This is set to take place the morning after the events of "Self-Possessed". The song lyrics are from the song "Lose My Way" by Zero Hour. Hope you all enjoy! ;)

~BQ


The tides keep changing,
the waves keep crashing down.
Sometimes the water's so deep,
I feel like I might drown.


Help me.

The words had haunted his dreams the night before, the soft, broken plea echoing in his mind over and over, accompanied by the desperate, terrified look in a pair of once hard emerald eyes.

Charles Xavier sighed, shaking his head to clear his thoughts. Rogue was fine now, that was what mattered. There was no point in blaming himself for not realizing how bad things had gotten with her powers. The girl liked to keep things to herself, especially things that she considered her own problems, or things that she perceived as weaknesses.

Still, the tortured state that he had found her mind in when she'd finally let down her barriers long enough for him to enter...

I should have known, he thought for what seemed the thousandth time since he'd first realized Rogue was in trouble. I should have known.

He was saved from any further thoughts of self-reproach when he detected a familiar presence moving down the hall, headed in his direction.

"Come in, Logan," he called, not bothering to turn away from the window. Outside, Bobby, Sam and Roberto were tossing a football around, while Rhane ran around yipping in her wolf form. Their laughter wafted through the air, audible even through the heavy glass of his office window.

"Mornin' Chuck," Logan said as he strolled into the room.

Xavier wheeled himself around to face him and offered the dark haired man a faint smile. "Good morning, Logan. I trust you slept well?"

Logan grunted. "As well as can be expected, I suppose."

"Ah, yes," Xavier agreed with a slight nod. "You stayed the night in the med-ward with Rogue, then?"

"Yeah," Logan replied, leaning against the wall. "The kid had some nightmares. From all those memories that rushed into her head, I reckon."

"That is to be expected," Xavier said with a sigh. "I wish there was more that I could do."

"Yer doin' all ya can, Chuck," Logan replied gruffly. "Don't beat yerself up over this. Besides, Stripes is tough. She'll be fine."

"I certainly hope so," Xavier said quietly. Logan shifted uneasily, and Xavier frowned, sensing concern within the normally brusque man. "What is it?" he asked.

"It's Rogue..." Logan said lowly. "I left to go shower an' to get some breakfast this mornin', an' when I went back down to the med-ward, she wasn't there. The bed was empty."

Xavier frowned, folding his hands together in front of him. "Did you check her room? Maybe she wanted to rest in her own bed."

Logan shook his head. "I checked there first. Kitty said that she hadn't seen her all mornin'."

"Did you ask the others?"

"Not yet," Logan replied. "I didn't want to worry them fer no reason. I figured I'd ask yer opinion first before I went out lookin' fer her."

Xavier could sense that he was anxious to find Rogue, and he didn't blame him. She was still weak after yesterday's ordeal, and in her condition she ought to be resting, not up and about.

He closed his eyes and focused all of his concentration on finding Rogue. Her mind had always been well guarded from him, due to the natural mental shields she possessed, which had been enhanced dramatically thanks to all of the psyches she had absorbed over the years, but he very rarely had any difficulty locating her.

Reaching out with his powers, he searched the compound for the strong presence that he had come to recognize as belonging to the most reserved member of his X-men family.

When he found her, he wasn't surprised at where she was, she'd gone there often when she needed some time to think, or when she needed to be alone for a while.

What did surprise him was that she wasn't quite as alone as she thought.

"Did you find her?"

Xavier opened his eyes and fixed Logan with a pointed look. "Indeed. And I found someone else, as well. A surprise visitor." He tilted his head thoughtfully. "Although given recent events, perhaps not such a surprise."


I'm a fighter, I'm a survivor,
but I'm already wearing down.
I think I need to rest a while,
before I stand my ground.


The surface of the water rippled faintly, sending shimmers of light cascading across the lake, the sunlight dancing across the water like fireflies.

Rogue sighed, closing her eyes and just savoring the feel of the warm sun beating down on her, letting the gentle breeze caress her hair.

Stillness.

For once in her life, there was nothing but utter stillness.

