Whispers

Rogue woke in the slight moonlight streaming in through the blinds to land on the bed she and Bobby were sharing. Her heart slammed in her chest. Her skin was sweaty. The covers twisted between them both and he had clearly woken with her as he stared at her, propped up on one elbow.

"Have you tried sleeping pills?" Bobby asked.

She turned toward him, resisting the urge to snarl in his face. Pity, most of the psyches in her head weren't nice. She wasn't even sure which one was rolling under her flesh, threatening to break loose.

"Bobby, I can't stop it." The beginnings of a frown trembled around her mouth. "Anymore than the touch."

He sighed long and loudly and fell back onto his back.

The frown won out and for a moment, only Rogue inhabited her body. Not someone sweet and quiet like Cody. Not someone brusque and withdrawn like Logan. Not someone tactful, if menacing, like Magneto.

"What's it matter to you?" she demanded. "Seems to me, it only matters if it bothers you."

"That's not true," he protested, but she cut him off.

"It is true. It doesn't matter to you if I can't touch or if I have bad dreams as long as you have your perfect girl or can sleep through the night." She narrowed her eyes in a dangerous glare when he refused to meet her eyes. "It doesn't matter to you that I'm fighting just to stay me."

"That's not true," he said again.

She didn't believe him.

"It's coming back, Logan." Her voice was flat in her own ears, and she wasn't surprised when Logan stared at her.

He set down his fork, his cup of coffee, never noticing he'd spilled on the newspaper and a wet, dark ring was forming. He stared into the deadened eyes she had seen in her own face in the mirror, and for one long, endless moment, she was the little girl climbing into the back of his truck again, putting on him a burden that had never been his to shoulder.

"The touch?" he asked. Bewildered, perhaps, but sharp as ever. There was only one thing that could mean so much.

Rogue shrugged with a casualness belying her words. "Just the voices."

She was twisting in the sheets, screaming.

The stench of burning flesh drifted from the ovens of the concentration camp as needle sharp pain tatooed a number on her arm. Her limbs were too thin, getting thinner, and the sweat of her body made her feel like merely food for the ovens.

And this is what happened to God's people?

"The nightmares." She frowned and looked up at him. "Sometimes I'm not sure if I'm me or you."

She plunged her claws into the beating heart beneath her, waiting for him to die! The snarling beast's wounds healed over, faster than even her own.

"Do you even know how to kill me?"

Couldn't anyone kill her?

She woke up screaming, growling like a wild beast, without control.

Logan stared at her in horror. "Kid..."

He reached out, touched her face in a gentle caress, and she closed her eyes, fought back the urge to cry. For this. She was drowning for this.

"I'm drowning." She sank to her knees, fists balled against her sealed eyelids, as another person washed over her, became her.

"No!" she screamed, reaching out for her mother behind the closing gate, screaming as she smelled the stench of burning flesh. "No!"

Do you remember us? a voice whispered, hissed out the final letter in her mind as she lay tangled up in her sheets in the darkness of the night. We're still here. We haven't left.

There were moments when everything changed, when reality skewed and everything she'd ever known to be true faltered and failed, tumbling into pieces of ash before floating away. As she lay next to Bobby in her tangled sheets, breathing hard from nightmares and voices flashing across her mind like so much lightning, she came across a realization that forced all the comfort from her soul.

She had never loved Bobby.

Rogue gasped and twisted her fingers into the bedclothes beneath her. Where was the girl that had loved adventure, lived for it, talked her first boyfriend into joyriding her aunt's car, planned the trip to Alaska, studied a bar girl's art of coyness to get her first kiss? Where was the girl who rode motorcycles and laughed and dared, that picked the name Rogue?

Or was that a final act of defiance before allowing Cody into her own mind, deeper, twisting his psyche into her own to allow him room to breathe, even if it meant strangling herself?

She had never loved Bobby.

He was too tame for her, for who she used to be.

Do you remember us?

How much of her was her anymore? How much would be allowed to remain?

Story Summary: She took the Cure thinking it would save her. It didn't.

Canonical Notes: Set immediately following the events of X3.

Acknowledgements: Special love to starlight2twilight, my lover of all things belonging to this story arc, and Irual, who has arrived later than most to the party and yet given me more feedback than almost anybody. A wealth of gratitude to ChamberlinofMusic and to mylove24 for inspiring this piece with your reviews of Without a Trace.

Author's Note: I thought I was writing this for Without a Trace. Turns out I wasn't, but I couldn't drop it anyway.

"Expatriate"

- 3 -

n. a vicious and solitary animal that has separated itself from its herd.

-

Keep a lid on it, Rogue told herself over and over. Keep a lid on it.

