Whispers

She didn't come down for breakfast, so he knocked on her door. A little investigation turned up the surprising (if welcome) news that she had broken up with Bobby.

"Please don't tell anyone?" she asked softly.

He took one look at her—red-rimmed eyes, stiff posture, curled up in the bed—and bit off all the things he wanted to say. Good for you. He was cheating on you. He didn't deserve you. Instead, he gave her that look he knew she could read, one eyebrow raised, y' know y' don't have t' ask dat.

He answered her anyway. "Promise."

She studied his reactions carefully. He had a way of changing the dynamics of the entire team.

He was cool toward Storm for weeks and she couldn't help but think he knew, though the weather goddess seemed bewildered by her friend's sudden distance. He joined for her, after all. Logan wore a supremely self-satisfied expression.

He started flirting with her shamelessly. He played dirty in the Danger Room, slid innuendo into casual conversation over meals, in front of Bobby. She didn't really look at him when he bantered with her. She looked at Bobby and his indifference with a frightening intentness. Bobby couldn't touch her. They were mostly friends with a different kind of benefits, but--

Remy kissed her.

It overtook her slowly the way people changed around her. Some, like Kitty, followed Remy's lead, learned new ways to touch her, be around her, make her feel included. Others that had been so harsh now ignored her completely, perhaps to save themselves from him. Those devil eyes, burning fire on smoldering black, were not kind to those who treated her unkindly.

It was a novel feeling, novel idea. They were just friends.

But Remy kissed her.

She started flirting back.

The Danger Room never felt that dangerous to him, but continuous training was his second nature. He fought until he could barely stand, then killed the sim. The sudden silence was deafening, more the quiet conversation that finally reached his ears from those waiting their turn.

"What were you thinking, 'Ro?" Logan demanded.

Storm's response was clipped. "I am glad, for her sake as well as ours. The Cure should never have been made."

"She heard you."

And there it was. What sent her flying into the mansion and into his arms.

He lifted his head and restarted the program.

He was beautiful. The thought was like fire in her veins, a sort of shocking realization, a mirror image of what he felt for her.

It wasn't love, it wasn't lust, it wasn't even genuine attraction. It was admiration and respect and protectiveness and fierce disbelief that anyone could cause her pain. And there he was inside her in stark and absolute detail, and she couldn't help but feel the same for him.

Knowing she could hate him, knowing she could hurt him, and he chose to touch her--kiss her—something Bobby never would have done.

She was reeling.

It was the first time he'd ever seen that porcelain composure crack. Anger tightened in his chest. He didn't know who had said what, but he knew it wasn't right.

With one gloved hand, he reached out slowly. She watched warily but let him smooth back her tangled mane, the silken white and soft chestnut. Then he leaned over and kissed her hard, briefly, but enough to make her gasp.

It hurt like diable, a piece of his soul ripped out, leaving an empty, dizzy weariness in his body.

He turned and walked away like he didn't feel a thing.

She slammed her way into the mansion and stood sobbing against the door. Always took so much to make her cry. But this...

Betrayal.

It stabbed her in the gut and she couldn't see for the tears, and when she felt his arms around her, she fought him hard, struggling, until she recognized him and let herself cry against his chest until that feeling finally let go. He just held on to her, stroking her hair, until she quieted and pulled away.

She stood there, flushed with embarrassment. She hated to be weak, not in front of anybody. Even him.

They didn't really talk about whatever it was they had going, and that suited Remy just fine. They were friends: cohorts in the Danger Room, accomplices at midnight food theft, and working partners on the bikes.

He wasn't afraid to get close to her, but she had to learn how not flinch when he slung an arm over her shoulder or got too close in a fight. Just two weeks before she was dressed in gloves and long sleeves and everything she needed to keep the world at bay.

"Quit worryin' so much."

"Shut up," she replied with a grin.

He surprised her. Not like he hadn't from day one, but the last person she expected to show up at her door at an unholy hour before dawn was her new training partner.

"Come bearin' gifts," he said with a cheeky grin.

And he did. If it wasn't for that quart of neapolitan ice cream dangling from his fingertips, she never would have let him in. But she did.

They left the door open and she talked. A little. Mostly, she just ate ice cream, asked him enough about his past to know he didn't talk himself.

It was nice.

He heard the official news in passing, whispers in the mansion hallways that somehow always found their way into his ear. He shuffled his cards, made sense of the chaos, and grew angry.

He could rip them all over the coals for the way they put her up on a pedestal where no one could reach her but Logan and from which she couldn't climb down. They talked to her, looked at her, but none of them would be with her, no matter how starved and lonely those emerald eyes became. They treated her like a friend with their words, but somehow left out all the things that mattered. They didn't hug her, kept their distance. Others hated her, viciously, for those three weeks of freedom from her mutation--curse—she bought with the Cure. Her boyfriend sought comfort elsewhere, and she let him, even encouraged it.

He didn't know her, not even her name. Just Rogue, thank ya, to all that passed in and out of the revolving door of the X-Men. He didn't know what made her smile, what made her laugh. But he knew that somewhere inside that poisoned, lovely skin beat the heart of a woman.

She was kissing him when it happened. One moment, she's her own self wanting to be so close she can never walk away. The next she was screaming over her boyfriend's body one more time and it was one time too many.

Logan found her first and yanked her into his arms before she could run away and she wanted him to stop touching her. But he wouldn't let her go.

Hank and Storm checked Bobby, made certain he was alive, if unconscious. Students gathered in the hallway. Like before.

This could not be happening. It couldn't. It just couldn't.