She could have stayed there forever, lost in that one single moment of stillness.

This was where she came to think, to find her center when she was off-balance. It was her very favorite spot on the Institute grounds. Sitting there, on the edge of the dock, her legs dangling over the water below, she could always seem to find some peace of mind.

But not today.

Today, she doubted anything could give her peace. Not after what she'd been through yesterday. Not after what she'd learned.

Mystique was her mother.

Not biologically, of course, but legally. She'd adopted Rogue when she was only a little girl, taken her into her home and into her heart, given her the Darkholme last name.

Rogue remembered.

She remembered all of it.

She didn't know if they were Mystique's memories or her own, but she remembered. She remembered laughter and hugs. She remembered walks in the park and evenings spent braiding her hair into pigtails before bed. She remembered feeling loved and safe and warm.

She remembered being happy.

Pulling her legs up to her chest, she hugged her knees tightly, tears stinging her eyes. She'd been fighting so hard to keep them at bay ever since she'd learned the truth, but now she found she couldn't stop them any longer, nor did she want to.

Mystique.

The woman who had lied to her, manipulated her into joining the Brotherhood. The woman who had imprisoned the Professor and destroyed the mansion. The woman who had betrayed her trust by pretending to be her friend to spy on the X-men.

Oh, she hadn't been lying she when she'd insisted that gaining access to information on the X-men had only been part of the reason she'd chosen to create the identity of Risty Wilde. Rogue knew that much with absolute certainty, after all, she had her mother's memories in her head.

No, Mystique could have befriended any of the X-men in order to spy on them, but she'd chosen Rogue because she'd wanted to be close to her. Because she'd wanted to watch over her little girl, to be near the child that she had been forced to place in Irene's care four years ago.

Rogue didn't know what she felt towards the woman anymore.

As her daughter, she had an instinctive, almost primal, urge to forgive her, to love her, to try and find the mother she remembered somewhere under all of that ruthlessness. But as an X-man, as Rogue, she wasn't sure that she could, and she wasn't sure that she wanted to. Just because Mystique was her mother didn't make what she did to her okay, if anything, it made it worse.

Rogue didn't understand how someone, even Mystique, could do that to their own child.

Ah guess Ah got off easy, she muttered to herself. At least she didn't let Magneto experiment on me an' then throw me off a bridge.

Her eyes widened slightly as realization finally set in. If Mystique was her mother, by adoption or by blood, then that made Kurt...

"Oh mah God," she breathed. "Ah have a brother."


Walking through the night,
lost in the shadows that I cast.
I can't seem to find my way,
can't seem to escape my past.


Placing her hand against the trunk of the tree in front of her, she stepped forward out of the woods, and came to a stop just inside the shadows, her breath catching in her throat.

The vast lake that sprawled across the outer border of the Xavier compound sparkled in the sunlight, the surface of the water glittering like a sheet of crystal.

But it wasn't the lake that held her attention, it wasn't the lake that made her chest tighten and her throat tighten painfully.

It was the figure sitting at the edge of the dock overlooking the lake, knees drawn up to her chest, head bowed sorrowfully.

Her daughter.

Her little one.

Rogue.

Mystique sighed deeply, shaking her head slightly. It had been a difficult thing to do, to give away her child, even if it was to a trusted friend. But she hadn't had a choice. Magneto had been keeping her so busy, and Irene had foreseen that the girl's powers were going to be troublesome. It had been in Rogue's best interest that she'd been left with Irene in Caldecott.

Or so Mystique told herself, anyway. Sometimes she wondered if things wouldn't have been better for her, for both of them, if they'd been able to stay together. To remain a family.

Now was one of those times.

I should have told her, Mystique berated herself, not for the first time since Rogue had left the Brotherhood. If I had only told her who she was... who I was...

But would it have really made a difference in the end? Would the truth have kept her daughter from running off to join Xavier and his little crusade? She liked to think so, but the truth was she really didn't know. Rogue believed in Xavier's dream.

Just like her brother did.