Vicious, jibing whispers played in the dark corners of her mind--watch pots really do boil, wouldn't that be nice?, it's our mind too. She shuddered as she followed Logan closely into a dark back room, low ceiling, dim lights. Whiskey and cigarettes--cheap, Wolverine's nose told her—and playing cards spread like sin across the tables.

We're still here. Why should we play nice, little girl? You are stronger than these weak creatures. Have you forgotten us?

It's my mind too.

Rogue had no way to shut them out, just her own inward chant to drown the seething, Keep a lid on it. And she did.

Ruthlessly.

It hissed and steamed beneath that mental cover, like a powder keg or a roiling pot just waiting to blow.

Logan glanced back at her. She cast him a wicked smile, no telling how many minds joined in the gesture. He turned back, scanned the room for a man named Archie.

Her eyes scanned with him. She spotted him first.

Affectionately, That old--

Rogue slammed shut the thought, even on Logan. She was not Logan, could not be Logan. Keep a lid on it. Laughter helped. Riding in the cold, sharp wind on the motorcycle helped. Playing with fire in the corner of her mind made things worse in the long run, but in a pinch, it helped.

Logan settled in at a table. Five men playing cards with keen, hooded gazes. She settled in beside him.

She wasn't laughing.

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Logan could smell the bleeding welter of emotions swelling and clashing on Rogue's skin. But she sipped her Belvedere and accepted her cards with a fiercely maintained coolness that he was forced to accept. If she couldn't take the heat, she'd let him know.

But it was the first moment that he wondered if he shouldn't do this.

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"Rogue, hmm?" The bristly, dark-bearded logger type scratched his chin and eyed her shrewdly. "Heard that name before."

After the third round of cards and the second vodka, Rogue had settled nicely into the sharp atmosphere of Logan's acquaintances. They called him Patch. He called them trouble.

She bared teeth and leaned forward on one elbow. "Oh?" She cocked her head at the man, noting from the side as the youngest card shark studied her appreciatively.

Logan tensed.

"Yep," Bristlebeard said, nodding. "With the X-Men, right?"

The already thick tension ratcheted higher and more than one keen gaze settled on her.

Rogue flicked an eyebrow upward. "Do you even know what a rogue is?" she asked coldly.

She had picked the name at random. Well, not quite, but close enough. It wasn't until later when she looked it up in the dictionary that she discovered just how well it fit.

"A vicious, solitary organism of undesirable qualities that goes it alone," she summarized with a vicious enough tone to underscore the words.

Logan glanced at her sharply. She was certain he didn't like it.

She leaned back, appraised her cards. "Raise two hundred."

So far, Logan had covered the bets. Rogue didn't think she'd disappoint.

Corrigan, a quiet sort of fellow, furrowed his brows at his own hand. He shook his head, as if dislodging some pesky insect, then glanced at her briefly. "So what is your calling card if it isn't loyalty?"

Rogue and Logan turned as one to the dark-haired, sharp-featured vet. He seemed uncomfortable in his own skin in here, but the circling sharks left him well enough alone. The question he asked was a loaded one. Rogue tilted her head thoughtfully, realizing that this was the moment this circle decided whether she came along for the ride or Logan went without her.

"What do you think?" she asked softly.

Fire. Survival. Adrenaline. Fear. Answers swirled like so much detritus of a dozen minds beneath her skin, whispering behind her lips. I can tell you my secret.

But what was hers?

Corrigan finally looked up and met her eye to eye. Something dark and quick flitted through those irises, but he seemed solid, reliable. He narrowed his eyes slightly, trying to read her.

Hope. Family. Fire. Fear.

He frowned.

It was a moment for the taking, if Rogue could only find an answer these sharks would accept. She lay down her cards faces down on the table and flattened her hands over the top of them.

"I'm here because I want to be," she said, voice still soft, hiding the undercurrents of other voices. "I'm here because there ain't a better partner than Patch to watch your back and because the world's a bigger place than New York or a telepath's dream."

"Adventure then?" asked the other woman of the table cheekily. Rogue didn't bother to note her appearance. She'd pegged her for a shapeshifter early.

Rogue glanced at Logan, his unreadable face, and licked her lips. "You could say that, sugar." Then she picked up her cards again and nodded at Bristlebeard. "Your bet."

The tension rolled out until only Logan still seemed unsatisfied.

"Undesirable"

- 2 -

n. an organism that shows an undesirable variation from a standard.

-

They underestimated her. Rogue wasn't one to begrudge the point though. Somewhere inside of her she became the Wolverine, the powerful Magneto, the daredevil, dangerous John. She was unpredictable, seething beneath her skin. She didn't want them knowing that underneath was a completely different person than the one they saw on the surface.

Logan told her to wear leather, walk in like she owned the place. Even so, the mutants hidden in the cloudy fog of cigar smoke and dimly lit alcoves of the bar stared at her like she was the prey and they were the predators.

