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[un_gloved]

As a sort of concession to circumstance, Rogue hadn't spent much time alone, lately. She was always with someone, or at practice or in the rec room. She didn't even sleep in her room anymore, though most of her things were still there. It was the smarter way to play it, and she was mostly used to it after life at the mansion, but her greatest option for being alone was gone, and she was missing it more than ever.

Having passed over a truly spiteful number of books on aviation and a few issues of Superman, she'd slipped A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court off the shelf and curled up in the corner of the sofa with it. She'd read it when she was first at Xavier's, something the Professor had suggested she'd like. She'd been skeptical. And wrong.

She only made it a few chapters. The jukebox was quiet, no one was watching a film reel. In fact, she was totally unaware of anyone else in the room. It probably should have been indicative of how out of it she was, but she'd missed that, too. She fell asleep, book on the cushion beside her, arms curled across her stomach and forehead tilted against the back of the couch. It was the deepest she'd slept in days.

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[un-gloved.livejournal.com]

She sucked in a sharp, quiet breath, affronted. Not that Belladonna wasn't familiar with Remy Lebeau's audacity, but it was stunning to be faced with, now.

"Let go of me! You t'ink you can play dese games wit' me, you be very mistaken, mon mari."

[thedevilhisdue]

I don't know what to do. She's looking at me and seeing de boy she grew up wit' and nuthin' else is getting through and I don't know how to fix it. Maybe if some part of me didn't, in some messed-up way, love both o' de women I'm currently dealing wit', it'd be a little easier to go through my options, but as it stands...

"Alright, alright, you win," I say, trying to at least look relaxed as I make like I'm surrendering and take a step back from de couch. My grin might be forced, but it's still one dat knows it's got a job to do. "How 'bout a different game, den?"

[un-gloved.livejournal.com]

"Why should I," she demanded, standing, too furious and focused for their surroundings to have sunken in yet.

"You wan' play games? There be plenty of fool girls around be more den willing to let you! I swear to God, I don't know what goin' through that head of yours!"

[thedevilhisdue]

"Come on, Belle, humour me," I say, laying it on thick as honey as I step around de couch, leaning over de back of it to watch her. I've got an idea and no clue if it'll do anything or even make t'ings worse, but I got to do somethin'. Hopefully before she figures out something's wrong on her lonesome and gets real angry.

[un-gloved.livejournal.com]

She crossed her arms imperiously but the moue her lips settled into was a tell-tale sign that she was caving.

She being Belladonna, not Rogue. Rogue wouldn't have known how to moue if her life depended on it. She wasn't calculating enough.

"...Dis better be good," she told him, sitting on the arm of the couch and watching him with a hooded gaze that was trying to remain unimpressed.

[thedevilhisdue]

"Oh, it is," I promise, taking a step back and grinning even wider to cover how much it throws me, hearing dose words in dat voice, seeing dat look on Rogue's face. "Trust me, you'll never see it coming. We just need to go for a teensy walk, de two of us."

[un-gloved.livejournal.com]

Her eyebrows lifted a little, but she didn't look immediately resistant. Absconding places at night with her affianced rarely led to disappointing experiences. But she was still being unamused, couldn't let him run wild yet.

"Then lead de way, cher," she said, not moving an inch.

[thedevilhisdue]

I take another step back, but it's a slow one and I fake a pout. Least de longer dis goes on, de easier it is to get into de act, but who even knows what it's doing to Rogue? Wherever she is.

"C'mon, Bella, you got to be un petit peu more interested den dat."

[un-gloved.livejournal.com]

She shook her head the tiniest bit, slowly, one corner of her lips angling fractionally up.

"...Fine," she sighed, as if put out, and started after him with a sway that was entirely purposeful and well learned.

"Someday, you goin' get in real trouble wit' me, you know," she told him, lifting a finger to drag across his chest.

[thedevilhisdue]

Oof.

"B'lieve me, you got no idea," I mutter, and it ain't easy to keep up a show at a reminder like dat of what I spent so long running from.