Kurt was an entirely different matter, though, in some ways. She didn't know him, not really. She hadn't raised him like she had Rogue. When the Wagners had found him and taken him in, he'd ceased to be her child and became the child of another woman. He was her son, of course, her own flesh and blood, and she still cared for him, still loved him, but he was not her child. He'd lived a happy life, despite his appearance, without her. He'd known love, he'd known real parents and real family. He'd never felt like he'd been abandoned.

Mystique knew, without a doubt, that Rogue felt as if she had.

And she had reason to, didn't she?

Oh my darling, Mystique thought sadly, tears welling in her eyes. I never meant to hurt you.


And you are my salvation,
the one who held me when I cried.
When all of this pain,
left me shaking inside.


BAMF!

"Rogue? Are you in here?"

Kurt glanced around the med-ward and frowned when he found she wasn't there. The bed was empty, the sheets ruffled, and the chair that Logan had sat in during his vigil the night before had been moved back to its original place in the corner.

"Zat's odd," he murmured to himself. "Vere did zey go?"

BAMF!

He peeked into the room that Rogue shared with Kitty and looked around. Kitty sat at her desk, her headphones on, typing away at her laptop, but there was no sign of Rogue.

Vere could she be? Kurt wondered as he teleported downstairs to see if she was in the living room. Scott and Jean were cuddled together on the couch watching television, their heads touching in a way that was sickeningly sweet.

It made him miss Amanda.

His girlfriend was determined to keep seeing him regardless of what her parents said, and didn't seem to mind in the slightest that they would have to sneak around to be together, but Kurt couldn't help feeling bad about the whole "Toad" incident.

He still hadn't decided whether or not to kill Todd for that whole mess.

Kurt cleared his throat loudly, and Jean and Scott jumped away from one another so fast it was almost comical. "Oh, hi, Kurt," Jean said with a guilty smile.

"Yeah, hi," Scott mumbled, blushing.

"Ja, vatever," Kurt nodded dismissively. He turned to focus on Jean. "I am looking for Rogue. She's not in ze med-ward. Could you find her for me, bitte?"

"Sure," Jean replied, and closed her eyes, bring her right hand up to the side of her temple. Her features twisted slightly as she concentrated, and Kurt found his tail swishing back and forth anxiously as he waited. Finally, Jean's eyes opened and she smiled. "She's out by the lake," she reported.

"Danke," Kurt said, and teleported out of the room in a hurry.

He reappeared outside just meters away from the lake, and, sure enough, he spotted Rogue sitting out at the edge of the dock.

He hesitated, unsure what to do now. He'd been so eager to find her, that he hadn't really given much thought to what he wanted to say. He'd spent the entire evening before trying to decide how to approach the situation, but he hadn't really found any answers.

After all, what did one say to a friend who turns out to be your long-lost adopted sister?

I guess zat I just make ze best of it, nein? Kurt asked himself, shaking his head. Taking a deep breath, he started down the dock.

As he drew closer, he realized that Rogue was crying, so he purposefully made his approach as loud as he could, to give her plenty of warning that he was there. She straightened, her gloved hands moving up to her face, no doubt to wipe aside the tears, and she glanced back at him over her shoulder, offering a weak, trembling smile.

"Hey," she said softly.

"Hey," Kurt replied. He shifted uneasily, shoving his hands in his pockets. "Zis seat taken?"

Rogue shrugged. "Ah don't mind if ya join me, if that's what ya askin'."

Kurt lowered himself down beside her and followed her gaze out to the lake beyond. "So, vat are ve looking at?"

"Nothin' really," Rogue replied. "Ah was jus' thinkin', Ah guess. Ah come out here when Ah need t' think sometimes. It's real peaceful, unlike back inside the mansion."

Kurt understood that. Living in the same house with thirteen teenagers, no matter how big of a house it was, was still sort of crowded at times. "I know vat you mean."

A moment of silence fell between them, and Kurt glanced over at Rogue to study her. She was a beautiful girl, with soft, but strong features, and those intense emerald green eyes that were currently veiled by the fetching white locks that framed her face. He'd always admired her for her strength, for the courage that she showed in everything she did, in the way she lived her life. If it had been him, if he'd been cursed to never know the simple feeling of another's touch, he didn't think he would be able to cope nearly as well as she seemed to.

