Disclaimer: Don't own them!

The kitchen was big, and almost completely silver and white. Normally, at this hour of the evening, eight pm, it was boiling with people coming back and forth, looking for, preparing, serving, eating whatever thing they could find in the X-Mansion's cabinets.

But Rogue could tell something was off tonight.

People were around, yes, but the air felt different. Kitty wasn't chatting and rambling perkily, but sipping her hot chocolate quietly, leaning against the wall in a corner of the room. Rogue could tell she was avoiding her gaze. Why? Kurt wasn't teleporting from here to there, and while Jean and Scott seemed normal, Rogue could swear they'd glanced in her direction from time to time with the corner of their eyes. Storm, Logan and Professor Xavier were talking about their usual businesses… so what was it?

The milk in her cereal bowl was already chocolate brown, and as the first spoonful filled her mouth, she could finally convince herself that she hadn't imagined it: now they all were staring at her and at…

"What? Ah've got some…?"

Then she turned her head around and a chill hit her from head to toes.

There he was, standing a few feet in front of her.

One year, one month and five days had gone by, since the last time she saw this face. It had stayed stuck in her brain, though, the way he looked into her eyes and then away, when he left so long ago... or so little ago? Time had run differently, sprinting some days, crawling at times, and there were complete weeks (or months?) lost in her head, with only memories of Danger Room sessions, classes and wandering around.

For a while, they all thought he was dead, and for this, Rogue went from crying silently in her room, to being glad for a second and then hating him with all her strength, when they found out he was actually alive. Why not come back, if he was still breathing? He said he would, that he'd just leave for a couple of months and then come back.

But she didn't care anymore, did she?

She despised him. She had learnt to. She had forced herself to.

But there he was, his hair a little longer than before and pouring rain water, staring at her in the same way she remembered.

Rogue stood up and gave step forward. Then another one. What could she say to him? Would he say something? Would anyone say a word?

Another step, and then he was so close. Her lips were a little parted, as if she was going to say something that never accomplished the path from brain to tongue. Rogue examined every inch of his face, almost making sure it was him. The stubble: check. The nose: check. The red on black eyes: check. It was Remy again in front of her, in the warm atmosphere of the kitchen, under the invisible and meaningless stares of the others.

The only sound in the kitchen was (or so she thought) the violent beating of her heart when the fear and anger she had accumulated for months were released in a slap that turned his face to a side.

A few gasps in the background that she didn't hear.

Because before he even had the time to meet her eyes again, she grabbed him by the collar of the brown trench coat she had seen in nightmares, and pulled him closer for a kiss that both hurt and burnt and tasted like "I hate you" or "I love you".

Then she sunk her face in his chest as tears exploded in her throat. Finally, his arms were around her. What would be said or explained, what everybody would, didn't matter.