Good thing I'm such a professional. Slipping an arm around her shoulder (and alright, maybe dere are a couple parts of dis dat aren't tous méchants, but not enough to really count for anything), I lead us on out of de rec room, not in any sort of rush. Now hopefully she doesn't realize she knows her way around here enough to know I'm steering her towards de bathrooms.

[un-gloved.livejournal.com]

Well, that was better. She brought a hand up to rest at the small of his back, smiling slightly.

"Don' pout, Remy," she drawled as they went, turning her head a little so when she did, her voice was directly in his ear, "you always have a certain uncanny ability to make t'ings up to me..."

[thedevilhisdue]

I let out a slow breath at dat, since it's de reaction what gets me in de least trouble, long-term. Twirling a piece of her hair (white, in case dere was any doubt as to who I'm doing dis for) to distract her as much as me, it's a quick stroll down an empty hall to the end of de line. "Here's to hoping I break dat streak later as 'posed to sooner, den. Ladies first."

[un-gloved.livejournal.com]

The tactic failed because she was distracted by the door as it opened, or more accurately what was behind it. She frowned as she stepped inside, at the stalls, the tile- and then him.

"I know you be an exhibitionist, Remy, but at least you usually got some cla..."

She was staring past him at the mirrors behind the row of sinks. It was a startled, uncomprehending look that greeted her in return- wide green eyes, lips that were the wrong shape, a face that was the wrong shape. It was a pretty face, that she felt an immediate and fierce hatred for. The face flushed, as she felt herself flush.

"What," she ground out, jaw tight as she tried to reign in the confusion. The girl in the mirror's mouth moved when her own did. She back up slightly, shoulders smacking into the stall partition, before she stalked a few steps forward, shoving his shoulder out of the way in one terse movement.

"What de hell is dis?!"

[thedevilhisdue]

And here come de fireworks. Time to make it or break it.

"It's you," I say, snapping back to dead serious as I reach down to grab her arm. "It's you, Rogue. Think about it, 'bout where you are."

[un-gloved.livejournal.com]

"No," she gasped sharply, jerking away from the mirror, from him, though she didn't manage to dislodge his grip.

"Why you callin' me dat it's not- No," she repeated again, significantly louder, voice edging toward ragged, almost shrill.

"This can't be- this can't be! What is this?" She turned back on him, eyes alight with rage.

"What did you do?"

[thedevilhisdue]

Well, dis could certainly be going worse. Somehow. Probably.

"Woke you up, remember?" I say, standing a little more defensively out of necessity, but not letting go of her. If I keep calm, hopefully some of it'll rub off on her 'fore dis start to hurt, but it's tough to tread lightly 'round something so insane. "You ain't Bella Donna, you never were. Calm down and think for a second, where've we been dese last few years? You know who you are, Rogue."

Good to know de Sabretooth t'ing really wasn't as bad as it could get.

[un-gloved.livejournal.com]

"Why are you sayin- How can you be sayin' dis to me!" She was hurt, incredulous, and furious. She began pulling away, actively trying to get her arm out of his grip while not looking at the reflection of a stranger's body doing the same, except it was impossible not to see.

"Let go! Dis ain't real that isn't my face, where- why is-"

She rocked, abruptly, looking disoriented and pained. She leaned heavily on the counter and clutched at her head.

"Oh God. Where am I, I don't... how did I get here, I can't..."

The line of her shoulders and, slowly, her arms began to tense. Noticeably.

"Remember." She looked at the mirror, met the face there dead in the eye. The face of that awful little river rat mutant who been trailing along after her husband like he was... like they were...

"No. No." She slammed the flat of her palm against the mirror, hard enough by the sound of it that it should have cracked and shattered, fingers splayed out to fracture the image reflected there.

"Cette connasse- that little mutie bitch!" She rounded on him with a desperate, possibly immutable rage.

"How did this happen?! How could you let it?!"

[thedevilhisdue]

Right. Dey're acquainted. Dey'd have to be for dis to be happening at all, naturellement, but it's still something I've never been all dat eager to wrap my brain around, for obvious reasons.

