Nowhere Fast
Dedication: Like those "music from and inspired by" soundtracks for movies, this is fic inspired by jenn's "Illusions" (and if you haven't read it yet, I highly suggest dropping everything and doing so now -- http://www.wolverineandrogue.com/seperis/ ).
I read the Illusions series and was blown away by jenn's depiction of the dark side of Rogue. This is not nearly as eloquent, but you will probably notice some similar themes here.
This fic is dedicated to jenn for the reason above and for several others –- because she didn’t hate it <g>, because she beta-ed it (which saved me from making embarrassing errors and helped phenomenally with the phrasing in some sections), and because she’s my fun-lovin’ chat buddy. Love ya more than my luggage, chica (even when you do slip over to the Dark Side <wink>).
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Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters - 3:04 AM
Jean heard the noise first, but Scott was closer, so she nudged him awake. Immediately alert, he grabbed the receiver and pressed the blinking button to activate the in-house line.
"Yes, Sir, what is ... I see ... I realize that. I'll be ready in five minutes." As he put the receiver back in its cradle, Scott took a moment to be grateful for the fact that the Professor now woke him up with phone calls rather than telepathy. Scott had found it extremely disorienting to be awakened by a voice inside his head at three-whatever in the morning.
Throwing back the covers, Scott wearily climbed out of bed. Jean rolled to her side and propped her head up on her palm. She watched as he removed the old running shorts he slept in, letting them drop to the floor on his way to the closet. Hearing the faint echoes of Scott mumbling under his breath and the sound of clothes being forcefully jerked off their hangers, Jean dropped her head back on her pillow. Glaring at the ceiling as if it were responsible for the nasty familiarity of this ritual, she blew out a resigned breath and habitually played her assigned role in the piece. "What is it? Should I be getting up, too?"
Scott emerged from behind the closet door with a pair of tan chinos and a white oxford shirt in one hand, his loafers and a pair of socks dangling from the other. He shook his head as he dropped the shoes and socks on a chair and quickly began pulling on his slacks. "Not necessary. I can handle it."
'I can handle it' translated quite easily for Jean after all the other nights that had preceded this one. Imagining she could actually hear Scott grinding his teeth in aggravation, Jean sat up and drew her legs toward her, wrapped her arms around her shins and lightly bounced her forehead on her bent knees as if to jar loose the solution to this mess. Lifting her head, she saw Scott buttoning the bottom half of the shirt, then tucking it in and fastening his slacks. His jaw was tightly clenched. Definitely grinding his teeth again. She sighed, half in worry, half in disgust. "When is this ever going to end?"
Scott walked around to Jean's side of the bed. She scooted back from the edge to give him room to sit and put on his socks and shoes. "Remember what I said the first time you asked me that?" He turned his gaze to her briefly while pulling on his shoes over the quickly donned socks.
The slightly sad, self-mocking grimace on his face pushed away Jean's exasperation. She reached over and quickly straightened Scott's sleep-mussed hair with her fingers. "Yeah..." she replied quietly. "You said it was a phase, that it would last a few months, tops."
Finished with tying his shoes, Scott absently raised his hands toward the buttons of his shirt, shifting so that he was facing Jean from his position at the edge of the mattress. His hands paused, hovering over the last buttons as he shook his head. "Nineteen months later and nothing has changed. Shows how terrible I am at reading people."
Jean softly batted Scott's hands away from the buttons, finishing the job herself. Framing his face with her hands, she kissed him gently, then leaned back, trapping his gaze with hers. "As much as you'd like to be and how hard you try to be, you're not perfect, Scott. None of us are. All we can do is our best."
Scott nodded slightly, then pressed a fervent, tender kiss to his wife's forehead. Standing slowly with a frustrated sigh Jean felt in her mind rather than heard, he crossed the room and grabbed his leather bomber jacket from the antique coat tree that Xavier had given them as a wedding gift. "I just hope that the best is good enough."
