It seems like today I'm working on oneshots in communities I haven't visited in months (in some cases, years). In this particular case, it's XM:E.

Rogue/Scott pairing, set after the Phoenix and several years into the future.

$4$

Could you hear me one more time?
And put your fingers on my spine

- "Half Lit" by Steven Strait

Jean Grey was dead.

The Phoenix was dead.

Scott Summers was not dead, but he might as well have been. He was dead on the inside, and nothing was ever going to fix or change that.

Emma- one of the new recruits, a pretty little blonde thing with telekinetic capabilities- had tried to help him, but it was all in vain. Scott wasn't coming back. Cyclops was all that was left.

Rogue didn't mind so much. She had stopped being Marie Darkholme a long time ago, so she understood the idea of giving up one persona for another. She was the only one to understand this, with the possible exception of Wolverine. But Logan didn't choose to leave his past behind so much as he couldn't remember any of it.

She hadn't intended it, but this had become something of a tradition. The Bucket was one of the only bars in town, and the only one she bothered to visit regularly. Every Friday night at 9, like clockwork, she would go to the Bucket for two pints of Guinness. Every Friday night at 9, like clockwork, Cyclops would go to the Bucket, sit down with her, and nurse a gin and tonic. Most of the time they didn't talk, but she didn't mind and she had a feeling he didn't, either.

She wasn't like Ororo, or the Prof., or Kitty, or any of them. She didn't push him to talk about his feelings, didn't bother him for information, didn't lecture him on things he already knew all too well.

That didn't mean they didn't talk. When they did, Cyclops would talk and she would listen. That was the only way he was going to ever get better.

"I loved her, you know that?" he said one night, after he'd already downed his third gin and tonic, and was halfway through a glass of vodka, straight up.

"Ah know that, sugah," she said, taking a long sip from the glass.

"And she loved me," he said, hitting the table lightly with the palm of his hand. "Did you know I was going to propose to her?"

That was news to Rogue, but she wasn't about to say as much to Cyclops. He needed to work this out of his system, without anyone interrupting him to ask useless questions.

"I was going to propose to Jean Grey on the cruise. That night. That night she died, I was going to ask her to marry me. Instead, she gave her life to save ours."

Outside of the Bucket, Cyclops wasn't much different from how he acted in high school. He was the undeniable leader, the one who insisted that they go over their plans with a fine-toothed comb, and loved to work the X-men to their breaking point. He might have taken on a few of Logan's almost masochistic tendencies in the training room, but otherwise, he hadn't changed.

On the outside.

On the inside was something else. He had changed beyond all recognition, and no amount of laps around the Mansion or dates with pretty blondes could change that fact.

Everyone in the Mansion was holding their breath, waiting for Cyclops to just snap, or break down, or something. What they didn't know was that Cyclops had snapped once a week, every Friday.

The first night was the worst. He drank about half his weight in alcohol, cried for thirty minutes, and spent two hours emptying his stomach into a toilet bowl as Rogue sat on the tiled floor, rubbing his back reassuringly.

Every Friday after that, his break downs would get a little better, and he'd drink a little less. She never said a word to anyone about their Friday nights together, because she knew no one would approve. The Prof. would lecture her and everyone would gossip and Cyclops would never be able to get better.

"Thy want me to date Emma," he said, taking a halfhearted swing of his longneck bottle of Corona. He stopped drinking so much hard stuff, and now, for the most part, stuck to beer. She was fairly certain that was a sign he was improving, and for the better.

"Do you want to date Emma?" she asked. She knew it was the right question, possibly the only question, to ask. She knew him pretty well, and she wasn't afraid to use that to her advantage.

Cyclops shut his eyes behind his glasses. She didn't have to see through the opaque ruby lenses to know as much. She could just tell by the way that he set his jaw, and the way he put down the bottle with such finality.

"I like her," he said, his voice low and forlorn. "But she's just like the rest of them. She just wants to see me get better. To see me get over Jean."

"Is that such a terrible thing, sugah?" she asked him, looking at him under her thick white bangs. "They care about you, and want to see you happy."

Cyclops snorted, and his mouth formed a quick half-smile, curling up at one corner for a few seconds before disappearing all together, as if it had never happened. "You care," he replied, picking up the Corona and taking another swig. "But you aren't pressuring me to date. You're not pressuring me to do anything, actually."

Rogue grinned and shook her head, feeling her ponytail move with her. Her hair had gotten longer, but she still wasn't used to it.

"Maybe I should date you," Cyclops mused aloud, and Rogue was sure she felt her heart stop beating.

"You don't know what you're sayin', sugah," she said, covering up her surprise by taking another sip from her pint.

"No," he said, staring at her. "It'd be a good idea. It would. You're the only one who hasn't tried to pressure me into getting over Jean, or tried to psychoanalyze me with useless babble. I'm better off dating you than Emma."

She shook her head. "You're drunk," she said, "And Ah'd be one sorry girlfriend. It's a bad idea, and you'd know that if you hadn't already downed three Coronas."

"It doesn't matter that you can't touch me, and you know it," Cyclops shot back. She didn't consider until just that moment, but maybe he knew her as well as she knew him.

"Emma'd be a healthier girlfriend than me," Rogue protested, a weak excuse even to her own ears.

"That's true," Cyclops admitted, and she had to try to keep the smile from appearing on her face. "But I'm not all that healthy right now, so that really wouldn't matter."

"It does too matter," she said. "You can't date me, sugah."

Cyclops was silent for several seconds, and finally he chuckled. "Yes I could. I just have to ask."

"You're not gonna ask."

"You want to go to dinner tomorrow night, Marie?"

Rogue stared at him, hard. Who was this person? Where was the silent Cyclops she knew. She knew him, but this wasn't Cyclops she was talking to. This was…

"Alright, Scott."

$4$

I liked it. A little angstier than I normally churn out, but it worked out in the end.

If I wanted to, I could probably apply this to the X-Men movies, as well as the comics. Well, more the movies than the comics, but you get what I'm saying. For the time being, I'm keeping this in XM:E because it's the fandom I'm most comfortable with, of the three.