Of course, he knew better than anyone that appearances could be deceiving. And Rogue was very good at keeping her true feelings to herself.

That was all well and good, but she was his sister, and they had a lot of catching up to do. Kurt was determined that somehow he would find a way to get her to confide in him, the way any sister would her brother.

"Rogue?" he asked hesitantly.

"Yeah?"

Kurt licked his lips anxiously. "About vat happened yesterday...vat Mystique told you..."

"Ya mean that she's mah mother?" Rogue asked in a soft tone that was either on the edge of sarcasm or tearful.

"Ja," Kurt said. He shifted his weight a bit to face her better. "Vat I mean is... she's my muzzer, too, so..."

"So ya reckon that makes us siblin's now, huh?" Rogue finished, staring down at the dock beneath her with an intensity that could have put Cyclops' optic beams to shame.

"Ja," Kurt agreed softly. "Zat's what it looks like." He swallowed, then glanced over at her nervously. "Zat doesn't bother you, does it?"

Rogue looked up quickly, surprise etched across her lovely features. "Why would it?" she asked incredulously.

"Vell..." Kurt gestured at his appearance.

"Ya are such an idiot, Kurt," Rogue rolled her eyes with a snort. "Ya appearance never bothered me b'fore, why would it now?"

"It's just zat zings are different now," Kurt said. "Ve are family."

Rogue's expression softened and she smiled at him tenderly. "Kurt, we were always family. All o' us. But Ah reckon ya right. Ya mah brother, that makes ya more than jus' a surrogate family like the others. That makes ya real family."

Kurt couldn't help smiling in relief. "Danke, Rogue. Zat means a lot."

"Besides," Rogue said with a grin. "Ah always wanted a kid brother." Her eyes widened. "Oh mah God."

"Vat?" Kurt asked. "Vat is it?"

"Remember when Scott an' Ah had t' do that play scene t'gether?" Rogue asked, laughing softly. "An' ya ported in right in the middle o' it? Ah said that ya were like an annoyin' li'l brother." She smirked triumphantly. "Guess Ah was right after all."

"Vat?" Kurt asked in mock indignation. "Vho are you calling annoying, liebchen? You are ze one zat hogs ze bathroom in ze morning!"

"At least Ah don't leave fur in the drain," Rogue retorted wryly.

"Zis coming from ze girl zat can outlgare even our muzzer?"

Rogue snorted. "God, we have a messed up family, don't we? Ah mean, mah touch is lethal, ya look like a fuzzy elf, an' the woman who gets t' call herself our momma is a shapeshiftin' mutant terrorist. Kinda makes ya wonder what else she's not tellin' us." She cast him a sly glance. "For all ya know, Sabertooth could be ya father."

"Zat is just wrong," Kurt said with a shudder. "Not to mention very, very scary. I zink zat you have just scarred me for life."

"Too late, sugah," Rogue snickered.

"Ack, you wound me, mein schwester," Kurt cried, dramtically falling back to lay on the dock with a hand over his forhead.

Rogue just grinned. "Ya really are jus' a silly fuzzball, ya know that?"

"Zat's vat Kitty tells me, anyway," Kurt replied.

"Yeah, well, now Ah'm gonna hafta smack her with a pillow or somethin'," Rogue said with a smirk. "No one gets t' pick on mah li'l brother but me."

Kurt stuck out his tongue at her, but he couldn't help the warm feeling that her words sent through him. "Zen I guess zat I will just have to play ze role of ze overprotective brother whenever zere are any boys around, yes?" He waggled his eyebrows at her. "Even Herr Summers, no?

He had the pleasure of seeing Rogue's eyes widen in horror before he burst out laughing. Her expression changed at once when she realized that he was teasing her, and she lunged at him playfully. "Why ya li'l blue hairbag!"

BAMF!

"Get back here, so Ah can kill ya, ya fleaball!"

