Title: Destiny's Dreams

Rating: PG-13, for now...

Pairing: Rogue/Remy

Summary: This is a "What If?" story, much akin to some of the AU of Marvel Comics. My question is...what if something had gone wrong when Mesmero and Mystique had kidnapped Rogue? What if she'd gone missing for a month, where as Mesmero and Mystique were found incapacitated the same day she'd gone missing? What if Apocalypse had never risen, and instead a new unknown villain had emerged? And what would happen if Rogue suddenly found herself taken from everything she'd known for a year, and was forced to return and save a world she'd hoped long gone?

Chapter 1: One of These Nights

She liked to think that they loved her. In their ignorance of her true nature, of her purpose in this life, she liked to think they considered her friend, family, and daughter. From Mystique to Storm to Jean to Kurt. Various relationships and memories swirling in her mind, tearing at one cornerstone even as it built up another.

Reality was shifting itself and she feared she would be changed irrevocably by the acts forced upon her. There could be no blame laid elsewhere, for if she'd never been strong enough to resist, didn't the blame lay with her? Perhaps, with Mother Nature or God? If she hadn't had the talents she had, would she have lived a peaceful life, with parents and boyfriends? With friends and lovers? Just maybe, this was the curse of true Vision. To see the possibilities and forever be plagued with the "what if's".

What if she didn't have Vision at all, and once again she was a willing victim to delusions of grandeur and things not meant to be? Did she really live in a mansion in Massachusetts? Did she really have a blue-furred brother, and an equally blue mother? Did she really not have the trivial sense of touch? Trivial though it may seem, she latched onto that fact because it was the only inconvertible one she could ponder at the moment.

She held onto it, her not being able to touch, and used it to ground herself in whatever situation she'd drifted from. Professor Xavier often said it was a bad habit of her's, daydreaming in the midst of hostile territory, her mind treading the waters of probability. It was something she'd picked up from her mother, Irene. The daydreams and the Vision.

She'd yet to tell anyone of either.

Her eyes open slowly, struggling to fight past the drowsiness brought on by imprinting someone, the struggle of finding one's own self in the chaos of a crowded mind only recently made clean. It shouldn't be this way; she remembered as she tried, the Professor fixed this, hadn't he? Cleaned her slate of sins leaving white-washed walls of mental stability that could only last so long. She'd viewed it as a sort of 'vacation' from the mental angst of norm. She'd almost been cheery, of the little she remembered.

A ringing in her ears and she focused on the people opposite her. Blue and Tan, were the blurred colors, both of them rimmed in black. Their auras or their physicality? Even as she struggled to bring that thought to the forefront (what was that screaming? Was that her? Why was she screaming?), memories came flying back.

She was a child, running in the park with her friend, her long blond braids flowing behind her as she embraced the frivolity and frenzy of childhood...

She'd been in a limo; her thoughts slow as she listened to a fight. It was about her. The man wanted her to do something, and the woman didn't want her to. He was calm, but the woman hadn't been. Her voice loud and screeching, but the tone protective. After all these years of lies and betrayal, could it be that Mystique truly cared?

...the training was hard on her body, genetically predisposed to being tall and skinny she'd fought for her muscles, both physical and psychic...

Rogue lifted her head, shaking all over from some huge exertion that she couldn't yet remember. She wanted to stand, she knew that. She should be in a position of aggression, her fighting stance. Legs apart, hands at sides, fists curled, sneer on her face; she couldn't even stand.

...a disguise had to be worn, for her protection they said. Mutant heroes must never reveal their identities, because it endangers everyone they know and love, and the government that employs her...

Something was wrong, very wrong; she could hear screaming, but she knew now it wasn't her. It couldn't be her, her mouth was shut. It couldn't be Mesmero and Mystique, for they weren't speaking either. There was only one other person in the room, her prone figure laying beside her, unmoving and unscreaming.

...she did her job, protected her country, and she hid her identity from all. She knew it was a country-wide policy for all mutant officers, but she always felt a small sense of shame when she put on her mask...

She pulls herself to sitting position, leaning against the wall for support. She wants to reach for the woman beside her, to check for a pulse but something tells her it's futile without checking. Besides, she's not wearing her gloves.

...they call her Miss Marvel...

