X-Men 1st Redemptions

93: X-plete

"Well, Momma didn't stick around," Rogue said. "One thing you and I have in common now, Kurt, she ditched both of us without sayin' goodbye. Guess I ain't her favorite anymore."

Kurt shook his head. "I am sorry."

"Why you sorry for me? Didn't you ever resent that?" Rogue had projected her own thoughts about it onto Kurt, naturally.

"Oh...it hurt vhen she said it, but I understood that she hardly knows me," Kurt said, "and that I remind her of too much pain. You and her have more in common...I understand.... In the end, mother is not that gut at loving anyone, so it is no profit to me to split hairs, as you Americans say."

"You're too good, Kurt," Rogue said.

"I merely seek to understand," Kurt said. "Does it hurt you that she has gone now? Vithout talking to you?"

"Oh...I dunno," Rogue sighed. "I guess I wasn't that nice to her anyway. And I didn't think I cared, until she up and disappeared. Guess I figured in a way she'd never quit tryin' with me, and it annoyed me big...but now I feel like..."

"You feel like it means you vere not vorth fighting for," Kurt said.

Rogue bit her lip.

Kurt put a hand on her shoulder. "Just how I have felt many times...but take comfort, sister. Gott fights for us. Our mother is not strong enough to do this. Ve must not blame her too much. I do not think anyone ever fought for her. She probably does not know how."

"I reckon she fought the only way she knew how to." Rogue hit upon an actual good idea. "And when that didn't work.... Yeah, maybe I get it too well, actually. I'd probably have quit too.... Just makes me mad, is all. Things ain't never goin' the way we wish they would."

"Family is messy," Kurt said. "It's not perfect...but Gott sustains me."

"You really believe that, huh," Rogue said.

"Ja...I could not go on if I did not," Kurt said.

"I reckon you might be right about that," Rogue said. "I wonder how I got on before I thought there was hope out there like that.... Seems like I didn't. I just stayed put."

"That is a very good description of how it is," Kurt said. "I should remember that.... Shall ve just fly to vhere ve are going? I am...not confident about taking the plane."

"Eh, for just two of us, ain't so bad to fly," Rogue said. "I hope it ain't far."

* * *

It was far.

While they were getting there, Warren himself was sulking in his castle.

But his boredom was interrupted by an unannounced visit from Psylocke.

She was there..ostensibly to steal...though these days, she never got very far with it before a tussel ensued.

She kept coming back though.

Warren was desperate though, and when he caught her in his living room, he said

"Just take it for all I care."

Psylocke stopped, like it offended her.

"Yo're not even going to try?" she said.

"I'm not in the mood," Warren said.

"To not get robbed?" Amused and perplexed.

"What good is all this anyway," Warren asked of no one.

"Something got you worked up," Psylocke observed unceremoniously. "What, did you try to get rid of your wings again "