Kurt laughed from the branch of the tree he was perched in over her head. "I zink not, liebchen. Do I look zat stupid to you?"

Rogue raised an eyebrow.

Kurt groaned. "Don't answer zat."

"Fine," Rogue said, with a smug smirk. "Ah guess if ya won't come down, Ah'll jus' hafta wait. After all, Ah've got a whole seventeen years o' big sister torture t' make up fo', now don't Ah?"

Kurt gulped.


Though my skies are lookin' gray,
I know that I'm gonna make it through.
Nothing can keep me down for long,
as long as I can always turn to you.


He moved through the trees swiftly, creeping along the forest floor without making so much as a sound. In the distance he could hear laughter, and voices teasing each other playfully, but he ignored them for now.

He had other matters to attend to first.

Sniffing, he veered slightly to the left, letting his senses guide him in the right direction. His abilities allowed him to move quickly, even as he weaved through the maze of trees and dodged low hanging limbs.

His prey was nearby.

A flicker of movement ahead caught his eye, and he slowed his pace to a slow walk, relying on his natural stealthiness to allow him to approach unnoticed.

He moved forward silently, coming up behind the blue-skinned woman who was peering around the trees at the lake beyond the forest. As he drew near, he saw her stiffen, but she did not turn around. "Hello, Logan," was all she said, in a calm, flat tone.

Logan grunted, crossing his arms over his chest, but didn't unsheathe his claws. After all, Charles had asked him to be civilized. "Raven," he said curtly in reply.

For a long moment neither of them spoke, and then Mystique turned to face him, her expression guarded. "Charles sent you, I assume?"

Logan nodded wordlessly.

"I see," Mystique said. "I didn't come here to fight."

"That's what Charles said," Logan conceded evenly.

Satisfied, Mystique turned away to gaze at the two teenagers chasing one another out on the lawn by the lake. Logan followed her gaze and had to resist the urge to smile as Rogue finally caught Kurt, grabbing the elf by the tail.

Looks like Stripes and the elf are gettin' along just fine, Chuck, Logan thought, knowing that Charles would hear him.

Indeed, a moment later he got the distinct mental image of Charles Xavier smiling. I'm glad to hear it. Perhaps you might learn from them and follow their example with Mystique.

Logan snorted, shaking his head at the notion. He and Mystique had gotten along well, once upon a time. They'd even been friends to some extent. But that had been a long time ago, and what remained of that relationship was a mutual respect at best.

He glanced over at the woman who called herself Mystique, as well as a host of other aliases that she used when they were convenient, and was taken aback by the look on her face. In all the years that he had known her, he had never seen her expression look so...

Wistful.

He almost shuddered. It seemed so unnatural to see that in the eyes of a woman who he knew was a ruthless enemy.

And yet, he couldn't deny that the emotion he saw on her face was almost... well, tender.

Logan shifted uncomfortably, and Mystique turned back to face him again, her expression knowing. "Give Charles my gratitude, Logan," she said quietly, and she began to walk off, casting one last glance at her children before heading in the other direction.

"Raven?" he called, before he even realized he was going to say anything.

She paused, but didn't turn. "Yes?"

"They'll be fine," he assured her gruffly. "Both o' them. Yer kids are tough. An' they've got each other. They'll be fine. You have my word on that."

"Thank you," she said.

Logan watched her morph into a hawk and take to the sky, and didn't tear his gaze away until she disappeared over the treeline. The he turned and started back towards the mansion, but stopped when the sound of shrieking laughter once again reached his ears.

He hesitated a moment, then turned and glanced back around the tree where Mystique had kept her vigil, and focused his attention on the kids.

The two of them stood on the shore of the lake, taking turns skipping rocks across the surface, Rogue pitching her stones with her hand, Kurt with his tail.

They were both smiling.

Yeah, Logan thought as he began walking towards the mansion. They'll both be just fine.


If I should ever stumble,
I won't be afraid.
Because I know you'll be there,
to help me find my way.


Translations:
liebchen- sweetheart
Danke- Thank you
bitte- please