He was out the door and descending the steps before Jean could think of a good reply.
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The Demon's Lair Nightclub - 3:43 AM
Barely there lighting with neon signs advertising various brands of alcohol serving as wall decorations. Loud noise masquerading as music. A thick haze of smoke hovering in the air that would set off the most insensitive of fire alarms. An abundance of strangers looking for an hour of sweaty oblivion with someone as desperate as they were to escape their own misery.
Rogue felt right at home.
She curled a finger inside the lip of an ashtray resting on the bar and drew it toward her. Flicked ash off her cigarette, then cleaned the fingertip of her glove by catching some condensation off a nearby beer bottle and swiping a streak of wet, black soot on a cocktail napkin. Hooking a foot around the leg of the stool she was perched on, Rogue pushed back hard enough to swivel the seat to the left so she faced the bar, then pulled to turn it back to the right.
Reassured by the resulting fuzziness in her head that her buzz was still in full swing, she threw back her shot. Slamming the glass face down on the bar, she grinned in challenge at the man in front of her, his stool set so close to hers that their knees nearly brushed. He drank his own shot with gusto and signaled the bartender for two more. Rogue had snared this one early. He’d bought all but one of the drinks she’d had. Not bad if she did say so herself.
When the next pair of shots was set on the sticky bar top, Rogue raised hers to her lips and slowly licked the rim of the glass. An upward glance revealed that he was practically panting. A smile slowly formed as she set the shot glass back on the bar and raised an inquiring brow. "So what d'ya think, sugah? How would I taste?"
A slick, lustful, fundamentally disgusting smile tripped along the man's lips. What had he said his name was again? Dirk? ... Derek? Something along those lines. It didn't really matter to Rogue. He was just convenient, like the alcohol, like the cigarette dangling from her gloved fingers. Just another way to forget for a while, to make-- "Lookin' at your skin, I'd say peaches and cream, baby."
With a force of will that she hadn’t suspected she would still possess when this intoxicated, Rogue refrained from laughing at his leering, smarmy line. Laughing would not do. Unless she was looking to pick a fight? ... Nope. She didn’t want to bait this one. She wanted to get laid tonight, not lay someone out, and he seemed like the type who was just twisted enough to go for the "no touching" rule. If he didn't, he'd learn fast enough that it was in his best interest to comply.
So, no laugher. Instead, she raised a brow and traced a line up his denim-clad thigh with the hand not holding her cigarette. The reaction of his body to her questing touch caused a wry, seductive smile to join her arched eyebrow. "Really? And what about... elsewhere?" she inquired with a meaningful downward tilt of her gaze.
He licked his lips suggestively, and Rogue valiantly fought back the fresh giggle that threatened to burst out of her. He thought this behavior was tempting? Jesus Christ... Men could be such idiots.
"I'd love to know first hand, but if forced to guess, I'd say you'd taste this side of heaven with just enough sin to be earth bound."
Fuck. Lines that lame couldn't come naturally. He had to have been practicing that one for a while. If she didn’t steer this back on track, Rogue was sure that she'd lose the desire to fuck and settle on kicking his ass for release instead. Every word that came out of his mouth was making the latter option all the more appealing. Maybe she'd fuck him and then kick his ass, just on general principle for using such atrociously bad pick-up lines. "And my mouth? What would that taste like?"
He stared at her blood red lips silently, like he was trying to think of a good response. Rogue was certain that could lead to nothing but another Bad Line and a Well Deserved Ass-Kicking. That was okay. She was nothing if not flexible. "Something sweet. Strawberry, cherry maybe."
Rogue opened her mouth to reply when a familiar voice came over her shoulder. "I'd say that a combination of a distillery floor and an ashtray would be closer to the mark."
