Rewrite.

"That's it!" John growled snapping his Zippo shut Rogue looked up, her features pulled into a frown. The absences of the continuous snap and click of the lighter made the silence in the jet deafening.

"What's wrong?" She asked and immediately winced, it was perhaps a stupid thing to ask given their current situation.

John didn't answer though, he didn't even acknowledge that she had spoken. He just marched towards the jet's control centre and punched down a button with unnecessary force before stalking off to grab one of the many royal blue Xmen jackets.

"John, where are you going?" Bobby demanded as the Blackbird's ramp began to lower down.

John rolled his dark eyes as he shoved his arms into the jacket's sleeves "I'm sick of this kid table shit, I'm going in there!"

Rogue felt the muscles in her shoulders tense "You can't be serious?" when John continued to ignore her, she pleaded "John they told us to stay here."

There was a knot in her throat tightening with every moment that he refused to face her. The fear that he would leave her here after what had happened between them, leave her to face it alone made her fists clench. It was typical John behaviour, cause the damage then leave it up to others to clean up the mess. She should have been surprised but she wasn't, not even a little bit.

He finally turned to look at her for the first time since they had parted that morning by his tent, but Rogue found she was wrong to think it would make her feel better. There was no warmth in his eyes, they were harsh and unforgiving in a way that made her stomach twist, and the smirk that seemed to constantly be sketched on to his face was gone. John's jaw clenched as he stared at her, scrutinizing her to the point she became uncomfortable and looked down causing him to sneer.

"You always do as you're told?"

She flinched at his hard voice, hating the fact that no matter how much she wanted to answer, she couldn't find the words. John actually looked disappointed, as if she had failed in some way. He shook his head, a fractured parody of his usual smirk pulled at his lips and he turned away jogging down the ramp and into the snowy base of Alkali lake.

That fucking asshole. A voice that sound eerily like Logan whispered inside her head.

She bit down on her lower lip hard enough to make it bleed before huffing out a breath and charging towards the ramp. She wasn't going to allow him to do this, he couldn't keep just walking away whenever it got difficult, she wasn't going to let him, not this time. However she barely got three paces before Bobby stepped forward and grasped her gloved wrist firmly, Rogue whipped around, trying to ignore the onslaught of guilt she felt when she look at him.

"Where do you think you're going Rogue?" he asked confusion creeping into his voice.

She blinked "Bobby we have to go get him and slap some sense into him. It's too dangerous for him to be wandering around out there alone!"

"He can take care of himself, he proved that at my parent's house" Bobby groused.

Panic tore through her body to the point she could feel small beads of sweat gathering at the back of her neck. She looked imploringly into Bobby's eyes "This is different and you know it, Bobby I know you're angry at him and I understand. But he's your best friend and he's walking into a war zone"

Bobby said nothing for a moment staring intently at her, he slid his hand down from her wrist to hold her hand giving it a firm squeezed, and she squeezed his hand back. "Okay, I'll go but you need to stay here and guard the jet."

Rogue opened her mouth to argue when a sharp, abrupt pain shot through her head. She let out a gasp clutching Bobby's hand more tightly in her own. The pain stopped as suddenly as it came.

"Are you okay?" Bobby asked looking at her warily.

She didn't get to response as the pain returned tenfold, crashing through her mind, making her cry out and drop to her knees. Distantly she could hear Bobby's own cries, but the pain didn't let up long enough for her to realise the implication of such a thing. With each passing moment the pain increased, turning into blinding white, hot flashes of lightening cutting through her head. It didn't take much longer for the screaming to start, she didn't know whose screams they were but there were thousands of them, hundreds of thousands of them echoing inside her head. They were in pain, she could feel them dying, it was then that she understood that it would be the same for her, if this didn't stop soon she would die.

Bobby's hold on her hand never wavered, and then it was over. Just like that the screams and the pain were gone in an instant as though they had never been there to begin with. All that remained was a soft ringing in her ears.

She wondered how much time had passed, her throat felt like sandpaper from all her own screaming. Rogue blinked slowly and looked to Bobby who was lying next to her on the floor holding on to her hand as though it was a life line. His face was ghostly white and he was panting, his eyes appeared just as exhausted as she was sure her own did.

She licked her lips, not even attempting to rise from her position on the floor "What was that?"

Her voice came out more of a croak than anything else but Bobby seemed to understand her as he swallowed and shook his head "I don't know, but it wasn't just us was it? I felt them the others I mean, the mutants"

"I know. So did I."

"We need to find John and the others, we have to get out of here" he muttered perhaps more to himself than her as he slowly sat up, as though any sudden movement would bring back the pain.

Rogue pressed her lips together, John was probably inside the base by now with the others, her eyes flickered over to the control panel.

"We could fly the Blackbird closer to the base"

Bobby frowned "How? I don't know how to fly this thing and neither do you, we would more likely crash the bloody jet than be of any real help."

Rogue rose to stand rather unsteadily "It can't be that hard, it will be like one of those computer games you and Peter are always playing."

He scoffed "I think there will be a bit more to it than that."

"Well let's find out, shall we?"

She stumbled over to Storm's seat, falling into the chair with a total lack of grace. Taking a deep breath she flicked the engine on, and pressed the button to close the ramp. Hating the fact that it felt like she was removing John's opinion of getting back on the jet, it was stupid truthfully because she knew he had too much pride to come back tail between his legs and he was most likely in the base by now anyway.

She took another deep breath before trying to pull the jet up, her movement was too fast and the jet jerked causing her head to fall back painfully against the back of the chair and Bobby had to reach out and grab hold of Jean's seat to keep from falling to the floor.

"Sorry" she winced, desperately trying to keep her hands steady as she steered the Blackbird toward the base.

"You're doing good Rogu- WAIT CAREFUL!"

The jet lunged forward, before spinning out and landing with a jolting, crash mere feet away from Logan and the others. Bobby quickly slammed down on the ramp button to let everyone in, placing a reassuring hand on her trembling shoulder.

"You did it!" he exclaimed with a proud smile that did nothing to slow down the wild, raging beat of her heart.

The Xmen and Xstudents began to file in rapidly, Storm marching swiftly up to Rogue and gently pried her fingers off of the controls. Bobby grasped her hand and pulled her to one of the remaining empty passenger seats and she went with him willing, scanning the jet for John but coming up short in her search.

"Has anyone seen John?" She called out trying to get her voice to carry out over the chaos.

"Pyro?" Logan questioned his eyes making a quick study of the people inside the Blackbird

"He's with Magneto" Jean stated calmly.

Rogue went silent and remained silent until they returned to the mansion that night.