Disclaimer I think we all know that I don't own X-men, come now, is this really necessary?

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Hey all! Spur of the moment writing here, yay ROMY! I cant get enough of those two southerners.

Anyway, let me know what ya think, enjoy

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You learn to like someone when you find out what makes them laugh, but you can never truly love someone until you find out what makes them cry. Author Unknown

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Her name is Rogue, she can barely remember the time when she was known by something else, here life is a long story of battle after battle, betrayal after betrayal, and most of them are with herself.

Her mutant power denies her physical contact with any other living being, her strongest desire in life is to know what it feels like to touch someone skin to skin without it being an act of war or accident, to know if it's as warm as they say, as soft.

Fragments of the people she has touched remain inside her, angry ghosts that she has trouble controlling. They create a constant noise in the back of her mind.

Her name is Rogue, but she forgets that sometimes. Her memories get mixed in with those of countless others, she remembers standing on the plains in Alberta watching the northern lights long before she was ever born, she remembers the African heat and the tribal drums when she was a Goddess, she remembers quiet evenings in Germany with her adoptive parents reading a book in front of the fire.

Sometimes she has to remind herself that her name is Rogue.

She lives with other mutants like her, people collected from all walks of life with nothing in common save for a dream given to them by a man called Charles Xavier, headmaster of the Xavier institute for gifted youngsters, leader of the X-men, a vigilante group dedicated to protecting the world from humans and mutants alike that would wish to see harm come to it, or any of the people living on it.

Rogue fights for this dream, but in her heart she doubts it. Her childhood was not an easy one, she has learned to doubt everything, everyone, it has been drilled into her by people she was suppose to be able to trust, to love, that she can never get too close, to anyone, that she would hurt them.

Rogue lives by this, is defined by it, and on a subconscious level she needs it. It makes things easier to deal with. She's been alone for so long it's what she knows best. She has eve grown to depend upon it. Rogue likes to be alone.

So what does it matter if she's lonely.

But with the X-men Rogue has learned some new lessons, a few people have managed to earn her trust, and her friendship. A few people have seen her for who she is, in unguarded moments, when she lost the strength to hold her mask in place and keep up the act.

A few people, a few moments.

She thought that would be enough, but it isn't. Life had been easier when she knew it was hopeless. There had been no chance of disappointment then.

But things changed.

The X-men gave her hope again, she found herself suddenly climbing out of the darkness in her mind and towards the light, terrified to fall back to where she was, terrified to go any further and find out she'd been wrong.

Rogue has reached a crossroads and has no clue which road to take. One leads to self destruction, the other redemption, but there are no signs to tell her which is which.

Rogue is confident in her own strength even if she is uncomfortable with it, but she knows that she isn't strong enough for this.

So she stands, unmoving, at the fork in the road, afraid to go back, afraid to go forward, just plain afraid.

Her name is Rogue, she is a mystery and an enemy unto herself. She can't understand that by standing still she is still moving backwards, back into the darkness.

Her name is Rogue, and she won't fight it anymore.

Her life has been one long drawn out war with her own inner demons, no winners only casualties and every day she loses more ground, every day brings her closer to defeat.

Her name is Rogue, and she is loosing herself.

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Rogue slammed her door shut on the world, her aura one of seething anger and bridled hatred mixed in with a very subtle threat of violence. She moved towards her dresser, jacked the volume on her stereo, and hit play letting the loud base and angry lyrics wash over her as she collapsed onto her bed.

She'd been in this mood a lot lately, and felt a little guilty about it because she often lashed out at anything that moved whether they deserved it or not. But damned if that bloody Cajun didn't just make her blood boil on sight!

Rogue cursed the professor for letting the brotherhood and acolytes remain with them at the mansion, with apocalypse gone wherever it was he went she figured the opposing teams would all split apart again and go on their merry albeit destructive ways.

No such luck.

The mansion swarmed with mutant teenagers now, if she thought it was hard to find any peace and quiet before it was impossible now.

The psyches hadn't been helping things either, they'd gotten louder since mesmero had used her to absorb all three of the teams. She'd only had marginal success in keeping them walled up for more then a day at a time.

It was as crowded in her mind as it was in the institute, her head hurt most of the time because of it. These three things put together made her fuse so short as to be nonexistent, add in that cocky Cajun and most people went lengths to avoid crossing her path.

Rogue felt like she was just a razors edge from completely snapping under all the pressure. There was just too much noise, to much pain to put up with anything anymore. She didn't want to yell at Kurt or Kitty, hell, she didn't even want to be so mean to Remy, but she couldn't help it, she couldn't control it.

