[Rogue]

No phone calls, no e-mails, nothing so much as a face to face meeting.

Rogue hadn’t seen her mother in months, she hadn’t heard her momma’s voice, and she’d been more than just a little fine with that.

Leaving The Brotherhood had been the best decision that Rogue thought she’d ever made. For almost nineteen years she’d been safe within the organization, within it’s structure, surrounded by those that thought the way she thought, and fought the fight she fought. Or at least, the thoughts she was supposed to think, or the fight she was supposed to want to fight.

At twenty-nine, though, having absorbed a whole other life, another person, being exposed to as many years of living, of options of choices, Rogue made a choice, and that was to live her life as she wanted to, to go out on her own. Freedom and independence were frightening, so much so, but more than worth the risk that it meant.

Being normal, well as normal as you could be when there was someone else sharing your head and your touch was enough to suck someone dry, it was the thing that she thought she wanted. That one thing that Rogue thought she’d been missing her whole life. First when she’d been born into the commune, and her new mother, her only mother, the one with all the ideals and self-righteous proclamations. Her life had revolved around all of that, living, eating, breathing it, and for once she wanted her life to revolve around her.

And for a while it had. She’d settled into a routine, into a world she thought she’d never be able to fade, and found what she thought was happiness. Carol had been silenced through drugs, and the normalcy of it all was almost soothing, relaxing, giving to her a false sense of security, making her as blind as the rest of the world had a tendency to be.

Then the arrest happened.

Blinders removed, Rogue was forced to see the worst thing of all. It wasn’t that she couldn’t be normal, she could handle that, it had only been a pipe dream anyways, a passing fancy of delayed teenage angst and rebellion. No, the thing that was hardest for her to realize, the thing that took weeks and months after the arrest for her to come to terms with, it was the fact that her mother had been right.

That was why, all those months later, Rogue found herself seeing if her passcode to the brownstone still worked, gloved fingers tentatively punching in the sixteen digit number that would let her into the building. Should let her into the building. Might not.

With a set of confirmation chirps and the light changing from red to green, she was in. Someone had left the numbers the same, or they’d gotten lax for one reason or another, but the why didn’t matter. What did was that she was in.

Not wanting to risk contact with anyone yet, Rogue skirted the popular areas and made right for the fourth floor, ascending the stairs and heading to her mother’s rooms. It was possible that she wasn’t there, but it was possible too that she was, and Rogue was betting on the latter, or at least hoping for it, fingers clenching into a fist as she moved to rap against the door in succession, tapping out shave and a hair cut (a tune she never remembered remembering) before leaning against the wood, it cool against the smooth skin of her face. “Momma?” She ventured to breath, an air of hesitancy still clinging to her voice. “Ah’m home.”


((blargh, i dun like it, but its a start, eh?))

[Mystique]

The main expense when Raven had furnished her apartment in the Brotherhood House was the stereo system. Not the sleek glass, chrome and soft supple leather of her furniture or even the expensive artwork on the walls had compared to what she had spent on the sound system. After…well, a very long time as a mercenary, Raven Darkholme commanded top dollar for her expertise, and so had plenty of money to spare. Speakers hidden within the very walls throughout her apartment guaranteed that she could have perfect sound no matter what room she was in, and touch panels in each room allowed her access to the controls of the system. All was buried so well that one would never know she had top-notch technology installed here. This place was her sanctuary, and music helped drive the world outside away when she needed it, filling the silence that sometimes (although she’d never admit it) got to be too much.

Some of the solitude was self-inflicted, some of it wasn’t. There was an entire household of people below her, a Brotherhood in more ways than one, but while she was willing to work with them to further the organization’s goals there wasn’t a single one of them that Raven trusted further than she could throw them, and none that she would consider a friend. Friends required trust, and that was something that she just wasn’t willing to give anymore. She’d had friends; Charles, the boy she’d grown up with, her only friend for so many years. Raven had loved him, trusted him and him her; but she ended up betraying that trust when she left him to follow Erik. She had to consider that friendship dead, but couldn’t find it in herself to speak to him to confirm it. Besides, he was a fool if he still trusted her.