"It's not like dat," I say firmly as I put my hands up, de sound of her palm smacking glass keeping me focused. Panicking's not gonna do any of us good, and I am not about to start defending Rogue to herself. "You're just confused. You just need to calm down and we'll get some help, okay, chère?" It probably don't make much of a difference, but it also don't help dat I really don't know how I let it happen.

[un-gloved.livejournal.com]

"Do I look confused?" she snarled. The answer was no, she looked homicidal, but it didn't change the fact that the real answer was yes.

"Where are we!"

[thedevilhisdue]

Confused is more an all-encompassing state of being right 'bout now, not just a look, but hopefully her asking questions is a good t'ing. I just wish I had some answers she'd like.

"We're in a building," I answer slowly, "on an island in de middle of nowhere. You've been here for years."

[un-gloved.livejournal.com]

Her color, most noticeably that which had been prominent in her cheekbones, drained.

"Years?" she gasped, practically staggering, catching herself against the counter and looking back to the strange reflection. She stumbled back from it, one hand flying to her forehead as the other reached blindly for the wall to steady herself.

[thedevilhisdue]

"Easy," I say, trying to make it sound like more den just a suggestion, and maybe I'm risking getting hit, but I can't help but reach out to help her. "I know it's a lot to take in, but if you just let yourself remember, you'll see..."

She'll see what? What comes after dat? Hell if I know, but it's got to be better den dis.

[un-gloved.livejournal.com]

She didn't lash out or retaliate at the gesture. If anything, she seemed to get smaller and more defensive, curling inward as she sank down to the tile floor, back against the wall.

"Non, non, non, no, no," she whispered, carefully covering her face with her hands so they acted like blinders, her gaze on the floor.

Years, what was years ago? Where was she years ago? She couldn't visualize one place. She saw different rooms, different houses, but she couldn't have lived in all of them. Some were clearer than others, some more familiar. Some seemed to force themselves vividly to the fore of her mind but were alien to her, she couldn't place them. More troublesome was, she couldn't place herself in any of them, she couldn't see herself. She pressed her fingertips harder against her scalp.

If she looked in that mirror again, she didn't know who would be there. There was something Gatekeeper had taught her about visualizing oneself whole in the landscape of the universe, it was supposed to be both humbling, grounding, and reassuring to one's sense of self, and just thinking about it in that moment made her think, just for a second, that she'd gone blind.

She didn't know that she was panting and trying to push herself so far into the wall that she'd fall through it not your power not your life, or who it was who was speaking to her. In a sudden swell of deep and irrational fear, it occurred to her that the last time her head had been this crowded and her vision this dark was Genosha. Her bare feet slipped a little against the tile as she tried to find purchase to wedge herself farther back into the corner.

She wasn't there couldn't be there but she didn't know where she was. So she might have been. But only mutants went to Genosha, and she wasn't one of those. But she had to be, she'd been on the team for years, now, years, and the right side, the good team. The good guys.

She was one of the good ones. Wasn't she?

She couldn't say. She didn't make much noise, in fact. Out loud, she merely whimpered.

[thedevilhisdue]

In a lot of ways, I'd rather she lash out. Have her yell and rail, hit t'ings, fight dis like I've grown to expect her to, de way she fights 'gainst anything what gets in her way. Maybe it wouldn't help much in a case like dis, but at least it'd feel safer, more familiar. And dat's coming from someone who hates playing it safe.

Dropping into a low crouch in front of her, I reach out, hands cradling her face, getting her eyes up off de floor. "Rogue, regarde-moi. Look at me!" Keep her aware, keep her engaged. If she's gonna be freaking out, breaking down, I'd rather it be out here den somewhere in dat messed-up head of hers. "Forget de rest of it, ignore it, it's just you an' me right now, hein?"

[un-gloved.livejournal.com]

Help, she thought, nodon'ttouchme and Please but her gaze was pulled to Gambit's and she met his eyes, and her own cleared. She opened her mouth to speak but couldn't for a moment. She swallowed and tried again.

"Remy?"