Fan-fucking-tastic. She hadn't heard him come up behind her. <I must be more shit-faced than I thought to forget my training like that -- Never leave an entry at your back.>
Rogue had to wonder how long he'd been standing there listening. Scott could be quiet as a cat when he felt the need. One of the things he shared in common with Logan, common traits that neither man reacted well to having brought up in their respective presences.
Cursing herself for not having moved things along quicker with Dominic (that was his name), Rogue considered her options for dealing with her unwanted guardian and his complete lack of enthusiasm for her particular idea of fun. Why the hell did he insist on chasing her down like an errant puppy? First instincts told her to scream the obvious at him –- that she was physically old enough to do what she pleased and mentally older than she needed to be to handle any situation that arose from her little escapades. Still, that had never worked before, and Rogue wasn't in the mood to participate in history repeating itself.
Rogue swiveled the stool around and faced Scott's disapproving glare. She couldn’t see his eyes, but then again, she didn't need to. She'd been on the receiving end of his "I don't approve of this behavior" look enough times that the attitude was clear from the set of his jaw and the fists forcefully shoved into his jacket pockets. Rogue mused to herself that that was probably to keep him from dragging her out of the bar or strangling her, whichever impulse was currently striking him with a greater degree of intensity.
She crushed out her cigarette in the ashtray near her elbow and gave Scott a charming smile, just because she knew that her nonchalance would piss him off even more. "Hey, Cyke! I didn't think this was your kind 'a joint. Pull up a stool and I'll buy you a drink before last call."
"This isn't my kind of place, and you just got your last call, about three hours too late, based on the look of you." Scott shot the uncaring bartender a dark look from behind his visor. He'd taken to wearing it when he came to fetch her back home after one particularly drunk and tenacious suitor hadn't appreciated having his "date" snatched out from under him. Scott lived and breathed the Boy Scout motto, so now he always left his glasses in his pocket and came with his visor preset to a stun intensity that would definitely discourage any overzealous followers.
Scott turned his gaze back to her. He jerked his head toward the door. "Let's go. I'll drive you home. We can pick up your car tomorrow."
Dominic chose that moment to become indignant, shooting off his stool to get in Scott's face. "Who the fuck are you to tell her what to do, mutie? Are you her fuckin' keeper or..." Dominic's eyes suddenly caught on a flash of gold as Scott removed his hands from his jacket pockets. "Aww, fuck. You're her fuckin' husband!"
Her restraint finally stressed past its limits, Rogue gave in and started laughing. Scott shot her a glare before turning his attention back to the suddenly deflated (and verbally challenged) Dominic. "You got it. Very quickly, I might add, all things considered."
Rogue stopped laughing. For someone as orally precise as Scott, she knew that the answer had been purposely vague. She realized that Scott was confirming the "keeper" question (which grated, but wasn't the main reason she was speechlessly staring at Scott), but she also knew that Scott was letting Dominic assume... no, more than that, he was encouraging Dominic to assume that Rogue was a married woman. Scott's wife, no less. That certainly could come in handy if she needed it...
"Let's go." The calm, steely command in Scott's voice brooked no arguments. It was the field commander voice he rarely used when not wearing Cyclops's leather. Though, come to think of it, he'd been using it with Rogue more often outside of missions these days. She obeyed commands when they were in the midst of a battle, because she had learned the hard way that flaunting his authority for the hell of it usually landed her in situations that defined the word "bad".
Rogue slid from her stool, mischievously rubbing her body against Scott's as she did so. He stood very stiffly, tension and anger radiating off him like waves of heat. She knew she'd probably regret it later, but the temptation to tease him was too strong to resist. Rogue caressed his cheek and jaw slowly, and through the thin silk of her glove, she felt the muscles underneath his skin jump. She put her lips a scant distance from his ear, knowing he would feel her breath on his skin as she spoke in a low drawl. "Of course, sugah. Let's go home. I'm horny."
She knew that she'd pushed Scott too far when he swore darkly under his breath and grabbed her arm in a grip that was nearly bruising in force. As he dragged her toward the door of the bar, she defiantly turned and blew a kiss at Dominic over her shoulder.