Then there was Erik. After helping her find the strength to be proud of what she was, Raven had abandoned everything to follow him and devoted herself to his cause, trusting him completely. But she’d walked out on him in a fit of anger, finding him to be less than she thought, which felt like a betrayal in itself to find that her god had feet of clay. In Europe she’d met Irene, and found not only a friend but a lover; not the devotion she’d felt for Erik but the love of equals, which turned out to be so much the more deeper for the balance on either side. But in what seemed to be becoming a theme, betrayal raised its ugly head; or rather that Raven felt it a betrayal when Irene, also known as the mutant Destiny, hid her visions regarding Raven’s infant son and what would happen to him. This had been the final straw. Raven had returned to her former home, vowing never to trust another again.
This didn’t mean of course that she didn’t try to fill the empty corners of her life. Having lost her son, Mystique worked to fulfill one of Destiny’s other prophecies, finding the girl Rogue in the southern U.S. and bringing her back to New York. Here was someone young, a powerful mutant she could mold and shape into a proper and hopefully outstanding member of the Brotherhood, and be a daughter to her as well. Complete trust was not there, that was something that no one would ever have again, but there was love, and with having created a family for herself her loneliness was driven away.

It was hard, so hard, seeing Rogue after that incident with Carol Danvers, seeing what taking on so much of another person, both powers and personality, did to her daughter. There had been reasons; Raven did what she thought was necessary at the time, and she would do it again, but the cost was hard to see. The hardest part had been letting her go. The major reason she had been able to do it though was her belief that Rogue would be back. Raven knew what the world was like. Her daughter might like to think that she could be ‘normal’, and hide what she was, but the truth was that she was a mutant, and the world would never let her have the life she wanted without fighting for it first. As soon as Rogue figured that out she would be back.

It was for this reason that Mystique never bothered changing the passcode on the door when her daughter left. It was her way of saying that the Brotherhood was still Rogue’s home, and she was welcome whenever she was ready to return.

Raven wasn’t sure what time it was, but the sun hadn’t set yet when she heard the knock at her door. There was a steak in the broiler for her dinner, and she was chopping lettuce for salad and listening to the mellow jazz coming through the hidden speakers in the kitchen when the sound came. It was just loud enough to be heard over the music and Raven debated whether or not she wanted to put the knife down before she went to answer the door. Most people in the Brotherhood knew better than to come up here and disturb her. There was a perfectly good intercom system throughout the building, as well as phones, and either of those methods were faster than taking the trip up to the fourth floor, especially in an emergency. And from the sound of the knock she doubted that it was an emergency, which is why Raven decided to keep the knife in her hand as she made her out of the kitchen over to the front door. It would serve whoever it was right if she gave him or her (probably a ‘him’; most of the women in the Brotherhood had more sense than to disturb Mystique in her apartment) a good scare by answering the door with a knife in her hand, even if it was just a kitchen knife. She heard a voice outside of the door, but with the music playing it was hard to tell who it was.

When she flung the door open, ready to lay into whoever it was for bothering her like this for anything other than absolute emergency, Raven was the one who was surprised. Rogue was almost the last person she expected to see standing there (there were a couple of others, but she was near the top of the list). She blinked, lips parting slightly in the only outward show of her surprise that she would give, then closed her mouth again. Raven was expecting it, knew it would happen, she just hadn’t prepared a script to use for when it eventually came to pass.

”Well.” Raven said, looking her daughter over with a bland expression on her face. Rogue looked well; wherever she’d been, she’d done okay for herself. Some parents when faced with a situation like this would like to see the prodigal child return home in disgrace as a sign that he or she hadn’t managed to live on their own, but not Mystique. She had raised Rogue to be able to take care of herself, and took this as a sign that she’d managed to retain what she’d been taught, no matter what happened to her. This could only be a good thing.

She left the door open and started walking back to the kitchen to check on her steak. ”You certainly took your sweet time coming back. I suppose you want your old room again.” If Rogue expected a hug, tears and the proverbial fatted calf, then she was sadly mistaken and definitely at the wrong door. Raven would probably end up sharing her dinner though. If Rogue asked nicely.

[Rogue]

Emotionally Rogue found that she was exhausted. Physically she was fine, and the madness that was her mentality she was learning to handle. Her emotions, though, the ones that began in the seed which she had grown from and sprouted through her limbs, they were wracked and wrecked and fully and completely out of whack.

Somehow, though, standing there before her mother’s door, finding herself in the place that she had longest called home, a relief of sorts came to her. She was meant to return. First she had to leave, of course, because one couldn’t come back if they hadn’t left yet, but she was meant to have found that piece of what she was missing, of that much Anna was sure. If she hadn’t struck out into the world, if she hadn’t claimed to have known better, she never would have discovered how right her mother had been, how right Raven had always been.