Her eyes raked across the top of the dresser, there were three framed pictures on it, one was a group shot of the X-men before the brotherhood and acolytes joined, another was of her Kurt and Kitty laughing at something, and the third was a black and white shot of a magnolia bloom, she had that one just because she really liked it, it reminded her of the south and of herself.

Next to the pictures was a small delicate glass figurine of a cat just sitting there looking for all the world like he owned it. Kitty had given it to her, said it had reminded the preppy valley girl of her gothic friend, independent and proud, in control. Kitty had given it to her after she had lost control of her powers at the concert to cheer her up, and it had. Rogue offered the cat a small smile, her mood lightening now that she was alone and the music was drowning out the noise the psyches were making.

Rogue lurched forward all at once, knocking the pictures over and clutching her head, the stereo skipped and the music stopped. The psyches surged forward, Rogue strangled the scream trying to tear itself from her throat.

Fight them! She commanded herself. Get the walls back up, get control.

Rage and hatred overwhelmed her and her hand shot forward, grabbing the picture frames and throwing them, hard, against the ground, the glass shattering instantly. Struggling for control she hit the dresser again, the delicate cat figurine toppling over and shattering on the floor like its picture compatriots.

"Damn You!" she snarled out loud, throwing herself to her knees to limit the movements she was capable of she ignored the shards of glass as they bit into her legs, "You're not real, ya can't control meh!"

The psyches swarmed, a twisting mass of angry ghosts. Rogue closed her eyes and internalized her consciousness, like the professor taught her to, she had to fight them in her own mindscape.

Rogue took a deep breath, and concentrated, all at once appearing in the dark and stormy landscape her mind had taken the form of.

The psyches attacked the second she materialized, "Ya can't take me that easy!" She shouted at them, leaping away from tehm and actually rising to float in the air, "Not this time!"

Rogue threw her arms out to the side, and a second later a tornado of psychic wind encircled her, creating a temporary barrier between herself and the howling mass of residual memories and energy that was the psyches.

"I may not have control of mah powers but I will always be in control of mahself!"

That said Rogue let loose, taking out all of her frustrations on the psyches, everything she'd been bottling up since the last time they tried this she opened up to them, ignoring the hits they made on her, fighting despite injuries sustained keeping the upper hand.

By the time her mental walls were up again, with her in front and the psyches safely sealed behind she was all kinds of exhausted.

This battle hadn't even been very difficult, her walls hadn't been completely destroyed when they attacked her, but it still took it out of her.

The professor, she knew, couldn't help her anymore, he'd tried, but she was on her own for this, this fight was hers.

Opening her eyes slowly she winced at the pain in her legs and quickly stood up, carefully brushing the glass off of her jeans. She winced when she noticed the pieces of the cat figurine. . .

A wave of helplessness rolled over her in the next instant, replacing all other thoughts. The attacks were happening more and more frequently now, it was getting a little harder every time to push the voices back behind her barriers, she was running out of the energy she needed to keep them subdued.

Her heart twisted painfully in her chest, and a cold chill shot down her spine and seemed to lodge itself in her stomach.

She was losing the fight, and she knew it. Sooner or later the psyches would take control again, and they would hurt the people she cared about.

Her eyes burned and Rogue tried to stop herself from letting the tears show in her eyes, but after the psyches she just didn't have the emotional or mental strength to stop them, she was too tired to do anything anymore, she was almost ready to give up and just run away.

The first tear fell, cold against her warm skin, then another, and another until she couldn't have stopped them if she wanted to. Rogue collapsed onto her bed, sitting on the edge, her hands balled into fists at her side.

The tears fell, but Rogue cried in silence.

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Remy sauntered around the mansion looking for some entertainment, specifically Rogue, he knew she must be in her room, he'd heard the music earlier after he'd chased her off the first time, but it was eerily silent now.

He honestly hadn't meant to set her off like that, but her fuse had been getting shorter since the apocalypse thing, he wasn't even entirely sure why he always baited her like he did. He liked to believe it was just his pride that made him constantly harass the southern girl, the fact that she was apparently immune to his charms was intriguing, especially when he had every other skirt (with the exception of Ororo who he had more respect for) wrapped around his Cajun raised pinky finger. But he'd been questioning himself lately, and he wasn't liking the conclusions he'd been coming too either.

There was just something about the girl, he couldn't put his finger on it, but he couldn't get her out of his head. The second she entered the room he'd drop everything he was doing, anyone he was currently flirting or talking with and immediately press as many of her buttons as he could before she'd leave.