Rogue knew she was in for the lecture of her life. For some reason she didn't quite grasp, it didn’t matter that she was way too old to need Scott playing protector for her and censoring her actions. Strangely enough, she was almost looking forward to the upcoming rampage. She'd gotten used to these post-misbehavior lectures, and in a very odd twist of fate's bad sense of humor, she now accepted the lectures she should revolt against the way she had when she was younger and usually deserved them.
It suddenly occurred to Rogue to wonder why that was -- had she regressed to the childish philosophy that any attention was good attention? That she had a deeper need for twisted masochism than she'd previously believed? She needed the reassurance that someone cared if she lived or died?
As Scott towed her across the street toward the entrance of an all night parking garage, Rogue decided that she should probably leave philosophizing for when she was sober.
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Parking Garage - 4:07 AM
<I'm going to lock her in her room for three days for this> Scott mused furiously to himself as he half-dragged Rogue's intoxicated form towards his car. She had tripped over her own feet exiting the elevator and had thrown an arm around his shoulders, looking at him with pleading eyes that made him remember the woman she'd been before nineteen months ago and the girl she'd been when he met her. So he'd put an arm around her waist to partially support her weight and aid her balance.
Five staggering strides later, it occurred to Scott that she was probably acting more drunk than she was. The continual stumbling that brought her breast brushing against the side of his chest felt too calculated to be completely incidental. <I don't care if she's old enough to be drunk off her ass. One of these days, she's going to get herself into trouble that Xavier's money can't fix. Something has to stop this.>
"So... how'd ya find out this time?" From her apathetic tone, Scott gathered that the question was asked out of habit rather than real curiosity.
"You tripped one of the motion sensors sneaking out of the Mansion. Bobby didn't say anything until he heard a familiar description on the police scanner. Then he consulted the Professor."
"And the Prof called you into collect-Rogue duty per standard operating procedure... Damn. I didn’t think that guy at the gas station had the balls to call the cops on me. At least not after..." she stopped and stared down at the toe of her boot with disappointed suspicion that had Scott biting back a laugh. He dropped his arm from around Rogue, took a few steps, and turned to face her.
"Well, you were wrong. Lucky for you, he was more reasonable with a fist-full of twenties in his pocket. He called into the fifth precinct with a sudden case of amnesia. The APB was voided when he dropped the complaint." Rogue was still staring fixedly at the toe of her high-heeled boot with more concentration than it truly deserved. "You want to tell me why you felt inspired to raise his voice an octave?"
Rogue looked up and blew a strand of errant hair away from her face. "The moron asked me if a twenty would get him a blow job."
Scott slowly raised and lowered his head in a single knowing nod. "Why do I get the feeling that you didn't take issue with the proposition but with the amount? Hurt your pride, did he?"
Rogue huffed indignantly. "That's not the point. He questioned my morality based on the way I'm dressed."
Scott shrugged, gave a muted laugh, and shook his head. "If the spike-heeled boot fits..." he muttered acerbically while turning and taking a few steps closer to the car.
"Hey!" Scott turned to see Rogue shooting an unfocused glare at him, her hands planted defiantly on her hips. "What the hell was that little comment supposed to mean?"
"Rogue, you know the saying about dressing for the job you want rather than the job you have?" At her nod, he meaningfully scanned a glance up and down her outfit -- sheer black bodysuit, knee-high black boots, leather miniskirt that was barely adequate to cover her, leather bustier with a zipper down the front, black silk opera gloves. "I had no idea that the X-Men were in danger of losing you to a strip club."
Rogue gave out a choked gasp of righteous anger. Her arms flung out with the fluid jerkiness that one only sees in the very drunk and in those spring-jointed hula dolls that grace the dashboards of most road-worthy El Caminos. "See? That's just the attitude I was trying to kick out of Mr. Gas Pump back at the station. I'm surprised, Cyke. I thought Jeannie had you better trained than that. I thought you were 'enlightened'." The last was bitten out with sarcasm and a making of air quotes with her fingers.