So exhaustion swept her before even her mother opened the door. Jazz played through the wood, a sound and a song that Anna had heard before. She loved this album, not as much as her mother did, but she loved it because of her mother’s love for it. Raven was as … well, moody, as anyone could get, and such relaxing music could only mean that she wasn’t particularly stressed at the moment.

One point for Rogue.

The knife, though, it had been unexpected, and for a moment Anna flinched back upon seeing it held in her grasp, blood rushing quickly through her veins, the thump-thump of her heart sped along by the adrenalin suddenly flooding her system. The blonde flared within Anna’s awareness, victorious at the way she was being received. The Carol-like entity (because she was not Carol and at the same moment she was) loved nothing more than for Rogue to suffer. Anna had taken from her life and body and any future that was not tied to the skunk girl’s own. It was not an existence that she wished for, and she fought against the weak bonds created by drugs and an even weaker mind.

But no attack was made and the knife seemed suddenly nonthreatening. A smell came next, steak, cooking, the crisp clean scent of vegetables being chopped. Her mother was cooking, dinner likely, and that was why she had held the blade, it was out of no hate towards her child. She crowed at this, internally, driving the shining spot that was Carol back into the depths of her mind. As always Raven was cool and collected, and never had Anna expected a hug or a kiss or tears of joy. Her mother did not express things in such a manner, at least not as much as Anna knew, and if she had, Anna would have worried.

As it was she followed contentedly in her mother’s footsteps, shutting the door quietly behind them both, head hung and hands clasped as she made her way into the kitchen. “Iffin’ Ah can.” She asked, gloved fingertips going to trace the line of the countertop, her vision looking anywhere but to her mother’s eyes, “Iffin’ you’ll have me.”

[Mystique]

Emotionally Raven found herself feeling a mixture of relief and pleasure. Relief because she had been genuinely worried about her daughter’s welfare. It was the first time that they had had any real separation since the time that Raven adopted her so many years ago. Yes, Raven would leave occasionally for assignments either for the Brotherhood or mercenary jobs both here in the States or abroad, but they rarely lasted long. All children leave home eventually, she knew this, and if Rogue had been in her right mind it would have been different; she would have been disappointed but confident that her daughter could take care of herself. But this was different; Rogue had not been in her right mind. She was still suffering the effects of her absorption of Carol Danvers, and Raven was not at all confident that she would be okay on her own. There were many occasions when she had considered looking for Rogue, but at first she refrained because she had felt her presence would be unwelcome, then after Erik disappeared she had to run the Brotherhood and hide the fact that he was missing, which would just be harder with Rogue around.

The pleasure was rather obvious. Rogue was home where she belonged, and seemed to be alright for the most part; it would take time and observation to tell her true condition however. But Raven would be able to do that now, and if there was help that was still needed she was now in a position to provide it. And if no help was needed then Rogue could be put back to work. Raven did not completely trust anyone anymore, but Rogue had the most trust out of anyone that she currently knew. Anti-mutant activity was on the rise in the city and elsewhere, and she wanted her daughter’s ability and quick wits ready at hand to get things done when needed.

For now though, it was enough that she was here. They would sit, eat (Raven decided the steak was large enough to split between the two of them, but she would have to make some more salad), and she would find out what Rogue has been up to during the time she was gone. Returning to the counter, she picked up the head of lettuce she had been working on and resumed chopping.

She heard Rogue’s questions but didn’t answer for a moment. Raven supposed that it was a valid question, that if, having left, she would be welcome home again. She was not one to express much in the way of emotion; that had only served to show weakness on her part in the past, and she had suffered for it. Most people seemed to consider her heartless, and she welcomed that assumption. Sometimes Raven wished they were right. It would be easier to be heartless; it was a harder thing to put away one’s feelings in order to do what is needed; so much better to just feel nothing. She loved her daughter, but would not let her feelings interfere with the larger goals in life. Well, not much anyway.

”Of course.” Raven finally replied calmly to Rogue’s question. ”This is still your home. You just had to decide if you wanted it to remain so.” she returned the bowl she had originally set out for the salad back to the cupboard and took out a larger bowl.