He was a man who liked to live life dangerously, that was for sure, but what he'd said to her back when they were in New Orleans together was true, they had one hell of a lot in common, and he could feel her pain even beneath the usual anger she showed.

He also knew that her moods had absolutely nothing to do with any of the teams, she was angry at herself she just took it out on other people because she didn't know anything else to do. He also knew she felt guilty about it every time.

She was an enigma wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a mystery, but wasn't he too? They were two sides of the same coin, they were so different in personality and yet had such a similar history. If he didn't know any better he'd say that Rogue had gotten to him in a way he didn't want to be got.

"Yeah right Remy," he said to himself, walking out the front entrance and around the mansion grounds. "You jus' need ta get a bit more sleep, she don' mean nothin' more then anyone else here, not ta you at least."

He stopped just below the balcony of the room that Rogue and Kitty shared. It was too damn quiet. "She must'a left somewhere." Remy sighed, everyone else was either out or busy, and he was feeling something that he was refusing to admit might be loneliness. He maintained it as just plain boredom . "Maybe I fin' her diary," he decided, grabbing onto the ivy covered (thing?) that Storm had put up with one hand and the storm drain with the other. It was a difficult climb to be sure, but Remy was an expert, and he had climbed much worse in his line of work, for him this was childplay.

He pulled himself over the rail and onto the balcony, the doors were unlocked so he just waltzed right in, and froze.

Rogue was sitting on her bed with her back to him, and she was crying.

Indecision plagued him for a very long moment, Rogue, he knew, was a very private person and he was seriously invading that privacy, but on the other hand, he felt his own chest constrict with sympathy pain for the girl.

She took one shaky breath. . .

Remy was across the room and sitting next to her before he knew what he was doing, putting his arms around her shoulders in a semblance of an embrace.

A sharp intake of breath on Rogue's part when he touched her was the only indication that she even knew he was there.

Then she turned to face him, her eyes shining dangerously as she tried to put on a strong front and suppress the tears.

"No more o' dat chere," Remy whispered, hugging her tighter when she tried to pull away, the poor girl's weak as a kitten, "Remy won' say nothin' ta no one, sometimes ya jus' gotta let it out 'fore it eats ya up inside."

"Ya don' understan'," Rogue tried pulling away again pulling herself together as best as she could. "Get out o' mah room Cajun, ah ain't in the mood for ya right now." When he didn't move she tried again, "ah mean it swamp rat, get out before ah make ya get out!"

The threat was half hearted at best, Remy released her and Rogue immediately moved away from him though she remained sitting on the bed.

Rogue was desperate for him to leave, here eyes were burning again, and it was getting harder and harder to hold onto her composure. "Why're ya bein' so nice anyway?" she snarled, "Ain't ya got some other girl to annoy."

"Rogue," he said gently, which got her to look at him again, "Ah ain't sayin' I'm a very good one, but sometimes a person, dey jus' need a friend, someone ta talk to, a shoulder ta cry on, what happened chere? What's wrong that makes a pretty fille like you cry dem tears?"

"What if I don' want a friend?" she snapped, ignoring his questions completely.

Remy grinned, "never said ah was yours chere, but I t'ink I loan myself out dis one time."

Rogue felt herself losing it, why'd he have to be so damn nice all of a sudden! It was easier to deal with anger, she didn't have to hid anger. Him being nice was just making her feel worse for being mean to him! The tears were perilously close to breaking through.

"Rogue?"

Her eyes found his of their own will.

Red on black studied her with genuine and unguarded concern. "Rogue," he said again, his voice quiet and filled with such emotion it almost frightened her. "Please chere, tell me what's wrong, maybe ah can help?"

Rogue couldn't hold it back anymore, the nicer he was the more she wanted to cry, burying her face in her hands she pulled her legs up onto the bed with her, resting her forehead against her knees.

She felt Remy put his arms around her again, whispering to her things she couldn't understand. She hated being this weak, especially in front of him, she couldn't stand it, she rarely ever broke down like this and he just had to find her when she did!

"It'll be okay chere, you'll see." Remy said, resting his head against her own. "jus' tell Remy all about it and we figure somethin' out non?"

Already emotionally, physically, and mentally exhausted it didn't take long for Rogue to cry herself to oblivion, a warm voice following her into sleep, and as much as she'd deny it later, she could admit if only to herself that she felt better knowing someone was there.

She felt better being held by him.

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Hey, Shift here, hope you enjoyed that I had fun writing it, please review and let me know what ya think,

I think it turned out alright considering I just sat down and wrote it on a spur of the moment kind of thing, no real plan or anything, I'm gonna try and make one now though, and get a chapter two out there

Likes? Dislikes?

Let me know.

Review.