She remembers now. Even the blackouts aren't there anymore. She remembers all the touches, the imprints, the small betrayals. She remembers what's happened here, and she knows who is screaming.

...her real name was Carol Danvers...

She knows that Carol is screaming, just as she knows that neither Mystique nor Mesmero can hear it. It's her own personal demon, railing against her soul. A curse laid down by DNA, a punishment for past lives that she doesn't remember. Her skin is so pale it's almost luminescent, the veins pulsing beneath the skin clearly visible. Why does she go on despite all the bad things she'd done? Why hasn't God struck her down yet? Does he not care for the agony she endures?

...they call her the Rogue...

"What have you done?" Her voice so small at first that her two companions don't even hear it. "What have you done?" Stronger now, a thread of anger and despair lacing through it driving it into the minds of her mother and her kidnapper. "What have you done?!"

The yell faded from the room, destroyed as it was it doesn't echo from it. A fight, primal and uncontrolled had been raged here, woman versus woman, mutant versus mutant. More than ever, the edict that 'mutant is weapon' was proven here. Two guns firing at the same time, both shooters are taken down. Equal loss.

She whispered to herself, thoughts swirling into a black hole in her mind, the screams of her victim and herself mingling to become one solo wail. "What have you done?" She whispered over and over. She's not asking of Mesmero or Mystique any longer.

She's asking of herself. What kind of world is this place, that she can do these things and no one and nothing can stop her?

What kind of world indeed that she is denied the simplest comfort?

...and she's falling to pieces...

She wants to leave this place. To forget everything and everyone.

To leave this world.

To forget it all.

An edict set in stone of her mind, reaching for the maelstrom of mutant genes swirling inside her. Her own genes realigning themselves, unconsciously acting upon the mantra that has started in her mind.

To leave this world.
To forget it all.

Magnetic energy at her fingertips, healing factor repairing the bruises and contusions that blanket her body, telepathy to remove any threats. A shell of metal forms around her as she floats above the ground, still curled into a ball of self-defense. Mystique steps forward, finally realizing what's she done and perhaps even regretting it. She'll not get the chance to tell her daughter; neither shall Mesmero get the chance to reclaim the key to his master's domain. They're both rendered unconscious and without memory as soon as they advance on the rapidly constituting wormhole.

Teleportation genes mix with telekinetic genes mix with molecular manipulation. Her physical body becomes incorporeal, staying in a constitution of existence unlike any other that came before this time. The shell she's built keeps her in one place, lest her atoms scatter to the winds and she loses herself completely.

For all her horror and anguish, she doesn't want to die.

She just wants to forget.

In a flash of light so bright it's seen for miles, bringing rescue trucks and police (too late), the orb that holds her disappears.

The psychic aftermath of the release of energy from the hole in the wall in Washington D.C., where not one, but three bodies await recovery reaches across many a state, and even an ocean.

From his seat behind her desk, in the middle of some spontaneous speech to his X-Men and Magneto's Acolytes about the importance of finding Mesmero before it was too late, Professor Xavier stops. He doesn't gasp, he doesn't move an inch, he just stops. His mind feels the wave of energy and emotion that is rapidly flying across the globe. Every telepath in the Western hemisphere feels it, and soon others across the world will too.

It's the tinge of self-awareness that tells him from who it comes. The rhythm of the telepathy is too familiar, for it perfectly mimics his own. He turns to the window, knowing that all the others near him are confused, all but Jean. Together, they stand at that window and cast out with their minds. Together, they reach for the origin of the wave, seeking to find their friend and ally.

In sync, holding each others' hand, and each placing one on the window, they speak in tandem, not realizing that she's already too far away to feel them. "Rogue."

Ororo starts to step forward, only Logan's hand at her elbow keeping her from interrupting the impromptu mental search. "What's happened?"

Logan, more in tune to the psychic plane that he cares to admit, answered for the 'spooks'. "I'm thinking Rogue has tried to contact them."

What would be if only those in that room had felt the backlash of Rogue's great escape? Would it be that Sebastian Shaw hadn't had two very skilled telepaths with him in that moment?

Would it be a lot of things, however, it wasn't to be.

The Black King of the Hellfire Club listened with civil disinterest as his White Queen described the event to him. His interest was sparked, and without even knowing it, the X-Men entered what would become one of their most dangerous battles.