She ignored them, sticking close to Logan, chin up. Her arms were naked—Logan had mercilessly disposed of all of her gloves—and she deliberately thought of them as deadly.

Just a little touch...

Rogue cast a small, coy smile at the wary gaze of a patron.

So small, so insignificant, these humans, Eric thought.

They're mutants, Logan replied.

Logan made straight for the bar. If it weren't for him inside her head, the psyches would be loose already. The Cure had not killed them. It had strengthened them, for she had no apparatus any longer for containing them. Good thing at least one of them liked her.

Half-mutant, half-human. What was she anyway?

Besides a freak.

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The bar was a hangout for mutants. They lurked in the shadowy corners, swirling with cigar smoke and the sharp scents of the wary and the dangerous, making deals and playing games. Rogue did good beside him as Logan pushed past the dimly lit corners toward the bar. Her chin was high, green eyes glittering dangerously. Something told him she was cuing off of him.

He had told her to wear leather, stay sharp, pretend that skin of hers was as deadly as it'd been before. A quick, sharp glance had been his only reply, but she wore leather, a form-fitting tank top, and haughty confidence under her ponytail.

Logan reached the bar and leaned both arms against it to grin at the barkeep. Rogue stopped at his shoulder, slid one hand to her hip, and pulled a disinterested expression. Storm would probably kill him if she knew he had brought the kid here, but he figured Rogue could hold her own with a name like that and an attitude like his lurking somewhere under the shy exterior she had maintained for so long.

"Coy." He nodded at the barkeep, a big man with three clawed scars running down the side of his face.

The barkeep nodded and pulled down two glasses and a bottle. "For the both of you?" Coy squinted one eye at Rogue.

Rogue shrugged. "You got any Belvedere, sugar?"

Logan gave her a double-take. Her accent was thicker than sin and dripping with sweetness. "Vodka, huh?" he asked.

She caught him staring at her and grinned wickedly back.

Logan returned to the matter. "Archie in?"

"Corrigan?" The barkeep grunted. "In the back."

"Thanks, Coy." Logan slipped a twenty under the rest of the money for their drinks.

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Haven't been here in a while, said the voice inside her head, like her own thoughts.

Rogue ruthlessly shoved it down. She was not Wolverine glancing about warily but with too much familiar ease to be anything like a stranger to these parts. She was Rogue. Rogue had never been here in her life.

Logan smiled back at her and introduced her to a few faces as they went past. He paused longer at a poker game of three. One woman in her thirties, a blonde man in his twenties, and another inscrutable, dark-haired brooder.

"This is Ace," of the golden-haired woman with her friendly smile. "Super strength, plus she can fly."

Ace grinned back. "In more ways than one, Patch."

Rogue glanced sharply at Logan.

He shrugged. "Rusty." He nodded at the unassuming young blonde.

Rusty returned a weary smile. "Who's the girl?" he asked.

Rogue bristled, but not so much as Logan.

"She's my girl, got it?" The words were harsh.

Rusty raised both hands. "Sure, sure."

The other guy chuckled. "I'm Dom. They call him 'Firefist,'" he told her, shrugging toward Rusty.

"Kinda like John," Logan added.

She eyed Rusty sharply. She wanted him to let loose fire, let her touch it, mold it to her will. "Think plenty of yourself?" Firefist indeed. She'd show him fire that burned and shaped and...

Logan frowned at her. "Rogue."

She snapped her head up to Logan's word. "I'm not—" She stopped, horrified. She was. She was Rogue.

"I don't call me that." Rusty flashed her a bright, toothy smile. "Just them." He gestured between Ace and Logan.

Ace shook her head at them both. "Don't mind him," she said, as if apologizing.

But Rogue wasn't listening. They were warring in her head. Logan's fingers dug into her arm. He said something and pulled her away into a corner.

"Rogue, Marie," he said softly, desperately.

She stared at him, gasped as her own mind slammed back into place. She shook her head and wrapped her arms tightly around herself. "I'm fine."

She wasn't, but she needed to be. Sometimes that was enough. She looked up at Logan. "Why are we here?" she asked softly.

Logan stared at her for a long moment. Finally, he straightened, eyes closing down again. "Just some business. Thought you could handle it..."

"I can," she stated acidly, her voice so low only a feral could hear it. Rogue might not have been a mutant. She might not have been a human. She was just an undesirable vagabond with no bearings and no identity, but she had Logan. He was her only family. "I'm doing this with you."

He studied her thoughtfully. "Fine, kid. Stick close. Eyes open. Mouth closed."

She nodded curtly in understanding.

"If you have another spell, keep a lid on it." His eyes apologized for saying it, but his face was hard.

"I'll be fine."

Perhaps it should have told her something that Logan believed it more than she did.

