…DEET…DEET…DEET…DEET…DEET…
The strange noise roared loudly in her ears. Completely disoriented, Rogue tumbled and kicked, rolling over, finding her arms and legs pinned. Her eyes, when open, were blind. She panicked, struggling and lashing out, when suddenly the ground beneath her stopped and Rogue was thrown into space…but not far. Her stomach and hips met with something hard, forcing the air from her lungs.
…DEET…DEET…DEET…DE-
Flesh met plastic with a dull smack and the screeching stopped as suddenly as it had begun
"Ehern…," a muffled voice moaned from somewhere beyond. "Ro..Rogue, whatsamatter?"
She heard the noise, the voice, the words, but Rogue's mind was still lost in some celestial place. Racing in circles, her consciousness went over and over the past few moments. Remy had been there, and Logan. They'd saved her. Remy's arms had been wound tightly around her. She could still picture the faint outline of his face, like the memory of an echo. He was right there, tangible and real and then…gone. Just gone.
"Rogue?" The voice was now accompanied by pressure. Faint points of light began emerging all around her as Rogue's breathing returned to normal. That voice… "Rogue, are you okay?" The voice demanded in a panicked tone.
Then a pair of hands burst through the cocoon binding her, fastening onto her shoulder. The bindings were thrown back by her savior and the blinding light revealed a young, pert face regarding her with a worried expression.
Paige Guthrie, Rogue's roommate.
Her roommate, here at school, for almost two years now. Almost two years after it all. After Magneto's attack…and when Logan saved her…
It was all coming back to her, but Rogue clung to her confusion. Because in the world that made sense Remy wasn't there.
"Hun, you okay?" Paige asked again, heaving the prone girl to her feet and shoving her onto her own tousled bed. "Bad dream?"
Dream? It had all been a dream?
Rogue shoved the girl's hand away, panting slightly from exhaustion and confusion.
"Yeah," she muttered hoarsely. "A dream…I guess so…" Paige sat down next to her, shoving a tangled pair of blonde pigtails out of her face. Rogue was drenched in sweat, pale and shaking. She seemed really out of it, and Paige was starting to wonder if she'd fallen on her head.
"Do you want me to go get Dr. McCoy, hon? You don't seem yourself?"
'No,' Rogue thought, 'I'm not myself.' But out loud she said, "No, don't worry. I just had a rough night. Too little sleep, you know?" she lied. Paige bought right into it. Grabbing a robe and a bottle of shampoo off a shelf, she headed for the door.
"You coming?" she asked. Rogue shook her head.
"I'm gonna skip my shower this morning," she said, flopping back down onto the bed. "All the noise in that locker room's gonna make this headache ten times worse." Paige opened the door and stepped out.
"See you at breakfast, then?"
"Yeah…yeah…"
Rogue's mind was spinning while her heart was busy breaking in two. It had…it had all felt so real. She'd known pain and loss and fatigue. All very real sensations and emotions. She'd known…love. And that was what killed her.
All thoughts of Remy aside, Rogue focused her mind back on this world, on real life. On Bobby. He alone had believed in her, and trusted her from day one. He'd risked his life, his world, everything, for her. And for a while it seemed like he was exactly what she needed. The person who would fill up that emptiness in her spirit. But then Remy had come along…No. No, Remy hadn't come along, she reminded herself. He wasn't even real.
Just a figment of her imagination. But all of him, the way he walked, talked. It seemed so…so perfectly imperfect. But what frightened her was that, despite everything her mind was saying about logic and reality, her heart was still crying out for lost emotion. For a man that didn't even exist.
"In my head there's only you now…"
Rogue bolted upright on the bed, searching for the source of the soft noise.
"…This world falls on me…"
The melody, which she'd failed to notice inside her vortex of emotions, was now soft and persistent.
"…In this world there's real and make believe"
There, on the nightstand. Paige had turned off the alarm, but hit the power button for the clock radio.
"…And this seems real to me…"
The lyrics of the slow love seemed haunting and cruel. She stretched out her hand, fingers balled into a tight fist and…
"…And you love me but you don't know who I am."
…Knocked the stupid plastic alarm clock off the table, vision blurred by a field of tears. She had to get up, she knew it. But part of her was afraid. Afraid that Bobby would look into her eyes and know. Afraid that if she left this room, all of the dream, everything Remy had left inside her, would vanish like an echo.
Forever.
"I can't believe we had Ms. Braddock as a substitute again," Kitty moaned as she and the girls made their way back towards their living quarters after last period. "Did Storm fall off the edge of the world or something?"
"She's on some mission," Jubilee added through a mouthful of bubble gum, smacking it loudly.
"Well duh, I figured that," Kit shot back, "but for how long?" Little, redheaded Tracy shoved her way through the queue of girls.
"I heard she's off visiting an old friend," she piped up in her sickeningly sweet voice. Jubes reached down and ruffled her hair, before turning back to Kitty.
"What do you have against Ms. Braddock anyways?" she demanded. "She's nice, and gives less homework than 'Ro does."
"I never said she wasn't nice," Kitty moaned, shifting her books from one arm to the next. "It's that British accent that kills me. I can barely understand her," she moaned.
"You don't have to tell me that," Paige piped up from the back of the group. "I couldn't understand what she was saying because Kitty was leaning over my shoulder the whole time, asking me what was being said." The entire group burst out in a fit of giggle…all but one. Rogue was walking on slowly in the middle or the hoarde, her head down, cloaked behind a wall of hair. Paige looked at her expectantly…then with disappointment. Rogue caught her stare out of the corner of her eye.