"I'm just trying to point out the obvious, Rogue. If you dress like that, you should expect the majority of the men you meet to behave less than chivalrously. Besides, I was under the impression that you dress this way to instigate the exact reaction you got from Mr. Stankowski."
"Mr. Stank-what?"
"Mr. Stankowski, your friend at the gas station. I'm guessing you were never formally introduced before the frenzy of kickboxing started."
Rogue gave a stuttering series of chuckles. "Nope. It was just Mr. Boot becoming firmly acquainted with Mr. Crotch."
Scott pensively ran a finger along the underside of his chin. "It's all about getting a reaction, isn't it? No matter how hard you play-act at it, you really aren't doing this because you want to, are you?"
Rogue's dismissive sneer was followed by an expression of irritation with a trace of pleading. "Please, let's not do this right now. I'm too drunk to deal with Fearless Leader psychobabble tonight."
Scott sighed and rubbed his forehead. "Fine. You need to get home and sleep this off, and I just need to sleep. Let's go."
Rogue smiled and caught up to him with a few dangerously unsteady skipping strides. She threw her arm around Scott, and he took a quick sideways step to compensate for her unchecked momentum. As they started toward the car again, Rogue leaned her head on his shoulder. "You're always watchin' my back, aren't ya, sugah?"
"Looks that way," he replied with no small amount of irritation. Scott grunted as Rogue tripped and nearly sent them both sprawling on the concrete. Maybe she really was that drunk, or...
Scott's jaw set and his lips formed a firm line as he stopped dead in his tracks. He pulled away and turned Rogue to face him, yanking the fabric of her left glove down to her wrist. The flickering fluorescent lighting in the garage made it difficult to tell if what he was seeing through the filmy black material of her body suit was old scarring or fresh needle tracks. He'd put on his driving gloves in the elevator, so he dropped her arm and reached over to turn Rogue's chin so he could look into her eyes. "Tell me I don't have to suspend you from the team again."
Rogue defiantly jerked her face out of his grasp. "Alcohol only, I swear. Scout's honor." She made a clumsy cross over her heart with a gloved finger. At Scott's disbelieving tilt of the head and raised brow, she grumbled, "Oh for Christ's sake, I'll piss in a fuckin' cup when we get home if it'll make you happy."
Scott nodded and resumed walking toward the car with her in tow. "I wouldn't say happy, but it'll put my mind at ease that you're not using that crap again."
"Well if agreeing to submit to a drug test doesn't make ya happy, then what can I do instead? We need a less stressy leader, Cyke. I aim to please, and you're too young and gorgeous to be formin' worry lines."
Scott felt her gloved fingers tracing across his brow and pulled them away. "You aren't charming your way out of a lecture, Rogue. Drop the sweet talk."
She used a wheedling tone. "Aww, come on, Cyke. Those tirades of yours give me a headache."
"Yeah? Well, getting a call to pull your ass out of a fire at three o'clock in the morning gives me a headache, so we're even."
They finally reached the car. Scott unlocked the doors with the key-fob he held in the hand he wasn't using to support Rogue. The black Ferrari Spyder chirped in response and the lights flashed. Scott opened the passenger door and slid Rogue into her seat. She snuggled down into the butter-soft leather like a cat anticipating a sunbath. Scott slammed the door with more force than necessary and crossed behind the car to get in the driver's seat.
Scott turned his eyes to Rogue. She had shifted to sit sideways in the seat so she was facing him, her bent elbow propped against the seatback with her palm supporting her head. Her left leg was curled on the seat under her, and the right swayed slightly in the air. "Can we take the hard top off?"
Scott let the pleading little girl look and tone of voice bounce off him. She'd overused that tactic to the point that it was useless on him... well, mostly useless. Scott took a deep breath and let it out slowly, wishing his bone-deep weariness hadn't echoed through the sound. "What the hell am I going to do with you, Rogue?"