”There’s a 2004 Mugo Aro in the pantry.” she continued, sliding the chopped lettuce into the bowl before reaching for the cucumber. ”Open that up and get some glasses and I will consider letting you have some steak.” This was Raven’s way of saying that things could go back to normal between them.

[Rogue]

She’d been allowed in. That enough was a step, and one in the right direction. The question of even that happening had bounded around Anna’s mind, egged on by Carol, by others, by demons that had no name and came from only within herself. Her mother, Raven, had been her only connection for so long, and in a moment of impulsivity and haste, Anna had left her and the life she’d known behind.

It had been a mistake, a large one, and she knew that now. She knew, really, earlier than the current moment in which she existed. If Anna really took the time to think about it, she had known since the moment she had decided to leave. But that hadn’t stopped her from going. It hadn’t stopped her from trying and then failing and then coming back home again.

But she wasn’t crawling. Yes her head was bowed and her eyes downcast but that was because she was ashamed of her wrongness. She wasn’t ashamed of what she’d done, just that it hadn’t turned out in the way that she had expected it to. At times even Rogue could be meek, no matter how much Raven had tried to train it out of her. Soon it would all be gone, in months to follow someone else would replace the woman who stood in her mother’s quarters. But then, in that hand’s span of time, that meekness existed.

Incorrect as she might have been, though, she did not beg and she did not cry. She had waited mostly stoic for her mother’s response. Whatever it was she would survive, she would continue. She would not be happy, but she would be happier cast out than she would have been were she to make a fool of herself in the asking. Raven wouldn’t have respected her then, anyways, and the answer would have most assuredly been no. That was all Anna had ever lived for, either underneath the Brotherhood roof or off on her own, her mother’s respect meant the world to her. She could deal with anything but the loss of it.

If she still retained as much of it Anna was unsure. She did know, though, that she was being given something, a branch, an ounce of allowance that Raven might not give to others. She could, but Anna didn’t know. She liked to think herself special in their relationship, and she was possessive of it. She would take that, the thought of such a uniqueness, and she would run with it, as far and as fast as she could.

Without a word, but with a bob of a nod, Rogue did as she had been instructed. One bottle located and opened, allowed to breathe while she found the glasses in the same place she had left them. She also found the plates and the napkins and flatware, all in the places in which they belong. Smiling to herself she set the table, a place for them both, fully intending to eat what her mother had made. Permission had been given to her staying, and in a way, so too had permission been granted for a return to normalcy, or at least as close as they could get. “Anythin’ else ah can do?”

[Mystique]

Listening to the sounds behind her of her daughter following the given instructions regarding the wine, then unbidden, setting the table, Raven almost felt she was back in another time. The sounds were ordinary, even pleasantly so, and she couldn’t help but remember so many other evenings like this over the years, dinner at the end of the day. Sometimes Erik would join them, and it would feel almost like she supposed a normal family would feel (although her family life when she was growing up had been anything but normal, so she had nothing to compare it to). Raven did not consider Erik to be Rogue’s father however, in name or in spirit; she was the girl’s primary parental figure, and so as much as she enjoyed Erik’s company the best nights were when it was just her and her daughter. It was something to look forward to, that no matter what had gone on during the day she had this time at the end of it to relax and be with the person she looked upon as her main family. Rogue was not her first or even her natural child, but she was chosen, which Raven thought had to count for something.

Raven continued working on the salad as Rogue set the table, and decided that this was what she had missed the most while the girl was gone. But she was back now, and hopefully to stay. When she inquired about what else to do, Raven was ready with an answer.

”Check on the steak.” she said, looking at the clock on the wall. ”It should be nearly done. And talk to me. What have you been doing these past months?” It felt like so long since Rogue had disappeared; she wanted to know what had happened, how she’d fended for herself, how she’d coped with the presence of Carol in her head. Not that Raven didn’t trust the girl to manage on her own; in fact she would have been very surprised (and disappointed) if she hadn’t, but curiosity was such a natural emotion for mothers to have regarding their children’s lives, and so she wanted to know everything, including what had put her daughter on the path back to her door.

[Rogue]

When she had been there, in the Brotherhood, all she had wanted to do was leave. She thought that, maybe, out there, she could find normalcy, the lives that they were all supposed to be living, the lives that they were supposed to want. Even there, in strange little home, stories of the way that the world was supposed to be had worked within the walls. And even there, and maybe more so because of it, the want for it was so great, so powerful and all consuming, and she had thought that without it, without finding that thing that the books spoke to and the movies showed that she would be the one left out in the cold, the person that the storied ended upon them having nothing.