"What?" she demanded.
"Nothing," Paige claimed, throwing up her hands. "You're just really quiet is all." Rogue's only response was a sigh.
"Yeah, are you sure you're okay hon?" Jubilee added, diving into the coversation. Rogue sighed again. The sadness weighing down inside her was obviouslyeasy to spot through her paper-thin façade. So, when faking failed, she did the next best thing: she lied.
"I'm just feeling a little under the weather today," she explained. "That's all. A combination of a cold and cramps, you know,"she added with a wink. "I just need a good night's sle," she started to say, but Rhane, from near Jubes right side, threw up her hand, bring the group to a halt and hissing at them to be quiet.
"Shhhhhhh!" Slowly, she sidled up to the nearest door in the long hall, the one to the Professor's Office, and pressed her ear lightly against the door.
"What?" Jubilee hissed. "Who's in there?" Rhane waved a hand behind her, telling Jubes to stuff it, without so many words. Finally, after a few moments, she resumed walking again, leading the group this time.
A few yards down the hall she said, "Well, the prodigal teacher has returned again."
"Who, Ororo?" Tracy asked. Jubes and Kitty rolled their eyes and, in unison, moaned,
"Duh!" Then Kitty demanded, "what else did you hear?" Rhane shrugged.
"The Professor talking, 'Ro talking, and a voice I didn't recognize." She shrugged again. "A guy, I think…" But Rogue had reached her room, and took the opportunity to escape from the companionship that, today, felt like it was smothering her.
Rogue opted to skip dinner that evening as well, knowing that when she entered the noisy dining room she'd find Bobby in his usual spot, saving her a seat and looking eager to see her. She just couldn't deal with that right now, so she'd convinced Paige to tell him that she was sick and wasn't up to seeing anybody. When the voices in the hallway beyond had died, and the time on the clock confirmed that everyone would be at dinner, Rogue had crept down into the pantry, stealing a can of Pringles and a six pack of warm Pepsi. Just the kind of food a growing girl needed.
She'd been planted in the window seat of the upstairs library since then, flipping idly through one of Jubilee's magazines and watching traffic pass on Graymalkin Lane below. When the large pendulum clock in the corner had struck 8, Rogue dumped her empty canisters into the small garbage can in the corner, and sprinted to the door, hoping to make it downstairs and back into her room before anyone realized she was gone.
Dashing into the hallway beyond, she was relieved to find it empty. She skidded carelessly around the corner, expecting to find the passageway beyond just as empty as the previous one. She was wrong. Head down, she slammed into somebody, hard, and went flying backwards.
She landed a little harder than anticipated, and Rogue's vision blurred as her eyes welled with tears. She dug the heels of her gloved hands into the corners of her eyes, wiping them away as her ears stopped ringing. A hand was thrust into her view as her own fell limply to her sides.
"You plannin' on statyin' down dere all day?" a voice asked from above.
Rogue's heart stopped, blood frozen still in her veins, mouth unable to speak.. She knew that voice, deep in her heart she knew. It was the voice that had comforted and taunted and played with her lifetimes ago. It was the voice that had captivated her from within a dream. Though part of her was desperately afraid that she would look up and find it was all a figment of her imagination, and beautiful daydream, the longing in her heart wouldn't let her wait another moment longer. She glanced up and saw…
…Her own eyes staring back at her, reflected in the lenses of a pair of dark glasses. But the long nose, the tousled brown hair, the jaunty smile. They all belonged to a face hauntingly familiar. She took the offered hand robotically, and was promptly hauled back to her feet.
"Sorry 'bout dat chere," her helper said, returning his hands to the pockets of his long trench coat. On his belt, Rogue noticed a small, silver object, reflecting the light oddly, and there was a rectangle shaped bulge in one of his side pockets. A shiver ran down her spine as she regarded the man before her. "Ah seem to 'ave dat effect on da ladies. 'Ave we met?" he asked suddenly. Rogue's lips parted, but no words emerged. So she just stood stock still. "Ah 'ave the strangest feelin' Ah've seen you b'fore, non?" The demons within Rogue began to do battle again. Sanity won this time.
"No," she croaked, "No, I don't think we have." He reached up suddenly, smacking his head lightly and flashing a flirtatious grin.
"Well den, where are mah manners?" he asked coyly, cocking a stray eyebrow. He presented her with his hand once more, bridging the gap between their bodies. "Ah'm Remy."
Rogue would have like nothing more than to leap into his arms and finish where they'd left off. But that dream wasn't a reality. Wasn't this reality, at least. And she couldn't do that. Her heart was aching as she traced every inch of his face with her eyes, taking in his strong chin, prominent features. Soft lips. His smell, musky and faintly of liquor, involuntarily led her body into a state of calm contemplation. Was that dream out to prove that there are such things as soul mates. That across time, space, and a hundred decisions that should've gone differently, love would still overcome? Only one way to find out.
She took his hand.
"I know."
FIN
AN: Well, after more than a year, and several really big plot changes on my part, this story is finally complete. I hoped you all liked it because I sure as hell had a fun time writing it. As for last chapter, all of you got the 'magic line' which was the title of X-Treme X-Men #15. In that story, however, Rogue says that to Gambit. Go figure. Also, I could help adding the song lyrics in this last chapter. They're from the song "Let Me Go" off of Three Doors Down's new album, which is great. So go ahead and comment, leave me your final thoughts about the story as a whole. Constructive crit is welcomed as well. Thanks for reading and for all your encouragement. Stretch ;)