Death Watch
by
Aimee
DISCLAIMER: Rogue, Magneto, Professor X, and all things X-Men related belong to, uh, Marvel Comics, I guess, and whoever it was who did the movie. Not to me, at any rate. I know I'm infringing on someone's copyright by writing this story, but I don't care.
ARCHIVING: At the X-Men Movie Slash Archive. Anyone else, ask first. I'll also put it up on my site eventually: http://www.internetdump.com/users/aimee.
FEEDBACK: Yes, please.
She sits by his bed, watching him as he lies in a coma, wishing he'd wake up. Quiet lies over the room like a blanket -- or a shroud. Part of her wants to scream, but she can't tell which part.
A door opens. Footsteps approach her.
"Rogue..." The voice is gentle, soft, almost maternal as it shatters the silence. It's Dr. Grey's voice.
The pieces of Wolverine that remain in her mind grow restless, distracted by Jean's presence, the subtle eroticism of her scent, but the woman in the chair doesn't answer. She's too busy watching him, tracking the rise and fall of his chest as he breathes. She hasn't felt gratitude in a long, long time, but she grateful for this -- he's not dead; not yet, anyway. She wants to touch him, to feel that life under her fingertips, to be reassured she hadn't killed him with her folly. She extends her hand toward him and almost caresses his face, before she remembers and snatches her hand back.
Jean's husky voice fills the room again. Rogue had almost forgotten she was there. "I thought you'd like to know that Logan will be fine. He's still asleep, but I've examined him thoroughly. He'll recover."
She nods absently, both glad and resentful at the news, but also strangely indifferent to it. She'd known he would after all; his healing factor ensured it.
Charles has no such protection.
Unable to do anything else, she watches him. She keeps her hands tightly folded in her lap; her eyes touch his face instead, since her hands cannot. His face...it's tired and slack and empty. The formidable mind that used to inhabit it is gone, leaving it abandoned, limp and grotesque, like the skin a snake has shed. He looks, for the first time in all the years she has known him, truly crippled.
She has to look away.
"So will the Professor." The voice is even softer now, less sure.
She speaks, for the first time in what seems like a very long while, although objectively she knows it has only been a few hours. "Will he?"
Her tone is mild, but Jean hesitates nonetheless. "Yes," the doctor finally replies. The word rings with false confidence.
Wolverine snorts in derision. "What -- you suddenly developed precognitive abilities and forgot to tell me? I'm hurt, sweetheart."
Jean frowns.
Right.
Rogue turns her attention back to the body lying unconscious on the bed. He's so still. Charles never slept this soundly before; his arms and torso used to twitch constantly with his dreams, even though his legs never moved.
Of course, that was twenty years ago. Who knows how he might have changed since?
"He needs to rest, Rogue."
She is tired, suddenly, terribly tired of hiding behind masks and helmets and silly code names. "Oh, for god's sake, call me Erik," she says irritably. They weren't children, after all; and mutant-hood was not some sort of secret club they could abandon when it grew too boring.
Silence behind her. Good. Erik returns to counting every breath Charles takes, and to willing the next one to follow.
Then, "...Marie..." Jean says.
Her eyes jerk to the other woman's face, startled. "What?"
"Your name is Marie."
"No, it's--" She stops midsentence, confused. What was her name? She couldn't remember.
But she was suddenly acutely aware of all the metal in the room singing its quiet song to her.
"Marie, come with me. I'm worried about you."
Her denial is automatic. "No, I won't leave him."
"The Professor needs his rest."
Erik/Rogue gestures towards the metal-framed hospital bed. It creeps forward obligingly, until she notices and makes it stop. "As you can see, my dear, he's resting quite comfortably."
"Marie. Stop it. You need to come with me."
She tilts her head inquiringly. "And just how do you propose to make me? I won't leave voluntarily, and you can't touch me to drag me out. And I seriously doubt, my dear, that your telekinesis is strong enough to lift me when I don't wish to be lifted."
Jean hesitates.
Erik smiles slightly. "Precisely." She sweeps her arm in a courtly gesture towards the door.
After a moment, Jean leaves, leaving Rogue free to contemplate her handiwork.
It had seemed such a brilliant plan when she had conceived it, safely insulated from its effects by time and distance. It wasn't until now, sitting a heartbeat away from those self-same effects, that she appreciated the truly impressive destructiveness and the mind-boggling stupidity of her "brilliant plan."
Logan jeers at that, but Erik ignores her.
Why kidnap the girl? Touching her, feeding her so much of herself, her soul, her essence -- all things she had sworn she would never give away, not after they were forcibly taken from her at Auschwitz -- was just as certain a death as letting the machine take her. She was honestly shocked she had survived the transference. So why bother in the first place? And why hadn't she wondered about that until now?
Blind spots are funny things. Was she really that desperate to see Charles again? How strange.
How very strange.
She hadn't realized she still had the ability to be so romantic, even subconsciously.
Charles would undoubtedly say she had wanted to be stopped. He had his own blind spots.
His breathing falters slightly -- her heart stops -- and then continues, as smoothly as before. The monitors don't even beep.
Rogue can't take it anymore. Her fault, this was all her fault--
"Fuck that for a joke," she growls, and stalks out of the room.
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