She arched a brow and smiled. "I thought I cleared that up back in the bar, sugah." She leaned over and ran fingers down the side of Scott's face. "I'll play the little wifey..." The gloved fingers dropped to the buttons of his shirt and started undoing them, her eyes staring intently at his lips the entire time. "If that's what you want..."
Scott didn’t react verbally at all. He knew that she was playing him. It was a matter of him figuring out the appropriate counter defense before...
She'd finished with the buttons on his shirt, and her hands were now tugging his tee shirt out of the waistband of his slacks. Scott felt the slick friction of her gloved hands sliding up his chest underneath the loosened shirts, her long fingernails digging in enough to be felt through the fabric covering them. "On the other hand, I could be someone else entirely..." One hand continued tracing light patterns on the muscles of his chest while the other slipped slowly downward. "I can be an angel..." her fingers made quick work of the button on his slacks. "Or I can be a whore..." the zipper went down. She pulled her hand away from his fly and pressed it against the seat beside his shoulder to support her weight as she swung fluidly over the gearshift to straddle him in the driver's seat. She shifted her hips slowly and leaned forward to purr in his ear. "I got the memories to match any fantasy, sugah. Just tell me what you want."
Scott hesitated as he struggled with himself, paused when he never would have believed himself capable of considering the temptation. A man's body could make him act against his own character, given the right incentive.
Scott's hands reached out to Rogue, ran slowly up her sides. A soft groan-laugh escaped her. He clasped her shoulders in his hands and gently pushed her back so she met his eyes. "So what'll it be, sugah? Heaven or hell?"
"It isn't going to play out this way, Rogue."
She didn’t admit defeat easily. She ground down against his body's reaction to her and raised a knowing brow at him. "Really? Feels like someone is ready to play. So why not?"
"Because I'm not going to take up that part of Logan's role in your life." He could see that he'd scored a direct hit with that comment. Pain flared in her eyes, but Scott couldn’t allow himself to regret the callousness of the remark. She needed a reality check, and it was past time that someone talked to her about the-topic-that-you-dare-not-discuss-with-Rogue. She'd gone beyond self-destructive...
And Scott needed to get her off his lap before he forgot all about what was right.
After a moment of stunned silence, she raised up on her knees and clambered back into the passenger seat, ungraceful in her disconcertion. She curled her legs up underneath her defensively and gave a brittle laugh that Scott was certain she'd meant to come out as a disgruntled huff. "Damn, Cyke. That was cold."
"If things had turned out differently nineteen months ago, would it have made a difference?"
Her head snapped around, and she leveled a shocked stare at him. For a minute, Scott thought that she was going to refuse to talk about it. He was certain that the stare was about to turn ugly and that she would tell him to go to hell.
Maybe she was as sick of this as the rest of them were, or maybe she just needed to get it off her chest. Either way, she spoke. "Turned out differently... you mean if Logan hadn't fucked me? Or if he didn't leave afterwards?"
"You tell me, Rogue. Right now, I'm flying blind."
She laughed loudly. "Well that would explain your landings." Scott didn't laugh along with her, though he usually would have. This was too important for him to let her get off the subject.
Her smile faded slowly. "I know you blame Logan. You really shouldn't. It was my fault that he left."
"I don't follow you." It was true, not just a way to keep her talking.
She pulled her legs out from underneath her and turned sideways in the seat again. She scooted back to lean against the door and pulled her feet up in front of her, wrapping her arms around her bent knees as she considered him across the short span of the front seat. "Logan couldn't deal with the fact that I fucked him and then told him that Marie was dead and buried. He slept with Rogue thinking she was Marie, and I corrected him on it."
"Why did you lie to him?"
Her eyes flew wide with surprise. She just as quickly shrugged it off. "It was half true at the time. She was just buried, not dead yet."