She had thought that out there she would find it all. But she had been wrong, she had been so wrong, and as she moved about her mother's kitchen, an apartment that she knew as well as any that she had ever been in, more so, like the back of her hand or the rhythm of her own breathing, this place was so intrinsic to who she was and where she was and what was home. And no. No this, it had been this that everything had spoke and pointed to, and in trying to find it Anna had almost lost it all.

But she hadn't and she was there and it was normal and perfect and as Raven asked for her to check on their meal Anna did so without hesitation. The table was set and things were ready and yes, indeed the meat was done. "Nothin' much really." She began, doing what needed to be done for everything to be served so that they could eat together. "A little bit of everythin'." She was dithering, a little, because she didn't quite want to tell her mother of her failures, because she didn't quite want to admit to the trouble that Carol had been giving her or to the arrest or to the fact that it had been Mal who had helped her and Wanda who had come to save the day. She didn't want to get them in trouble, in any ways shape or form, but she also didn't want to lie to her mother.

It wasn't that she didn't want to.

It was that she couldn't.

One of those little things that she had learned long ago. Raven might not have been her biological mother, but that little tell that Mommas tended to have apparently had no need to be genetic and whenever Anna even ventured into the realm of fibbery, Raven would know within an instant.

So it was safer not to, and so she wouldn't. As she laid the steak on the table and made sure that all was arranged just so she took her seat, as she had many times before, many nights before, for years and years and years. "Have you heard from Magneto yet?" No, she wouldn't lie to her mother, but she would maneuver and evade, and yes, changing the subject might have been a dangerous game (especially with the topic and person chosen), but for her and her purpose it would do just fine.

[Mystique]

While Rogue checked on the steak Raven finished slicing the cucumber and took a tomato out of the refrigerator to add to the salad. As much as she enjoyed her music, better still tonight were the sounds of another human being in the room. It did away with the solitude that she had been feeling all too much lately, despite the house full of people. She had hopes that Rogue would settle back into their old routine, that things would go back to the way they were supposed to be. And maybe they would, maybe they wouldn’t, but for now she was here, and that in itself was a major step in the right direction.

As much as Raven wanted to know what was going on in Rogue’s life since she left the Brotherhood, it seemed that her daughter was not willing to share. Instead she gave a vague, noncommittal answer that told Raven absolutely nothing. Okay, well not absolutely nothing. It did imply that there were things that Rogue didn’t want her mother knowing about. This could be for any number of reasons. Raven doubted that many, if any, of these things were positive, otherwise why would she have come back to the Brotherhood?

”That sounds absolutely boring. No wonder you came home.” Raven said drily as she chopped up the tomato.

She was going to push a little further (but not too much further, she didn’t want to drive Rogue right back out the door again on her first night home, after all), but then Rogue had the nerve to mention Erik. That was a rather sore subject with Raven, as the man had still not made any contact with her in months, and the sources she’d contacted to find him had turned up nothing. This had to be discretely done of course; she couldn’t just go to the local police station and file a missing persons report. She also couldn’t let it be known that Magneto was missing, either, hence the fable that he was on an extended mission. She hadn’t even told her daughter that Erik was nowhere to be found. The fewer people that knew a secret, the more apt it was to remain a secret.

”No I have not.” was thus all she said, and quickly changed the subject. ”That dressing you like is still in the fridge.”

So apparently they both had things they didn’t want to talk about.

[Rogue]

Her lips quirked, easily, at her mother’s humor, at the dry and sarcastic way she repeated to the nothing that Rogue had offered. She had missed that, a lot, along with everything else. There was a lot that you could replace in the world, people that could fill the voids in your life, and for a moment, or a half of one, Rogue had thought that she was capable of doing that. And she was, really, because if she had buried her head into the sand and just forgotten about the incident that had occurred, she could have gone on. Like normal. Like a human-being.

Except that she wasn’t one. And even if it meant that her life was going to be harder than it already was, she wasn’t going to pretend she was either. Because she was what she was, and her life was the way it was, and even though the Carol Entitiy made living difficult from day to day, she wasn’t going to back down. She wasn’t going to turn away.

