Work Text:
Frozen Regret
by Lucinda
Rogue walked along a path, passing the gloriously colored fall leaves and the sparkling lake with unseeing eyes. She was too deep in her thoughts to pay more than the faintest attention to her surroundings, just enough to stay on the path and not collide with anything. She was tormented by her thoughts, doubts, frustrations, and confusion. She could practically hear the conflicting shouts in her mind, in the voices of all the people that she'd touched over the years, the echoes of other people clamoring inside her head.
The X-Men had just returned to the mansion, having finally gotten back from their emergency assistance to the Shi'ar empire. The assistance that had resulted in Deathbird vanishing with Bishop, and their ship crashing in Antarctica, where they had first been captured by Nanny and Orphan Maker, and then subjected to that horrible trial... her mind tried to pull away from those memories. They'd just got back home, and everyone was trying to relax, to unwind, to just be glad that they'd made it back.
But Bishop and Remy hadn't come home with them.
Granted, Bishop had vanished along with Deathbird, so he was hopefully alive and with the half mad alien princess. They'd even been getting along... as well as Deathbird ever got along with anyone. There had even been what had looked like attraction between them, although she had to wonder how well a relationship between a time-traveling human mutant and a throwback royal Shi'ar could work. She sort of wished them luck.
But Remy... oh god, that made her shudder. Remy had been her fault. There had been that... that horrible trial, and then the building had collapsed. Everyone had scattered, in such a frantic rush to escape the falling rubble. She'd pulled Remy out of the building, preventing him from being crushed.
And then she'd left him there, standing in the snow with a look of stunned betrayal on his face as she'd flown away.
She shuddered, her arms going around her body, hands clenched as she tried to understand. How could she have done that? Remy loved her, she'd seen it in his mind, the memories she'd ended up with a few months ago when they'd kissed, certain that the world was ending. The world hadn't ended, but... she'd had uneasy feelings about his memories, not quite able to access them but having nightmares about tunnels, and pain, and something large and snarling and vicious. Nightmares of laying on something cold, hands trapped at his/her sides, begging for 'it' to stop... She hadn't wanted to pry into those memories, certain that they were ugly and painful.
But it had come out at the trial... how he'd worked with Sinister How Remy had assembled the ruthless group of mutants known as the Marauders, how he'd been in the tunnels when they massacred the Morlocks. How he'd broken into Xavier's to steal data for Sinister. Hideous detail after horrible fact had emerged, dragged into the harsh light.
Had he been there when Sabertooth was ripping open the Morlocks? had he watched as their bodies had been broken and mauled, making the sewers run red with blood? Had he watched as Warren had been pinned to the wall, his wings damaged beyond repair? Had he seen the attack that had wracked her with pain and nearly killed Kitty Pryde?
Back there, in the court like setting of the trial, it had been so easy to be outraged. To feel betrayed that he hadn't told them, hadn't revealed any of this. That he'd kept such ugly secrets. To view him as a traitor and a villain. A murderer and accomplice to rampant slaughter.
It had even seemed so easy on the snow... Remy had done horrible wrongs, and must be punished for them. He had helped unforgivable things occur. He had violated the security of the mansion that had become home.
So she'd left him there.
It had been made easier by the fact that she'd felt betrayed on a personal level. Had he been using her the whole time? Playing with her feelings to gain acceptance? Had he just been enjoying the chase, knowing that he'd never have to support a family with her, never have to worry about satisfying her needs and desires? Had he ever really cared? If he had done such terrible things as the Massacre, how could he have feelings for her? How could his words of love and affection have any meaning, any sincerity? Which had only made her angry, certain that he'd played her as a fool, using his good looks and charm to gain acceptance and personal entertainment.
It wasn't until she'd been reunited with the other X-Men, the explanation that Remy 'hadn't made it out' already given that she'd felt the first stab of doubt. Hadn't been until they'd been on their way back that her doubts found words. Had started to circle around, poking and prodding at her.
Hadn't she kept her past a secret? Hadn't she hidden so much of herself behind the mask of the confident southern belle that few people could even guess who she really was? Hadn't there been others who'd not wanted to speak of the darker shadows of their past? Like Warren who had worked for Apocalypse in exchange for new wings? The time that Beast had been mentally controlled by a villain? Her own time as one of Mystique's brotherhood?
That had only made her sink lower in her seat. She'd been one of Mystique's Brotherhood when she was a teenager, helping commit an assortment of crimes, thefts, and acts of destruction. She'd nearly killed Ms Marvel, absorbing... stealing the woman's powers and memories. Hadn't her own actions been just as horrible, just as damning as Remy's? How many people might have died in the events that she'd helped cause? Didn't her hands carry the stain of violence, of bloodshed?
She'd tried to argue with herself, attempting to excuse her actions by saying that she'd been young, she'd had nowhere else to turn. That she'd never stopped to think that the woman she'd called 'Momma' would use her to do terrible things. Tried to justify her behavior as an effort to win acceptance and praise from the only parent that she could claim. To excuse things because she couldn't control her powers.
But how old was Remy? In all the time he'd been with him, they'd never learned so much as when his birthday was, let alone how old he'd be on the next one. How much had he known of the world six years ago, during the massacre? How much control of his abilities had Remy possessed when he'd met Sinister? Would there have been anyone that would accept a mutant with 'demon eyes' into their lives, their families?
What gave her the right to say that Remy's crimes had been unforgivable? Hadn't her crimes been terrible as well? Hadn't she spent years doing bad things? She hadn't even come to Xavier's to make amends, but in a desperate hope that he could teach her control over her powers, that he could enable her to touch people safely, to have a normal life. Why did she deserve a second chance if Remy didn't? Hadn't Remy worked just as hard, expended as much effort and pain, suffered as much to be an X-Man as anyone else?
She'd left him to die, alone in the bitter cold. She hadn't considered anything more than her own anger at his secrets, her own painful doubts of his sincerity. She'd felt hurt, so she'd left him.
But how could he survive that much cold? Where could he have gone for shelter? There was nowhere but the rubble, and nothing to hint that there would be food. No shelter, nothing but his uniform and that old, battered coat of his...
How could Remy survive? Granted, the man had all the luck you could ask for, and the proverbial nine lives, but... eventually luck ran out. And even nine lives would run out someday.
She'd condemned him to death. Slow, excruciating death as the his body froze around him, this bitter cold hurting him long before death eased his suffering forever. His powers useless to do anything to save him. Condemned to die by the hand of the woman that he'd loved and trusted.
No wonder he'd looked so betrayed...
Rogue shivered, her arms squeezing her body as she tried to understand how she'd been able to abandon him like that. Shouldn't she have cared more? If she had loved him as much as she'd claimed to, shouldn't leaving him there have been impossible? Shouldn't she have understood better than anyone else the urge to leave your past behind, to never speak about your shames and failures? She hadn't been able to look past the crimes to see the man.
Remy would most likely have been beyond help by the time they'd reached America. Dead before they'd stepped back inside the mansion. She'd tried to find him with the Cerebro systems, but the computer had found no trace of 'mutant designate Gambit Remy'. Further proof that her anger had killed him. That he was gone forever.
Confusing her even more was the question of what could she do? Remy was... gone, she couldn't go save him to make up for this. How could she even explain his death to the others? She'd told them he hadn't made it out of the building... how could she explain that he had been out, and then she'd deliberately left him behind?
She'd have to keep it a secret. Bury the fact deep inside her mind, far enough that nobody would ever learn. Add it to the stack of guilty secrets and horrible mistakes that nobody ever knew about...
It was the only way. Wasn't it?
end Frozen Regret.