"Vagabond"

- 1 -

n. a tramp or vagabond (nomad).

-

She woke up screaming.

Logan launched out of his bed and across the gap between them. Rogue's eyes were beyond seeing him, the green glazed over with fear and sparkling tears. She drew in deep, ragged breaths, her throat rasping, shoulders shaking.

"Kid." He caught her shoulders with his hands. "Kid, it's me. You're okay."

She stared into his eyes. "Daddy," she whispered faintly, sounding so very lost.

Logan swallowed hard and gathered her up into his arms. "No. It's me. Logan." He rubbed her back soothingly and let her cry against his shoulder. "It's me."

She sighed softly. She didn't say anything, just snuggled up close against him.

And he let her.

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Rogue sighed and blew out into her coffee cup, sending a small puff of whipped topping right off her brew and a white lovelock up into her eyes.

Logan and her had settled into a small café just off the highway exit in some small town that Rogue hadn't bothered to notice the name of. A cheery waitress hummed behind the counter and small round tables dotted the spotless vinoleum floor. There were few patrons this time of morning, and the comfortable silence between the two of them contained only the hushed conversation of a mother and her child and the scuffing of Rogue's shoe against the floor.

She tucked the errant strand of hair behind her ear and took a sip of her coffee. She set it down and began on her eggs.

"You okay, kid?" Logan finally broke the silence.

She shrugged, a vague gesture with one shoulder. Her eyes never left her plate.

Logan's rough and calloused fingers reached out and wound through hers. She stared at their joined hands on the table. Her slender fingers, bare after so long unexposed, tucked into his warm, rough strength.

"Hey." His voice was soft. She looked up to see his eyes."I promised I'd take care of you." He gently rubbed the back of her hand as he spoke.

The sensation was so startling, so new.

She smiled at him, an honest expression, and with her free hand tucked back the white hairs tickling her ear. "I know."

Logan had been her saving grace, the one person who still saw her as a person, not a mutant, not a bundle of uncontrollable power, not an undesirable who took the Cure rather than face the rest of her life unable to touch. She tightened her fingers around his and held on just a little longer.

This was why she had taken the Cure and left her mutation behind. This simple, innocent touch and all the feelings behind it.

"I'll take care of you," he said again, impressing the words into her heart. "I promise."

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They were on the road again, motorcycle wheels hitting the hard pavement of the open highway.

"Where we headed?" Rogue had asked him.

"North," was her only reply.

North came to have a special meaning for her. North meant freedom from constraints, from boundaries, and from relational ties. North meant Logan and wildness and untamed urges. North meant distance, time, and space separating her from all that had gone before. North meant the future and leaving her past behind.

They crashed in nameless motels with letters missing in their flashing signs. They got up early, ate at roadside cafés, hit the asphalt before nine o'clock, used rest stops and gas stations three or four times a day, and put miles and miles between them and Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. When money ran low, Logan left her with the bike and took on a bar to earn some quick cash in a cage fight or two. He never came back to her too bloody. His healing factor kicked in before he even made it out the door. He taught her how to tune the motorcycle, to yell bloody murder when he popped a wheelie, and to wear clothes that showed skin.

"I'm not sure about this, Logan," she said uncertainly when he first dragged her into a clothing store in New Hampshire.

"I am."

He bought her leathers and tight-fitting tops with straps and short sleeves. He got her a jean jacket as durable as his own and dispensed with her gloves, despite her vehement protests.

"I can't just go around touching people indiscriminately. What if I have to shake hands with someone?" she demanded, still not comfortable with this skin.

"Don't then." Logan finished the task without apology. "Just be rude."

"Like you, huh?" Rogue crossed her arms and stuck out one hip, giving her best narrow-eyed glare and her thickest honeyed Mississippi drawl.

He just shrugged at her. "Call it like it is."

And all her huffing and fuss would not change his mind.

He taught her to laugh. She laughed more on the road with him than she ever had in her entire life. The laughter drowned out the insidious, malevolent whispers in the dark corners of her mind. It kept her sane.

At night, when she would collapse across yet another thin, lumpy mattress in some unknown dive—at least it was clean—then they would come out, slowly, melting into her half-asleep mutterings and tosses and turns of the darkness woven around her. She dreamed their dreams and thought their thoughts and relived things she had never experienced. She woke up screaming, panting, or sweating every morning.

It didn't matter.

Cold shower. Hit the road.

Story Summary: Rogue journeys with Logan through the consequences of the Cure to the consequences of who she can be.

Canonical Notes: Set immediately following the events of X3.

Acknowledgements: Special love to starlight2twilight, my lover of all things belonging to this story arc, and especially ChamberlinofMusic, who convinced me to write this story for y'all's enjoyment.

Sources: All dictionary definitions are paraphrased from The Random House Dictionary and/or The American Heritage Dictionary.