That was it then. As much as she had deflected her mother’s questioning, so too did Raven. That was curious, and Rogue felt an eyebrow raise as green eye’s sought out her mother, as if looking to her would bring forth an answer that she didn’t want to share. She was curious, but ever respectful, and if her momma didn’t want to talk about it, then her momma didn’t want to talk about it and Rogue wasn’t going to press.

“So.” She said instead, rising from her seat. “My life was boring.” It was just as many steps from her chair to the refrigerator as it always had been. What a strange thing to remember. Even stranger was how comforting that was, “Magneto ain’t checked back in yet.” Visions of him flashed brilliantly into her mind. Him, him and her mother, all three of them there, or in his suite, together. “Did anything happen at all while Ah was off gallivantin’?” Gloved fingers wrapping around the next to the bottle that contained the dressing she’d often been partial to. “Anythin’ interested at least? New recruits that Ah should keep an eye on, or out for?” Since neither of them seemed prepared to talk about, well, each other, it might be easier to talk shop. It was a little presumptuous of Rogue, to think that she would be accepted back just that easily, but it was like riding a bike again. Once she started going, she didn’t know that she wanted to stop.

[Mystique]

So. Rogue's life was boring. Raven both did and didn't believe that. Her daughter had wanted a normal life, which in Raven's book equaled boring, so if she'd found that, wouldn't that be perfect? Exactly what she wanted? Maybe not. Raven suspected that either she'd found so-called 'normal' life to be a dreadful bore, or that a normal life was not possible for someone like her. Probably the latter, which meant that there was likely a rather not boring story to tell, but that could be told on a later date.

Raven's life on the other hand, well, she was a little too busy to be bored. There was the Brotherhood to run in Erik's absence (damn him anyway), new recruits to break in. Rogue asked about that, and Raven thought back over who had joined the Brotherhood during the girl's absence, and couldn't really think of anyone noteworthy enough to mention. Which was a shame, but the fact was that Raven was not as a strong of a personality as Erik was, therefore she was not quite as good at recruitment as he had been. And the people that were joining, there were no shining stars among them and she had little doubt that Rogue could handle herself very well against any of them.

”No one you should worry about.” Raven commented as she brought the salad over to the dining room table and set it down. She went to the fridge and took out her own favorite bleu cheese dressing before returning to the table.

”There's been an increase in anti-mutant activity though. One group in particular seems to be trying to make a name for themselves. 'Humanity's Guardians'.” Raven said, mouth settling into an expression of disgust. She took a sip of her wine almost as if just saying the name left a bad taste in her mouth and she was trying to wash it out. ”I'm trying to get more information about them, and I may put you to work regarding that once you're settled in again.”

[Rogue]

And with that, each of them adding their own part to the table, dinner had been put together. A dinner that they were having together after all of these months apart. It surprised Rogue, how easy it was, though she guessed it shouldn’t have. No matter what they’d been through, no matter the things that had happened, Raven had never really given her daughter a reason to doubt her.

So there wasn’t any. She wanted to know more, of course, about everything. About the whole deal with Magneto, about who was the no one that she should be worrying about. That made her more curious than the whole Mysterious Disappearing Leader of the Brotherhood thing, but that was because she was who she was, and because the Carol Entity liked to whisper things into her head. Like the fact that it was no one that she needed to worry about because Raven had already found a replacement for Rogue. That it wasn’t that the new people didn’t need looking after, it was just that Rogue wasn’t good enough. That she never had been before, and that she wasn’t now, and …

“Oooh.” She said irritated out loud, swatting at the air in front of her face with a gloved hand, as if the motion would bat away the thoughts that Carol was projecting.

“Humanity’s Guardians?” She repeated the name as if nothing had just happened, looking, instead like she was turning the information over in her head. “Have we ever talked ‘bout them before?” The name sounded so familiar but it could have been something that she’d picked up, or heard at the jail, or maybe Raven had just said It in passing. “Ah’m up for anything.” She reassured, “Especially when it comes to people doin’ anythin’ like that.” Ignorant backwards thinking Neanderthals that they were.

[Mystique]

Funny how all it took was one thing to make life right again? Raven hadn't planned on using the dining room table tonight, which is why it wasn't set before Rogue knocked on her door. She rarely used the dining room table these days, preferring to have dinner on the sofa while watching the news in the evening. The few times she had eaten at the table, it had seemed too big and empty to her, even though it was just a regular, four person table. But that one extra place set at the table, Rogue's presence in her chair again after what seemed like too long of an absence, made everything right and so Raven was pleased to sit here again and enjoy a meal. Already she was inwardly planning future meals; adjusting her internal shopping list to add a few things she had not purchased in awhile since her daughter had not been around to enjoy them with her. Things would go back to normal again.

