The Silence

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Tick

Tock

Tick

Tock

Tick

Anna didn't know how long she staired at the clock on the wall. It's black hands trapped in an endless dance shuffling between six evens and six odds. She watched them turn threw her black veil. To her time was of no coincidence, a drifter. Yet the clock dared to defy her reality. How dare it sppin as if time were still taking place around her person. Rogue wanted to smash it. To see its innerworkings take the floor while apart of her didn't want to. Time seemed almost surreal.

The door opened. She heard the protest of the old hinges. But she wouldn't look at who it was who came in. Whoever it was seemed an eternity away.

"Rogue."

"Professor." she recalled his voice still not registering his presence entirely.

"You've been in this room for hours. Everyone is worried about you you know. if there is anything we can do ..."

"Can you bring Pete back to life?"

"I am sorry Rogue."

"But you can locate Bella?"

"We have yet to locate her."

"And when you do?"

"I shall tell you of her location."

"You know what I plan to do to her don't you?"

"I have hoped that despite what she has done to you you would spare her her life."

"You are so worried about her life Professor. What about the life that belonged to me that she ruined?"

"Two wrongs don't make a right. I fear that if you go through with what you plan you will inevitably regret it either from facing the fact that you killed a person or upon realisation that her death did not bring Pete back to life."

"You speek as if I'm just going to run out there and kill her."

"You weren't?"

"Oh she will die ... after what I have in store for her."

"And what do you have instore for her?"

"If you really want to know Professor," she finally turned to him, "Then look in my mind and find out."

Those were the last words she said in over five months.

Everyone noticed it. Everyone felt it when she was near. That she, she didn't belong. Well Rogue belonged, but not the ghost of herself. The look in her eyes and the way she moved. One could easily mistake her as a wraith doomed to spend eternity roaming the land of the living.

She never talked. She acknologed people with a nod or shake of the head. No one had seen her eat in weeks. Judging by the near portruding spine they believed she was becoming undernurished. She spent her time wondering.

At both twelves of the day she hovered around Pete's old room. Between the threes and fours she wandered the grounds. At the six and sevens she scowered the lower levels often found in the weight room by herself.

All of her friends had tried. Tried to make her see the light, come back to them, all but one. Remy LeBeau couldn't bare to go near her. His guilt ate him alive each an every he wouldn't had left Bella then Anna would had been happy. Hell if he wouldn't had even came here in the first place all would had been better.

He felt that if he tried to help her he would be himself. He would flirt with her. Taunt her. Edge her on. In short he would take advantage of a woman who had lost everything. He wasn't that cruel. That selfish. That dispicable. So why was he, at a quarter to four, stairing out the window at her?

"Gumbo."

He didn't turn to look at him,"What have I done?"

Instead of answering Logan joined him at the window. They both watched as Rogue stood admiring a particular tree noticing not wind nor rain. Her body was there. Her soul was lost.

"I'm probobly going to say this once kid. This, what happened, was not yuour fault."

"Don't sugercoat it Logan. I brought Bella here. I broke her heart. Then the first chance I got when she came back was try to take her away from someone who truly cared for her. Then I left crazy Bella, made her mad, and now look what happened. Look at her. She's as dead to us as Pete is."

"Once again I probobly want tell you this so listen up. You're right."

Finally looking at Logan, "Tell me something I don't know."

"When a man messes up he fixes his mistakes."

"Wat if he doesn't know how?"

Looking back out the window, "What I do know Gambit is that doing nothing never accomplishes anything."

"How do you know that what I'm doing now isn't the best idea?"

"Look at her kid. She's already broken. What more can you do to her?"

Gambit stepped away from the window giving Logan a brief look before exiting his room to find Rogue. She was still outside beneath the tree.

"Rogue?" Her body didn't move. Her left eye moved in his socket from front to back. She saw him. Once again not acting on her surroundings.

Her eyes were emotionless as he stood next to her. What he was about to do was wrong, but he rather suffer her rage than whatever she was now.

Steadying himself he turned her too him pulled his hand back and struck her across her face. The pain registered. Her blank eyes looked surprised then livid. She was upon him quicker than he could blink.

He let her knock him to the ground before pounding her fist against him again and again, "WHY DID YOU DO THAT! WHY DID YOU HIT ME! ANSWER ME!"

The sound of her voice had bought the other XMEN outside. They watched as she punched him sinceless again and again and again past the point of his black out.

"Rogue that's enough." Logan told her. She stopped feeling the wetness on her hands. Then she looked down. Her eyes widened, "Remy wake up! I'm sorry! I was just mad!" she cried.

His eyes opened, "She speeks."

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