Disclaimer: I do not own nor have ever owned Wolverine, Rogue or the Xmen, regardless of how unbelievably sexy I find Hugh Jackman (a girl can dream). This story is not for any sort of financial gain, but purely for my own and any possible readers' entertainment. So that aside, read on!

"Fool To Cry"

"This isn't what I wanted," Bobby's face was almost mournful as he looked down at her.

"I know," Rogue told him. "It's what I wanted."

He didn't say anything; she still couldn't believe the feeling of his skin touching hers. To be able to feel the texture and heat of his skin was like nothing she'd imagined. The feeling was incredible, knowing she couldn't hurt him simply by holding his hand.

He opened his mouth as if to say something, but then closed it again. "Rogue…" he began hesitantly. "You've been gone a long time."

"So?" she demanded. "Bobby, why won't you look at me?"

He finally lifted his eyes to hers, his expression one of guilt and sadness. "I assumed you weren't coming back, after all you went through."

"Why wouldn't I come back?" she frowned, nonplussed. "I came back for you. I fixed everything! Everything is fine now; we don't have to worry about my skin anymore. It's not an issue!"

"Yeah, I know, it's just," he stammered, "Things have changed around here since you left. You didn't even say goodbye!"

Rogue didn't have an answer for that. She knew she'd left him in the lurch, but at the same time, she'd half hoped Logan would have told everyone what she had gone to do. She thought Bobby knew how much her mutation tore her up inside, how the limits it put on her made her half-mad with misery. She thought he'd understood.

He dropped her hand, and she felt the absence of his touch almost like a kick to her stomach. "What aren't you telling me?" she asked quietly.

"Kitty and I…" he sighed, clearing his throat slightly. "We're together. We have been for a while. I'm sorry, Rogue."

"No," she whispered. "No! I did it for you! It was always for you!"

He half-shrugged; his expression was almost pitying. "You know I never asked you to do that."

"Of course you didn't!" she screamed, anger rising up in her throat, threatening to choke her. She tried to shove the emotion away, to no avail. "You didn't have to! I thought you loved me!"

"I'm sorry," he said again, taking a step backwards. "I'm so sorry, Rogue."

"No, you're not," she said bitterly. "Just get out."

He didn't move, just raised his hands, as if to try and placate her.

"Get out!" she screamed at him, grasping for something, anything. Her hand landed on a vase of flowers sitting on the windowsill just as he left the room. Heaving it after him, it shattered into a million pieces on the back of the door, leaving a pile of broken glass and wilting flowers on the floor.

It shattered just like her heart had shattered. She'd seen the way they'd looked at one another, seen how they spent so much time together. Rogue had left, thinking that everything could be normal, back to the way it should have been, if only her mutation was gone. Of only they could actually touch, if only…

It was useless. She knew somewhere deep inside that he had been a lost cause almost the minute he'd first set eyes on the perky girl who could walk through walls. That realization didn't stop it from hurting, didn't stop a thousand knives from piercing her stomach, heart, and lungs, until she couldn't breathe with the hurt of it. She'd wanted to feel, wanted to be able to touch another, but now all she could feel was hurt.

She sat heavily on the edge of the bed, a bed that she really didn't even think of it as hers. It was so anonymous, almost like a hotel. She'd never bothered to personalize her room like other girls had. The walls still had their ambiguous artwork, watercolors of nothing in particular, the flowers she'd ruined, the dark blue bedspread that was identical to a hundred others in the manor.

Flopping onto her back, she tried not to cry, but the tears came anyways, coursing down the sides of her face and thoroughly wetting the duvet in two little puddles. She just tried to breathe, to loosen the band of hurt that was wrapped around her chest.

At the end of it all, had any of it ever been worth it? Traveling all those miles, riding on bus after bus, having to endure all the protesters, all the hecklers, the jeering, hateful people who sometimes even threw things at her, like eggs and rotten fruit. Or the worst, rotten eggs.

And then, of course, the people who gave her the shot, who wore sterile white gloves and expressions of barely contained disgust, as if they could only just bring themselves to touch her. Like she was diseased. Like she was a freak.

Even if she hadn't felt that way before, those horrible doctors in their long white coats and cruelly clinical gazes would have made her start to feel that way about herself.

As if mutants didn't have enough self-esteem issues and stupid prejudices to deal with in the first place.

God, she hated bigots. Her father was one.

Closing her eyes, Rogue breathed deeply, letting the hurt and disappointment wash over her. It had to get better. She couldn't feel this bad forever. She prayed she couldn't feel this bad forever.

Reviews? Let me know what you think...I'm not always the best at wrapping chapters up.