But the two of them weren't the only ones at this table, were they? And Rogue wasn't the only one sitting in that chair. Her daughter's sudden frustration, seemingly out of the blue, reminded Raven that there was still another person in that head, that Carol Danvers was still a part of the girl's psyche, and apparently still troubled her. If Raven had known what would happen, that Rogue would take not only the Danvers woman's power but her entire being, would she still have set things in motion for them to meet? Probably. No, that wasn't true. She would still have done what she did, she just would have put a little research into things beforehand, to see if there were any way to prevent the total takeover that left one woman dead and the other with two personalities. It had never been her intention for Rogue to be harmed like this (note the lack of similar concern over Danvers; if the woman hadn't gone snooping around the Brotherhood then this would never have happened). Regardless of her intentions however, what was done was done, there was no time machine that would allow Raven to go back and change things even if she wanted to, and so she just had to deal with the consequences of what had happened.

Raven watched Anna carefully, wondering if maybe this was why she had come home, if Carol was becoming too much of a problem for her to deal with on her own. And if this was the case? Well, Raven wasn't a psychiatrist by any stretch of the imagination, nor did she know any. She also had no training in this kind of situation. If it did turn out that Rogue did still need help, it would be dealt with though. Perhaps Genome could be put to work on an answer...

”How bad is it? Raven asked. Rogue tried to continue the conversation on to other things, but right now this was a more important issue.

[Rogue]

Anna Darkholme wasn’t a lazy girl. When she’d been born in raised in Caldecott that life had very much been one in which you did what needed to be done, or nothing ever did get done. Her parents had had her on a hippie commune, so there was no wal-mart or grocery store or anything like that which you could run to. If you wanted food you had to grow it or kill it, and there wasn’t even power or refrigeration. They were trying to live from what the Earth provided or could be convinced into giving, and all of that took work. Work that was all the time. Why anyone would want to be a hippie Anna didn’t know. She didn’t know then, even when she didn’t know any better. And now that she did, well, she didn’t know even more.

Moving in with her Aunt hadn’t made thing any easier. There had been stuff to do then too, even if that stuff was all of a different variety. “Work” had suddenly become “chores”, and things like responsibility and ways to act were key players in everything. Mostly Anna didn’t quite understand them, but she had tried. She was the type of person that liked to please people, and even if her Aunt seemed set on not liking her from the start, Anna had done what she could to make the woman change her mind.

That was part of the reason that going with Raven had been so easy. Being liked, finally. Being more than something to remember when you forgot, like her parents had, or being something that was an added weight, like her Aunt had acted. With Raven, with her mother, that had never been a question.

But that wasn’t what Rogue was worrying about in that moment at the kitchen table. She was doing something that she didn’t normally do, that just wasn’t in her to do. She was trying to avoid something, to make it go away so that she didn’t have to think about it. Owing up and focusing on it was just too difficult, and she just didn’t want to.

Want or not, though. Raven wasn’t someone she could lie to.

“Bad enough.” She said with a pout, looking for all the world that she was sixteen again and not closing in on thirty, green-eyed vision dropping onto the dish before her. “She’s got opinions, you know. And she don’t keep ‘em from me.” Picking up her fork Rogue stabbed at the lettuce that was waiting to be eaten. “I just wish she’d hush up sometimes.” The words but it's nothing I can't handle were about to follow, but that went back to not telling the truth. Normally she'd have fibbed, for the sake of everyone involved. But that night was the first night she was home. And she was tired. And she just didn't want to have to deal with this alone.

Not anymore.

[Mystique]

As a general rule, Raven did not trust telepaths. Telepathy was a slippery, sneaky power; those who wielded it could go into the minds of others and find out whatever they wanted to know, even manipulate that person. And there was no defense against it that she was aware of, unless one was another telepath and could create shields. Sadly, Raven lacked such an ability, because she valued the privacy of her own thoughts. Most people took such a thing for granted, but she had grown up with a telepath and understood what it felt like to have someone else in her mind. Because of this, even if she’d known where to locate a telepath she would not have tried to recruit one. How can one be sure of the loyalty of someone who can read your mind and could control you if he or she wanted to?

