trying to roll down her cheeks. It meant she had to take her hand away from Remy's, and she tried to think of it as not a meaningful gesture in any way.

"Things were endin' so fast 'n we couldn't- we'd failed, the X-Men had failed, we couldn't stop what was happenin' 'n Ah just..." She covered her face with one hand for a moment until she realized she wasn't going to be getting her composure back. She slid it behind her neck, knees drawing up, folding into herself protectively, and tried her hardest to manage an apologetic, sad sort of smile.

"Ah just couldn't stand the thought of dyin' without ever havin' touched you. I'm sorry."

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