"And now?"
She started laughing again, but this time the sound was harsh with pain and mocking disbelief. "You really think this is all about Logan, don't you, sugah? You think I've been living a cliché this long? Acting out in the hopes that Logan will come and save me from myself? Damn, Scott, I'm not that pathetic!"
Scott had no idea what she was trying to say. "All of this started right after Logan left. Don't ask me to believe that was a coincidence."
"I'm not. It started with Logan, I'll admit to that. But he's not the reason now. Don't you remember what else changed in my life shortly after Logan hit the road? Think hard, Fearless Leader."
The snide tone did it. An ugly realization dawned on Scott. <Oh, God...>
Her lips titled in a humorless smile. "You made me an active member of the field mission team seventeen months ago."
Scott had to turn his eyes away from hers. He couldn't look at her while coming to terms with what she was saying.
"I started using my 'gift' as a weapon. I used it to disarm, used it to kill when necessary. And I got a whole boatload of extra memories from some really pissed off people in my head as a bonus every single time. Haven't you ever noticed the impeccable timing of my little ... escapades?"
No, he hadn't noticed, and that was unacceptable. Thinking back, Scott now realized that Rogue's most outrageous behavior came on the nights after missions where she'd touched someone during a fight.
Scott never dealt well with failure of any kind, and his massively huge misjudgment in Rogue's case was enough to weigh him down with smothering amounts of guilt. He forced himself to look back over at her. "I didn't realize... I should have. Damn it! I thought that being on the field team would help you, not make things worse."
He could see something indescribable chasing the coldness from her eyes. "It did help. Feeling useful is the only thing that's stopped me from flaying this damned skin off my body some nights."
Scott couldn't be grateful for her concession, because he knew she was being completely honest. It frightened and angered him that what he'd done in the name of helping Rogue had accomplished that... while damaging her more at the same time. "So... all of this...?"
Her voice dropped to a sad whisper. "It keeps 'em quiet. Makes 'em shut up for a while so I can have some peace."
"Rogue..."
Her contemplative look disappeared under a bright smile. "Let's save it for another day, 'kay, sugah? Take me home. I think I can sleep tonight."
Scott couldn't push. It was too soon. She wasn't ready, and he couldn’t force her to be. But it was a start.
It would have to be enough.
He turned the key in the ignition and reached for the gearshift. Rogue's gloved hand landed on his forearm, and he glanced over at her. "Can we take the top off?"
Scott smiled at the silly excitement lighting her face. He opened his door and she squealed with glee, bouncing slightly in her seat. That moment made him realize that she just might be wrong about one very important thing.
Maybe Marie wasn't dead, just buried inside Rogue -- the brightest part of the amalgamated personality that she'd developed. Despite the massive number of residents taking up floor space in her head, Scott couldn't imagine any of the others reacting that way to the idea of riding in a convertible with the top down at four forty-two in the morning. Moments like that almost made Scott believe.
Maybe one day, Rogue would believe too.
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With the hard top secured in the back of the sports car, Scott returned to the driver's seat and shifted into reverse. He backed out of the parking spot and headed for the gated exit. Once they were out on the street, Rogue looked over at him. She felt a strange lightness in her head. The voices were so quiet now. She barely heard them at all -- only faint echoes of whispers inside her head. God... it felt like freedom. "Can we go fast? I want to feel the wind in my hair."
They'd just passed the last traffic light. The stretch of state highway spread before them into the night, illuminated only by the car's headlights and the occasional street lamp. Scott grinned, pressed down on the clutch, and shifted. "Put on your seatbelt."
She did, and the car shot forward on the dimly lit road. Rogue's happy cry echoed through the air as the black Ferrari sped off into the darkness. She flung her hands up toward the sky and closed her eyes. She was going to enjoy the ride.
Maybe she was going nowhere, but she was going nowhere fast. Somehow, that made a difference.
~* The End *~