The only exception had been Charles of course, but even though she had loved and trusted him while growing up and for a long time afterwards, Raven had not wanted him listening in on her thoughts. She knew he would never hurt her, but it felt like an intrusion, especially upon those thoughts and feelings that had to do with him. She hadn’t known if she could have stood facing him if he knew her most secret longings, when she knew he didn’t feel the same way.

It was a shame however, because a telepath was exactly what Raven thought could be used to help Rogue. Someone who could go into her daughter’s head and do something about that pesky Carol Danvers; perhaps lock her personality away so that she couldn’t bother Rogue anymore. But of course she didn’t have a telepath on hand, and didn’t know where to look for one. And going to Charles was out of the question. Raven had burned her bridges where her brother was concerned decades ago, the minute she had turned her back on him as he lay injured and walked away with Erik. That door was closed to her now. But even if it wasn’t, as good a man as she knew him to be, would Charles agree to help someone who had been hurt while committing an act that had killed another person? She couldn’t be sure.

This wasn’t helping Rogue though. The persistent Colonel Danvers could not be shut up even in death it seemed, and what remained of the woman was apparently determined to haunt the person who’d stolen her life. If it was anyone but Rogue going through this then Raven would consider that karma coming to pay them back; but this wasn’t just anyone. This was her daughter, and she did not deserve to suffer like this. Lacking a resident telepath, was there something else that could be done? Raven wished she could remember if Charles had ever mentioned anything about whether it was possible to create shields in one’s own mind. Was it possible to block Danvers that way? It was something to think about.

”How often is this happening?” Raven asked, before taking a bite of her steak. ”I think we should talk to Genome and see if he has any suggestions. Maybe he can be useful.” she paused. ”Maybe.” she added drily.

[Rogue]

Talking about Carol made Rogue uncomfortable. It made her uncomfortable because it only managed to make Carol louder, as if such a thing was possible. Sometime she could pretend that she wasn’t there, the first she being Rogue and the second being Carol, but that sometimes never lasted long. Carol didn’t need to sleep like Rogue did, and when Rogue was asleep it was the worst. Then Carol came out it full strength, not just accusing Rogue in her mind, but accusing her on a plane that was both real and that wasn’t at the same time. Killing the woman had never been Rogue’s intention. Before Carol she’d never killed anyone, and really, when she thought back to it, even going over the memories that weren’t just hers, she didn’t know how they’d ended up like they had. It just didn’t make sense, the whole thing of it, and try to put it together as she did, nothing quite fit, none of the pieces quite meshing up together like they should.

She’d just wanted to stop her, to stop Carol from hurting her, from winning because her Momma didn’t want Carol to win and Rogue would have and still would do anything in the world for that woman. Or she thought she would have. But killing someone? Even that was a line for Rogue. Or it had been, because now it was a line that had been crossed and that made it not quite such a big boundary anymore. Life was funny like that, all those stupid sayings that people said usually ending up to be truer than not.

Still, the permanent punishment for something that she didn’t mean to do was horrific. There wasn’t just her own guilt but Carol’s own and very righteous anger. Rogue could see that her mother wanted to help, but it was hard to help when it was impossible to understand. Even if she could properly explain it, which she’d tried to do with several people over several periods of time, Rogue still doubted than anyone could get what it was like. The only way that Carol would be happy and would be quiet is if Rogue let her have control. Carol was that strong of an imprint on her mind, but for all of the trouble that she gave Rogue, Rogue was stronger and she wasn’t going to back down anytime soon. No matter how tired or worn Carol might have been capable of making her feel.

“He’s given me drugs before.” She didn’t know if her mother knew that, and hope that she wasn’t getting Malcolm in trouble, but there was the line, the permanent line of honesty with her mother. “They helped for a while. But ah gotta take so many of ‘em now and iffin ah get too tuckered out she just gets louder.” The salad was tasteless in her mouth, Carol jabbering away in her head, beating down what was left inside of her while the discomfort in talking to her mother about this rose. “It depends.” She was answering the questions backwards, but she wasn’t really thinking a hundred percent straight anyways. “If ah’m nervous or upset she’s more aggressive. But she’s always there, momma.” Rogue sought her mother’s eyes. “There’s not a single moment when she’s not up inside my head.”