Chapter Five
"Chère?" Remy gently shook her shoulder. "Chère, wake up."
Rogue groaned and rubbed at her eyes. "How long was I out?"
"Just a few hours. I went and got us some groceries. Help me prepare lunch?"
Rogue looked to the television that was now dark, then to the kitchen. Part of her wanted to know what was happening but the talking heads, talking mostly bullshit, decided her against it for now. Silently she got up and went through to the kitchen, Remy following behind her.
"You okay?" he asked.
"Fine, why?" She was cold and closed off.
"You were having nightmares."
Rogue shrugged, so he dropped the subject.
Rogue couldn't cook toast when he met her and he had been slowly teaching her some of the basics. She was now chopping peppers for their omelets while he sliced choritzo.
"The scientists thought mutants were a blight on humanity, they wanted to wipe them out," she said out of the blue, and so softly that Remy had to strain to hear her. "Of course, that didn't mean that they were opposed to using mutants to fight their cause."
Remy didn't know what to say or do, as any action on his part might cause her to clam up, and he wanted her to be able to trust him. Still, at the same time he also wanted to comfort her, the pain behind her words almost broke his heart.
Rogue finished with the peppers and moved onto the onion.
"They turned me into the perfect mutant, gave me new powers, taught me how to control ones I'd previously absorbed, and put a nice little chip in my head that meant they could control me. They used me mostly to gather information, I'd use my 'feminine wiles'," she said with scorn, "to get close to the target, then absorb what they needed to know."
Remy wondered how long that had been going on for, she was only 17 now, had they been using her as bate since she was a child? The idea sickened him.
"How'd you get away?" he asked softly.
"They sent me to kill someone called Magneto, but my chip got fried by his powers. I didn't realise at first; I was so used to following their orders in case they gave me a shot of pain, so it was another week before I began to hope that the chip might have been damaged. I began to rebel in small ways. If they told me to break in through the front door, I'd use the rear, things like that. After a half dozen tests, I was convinced. Back at the base my powers were always inhibited, unless they were doing experiments, so I knew I couldn't break out. I waited until they sent me on my next mission, and just flew away."
She was softly crying and she wiped her tears away with the back of her hand. Remy went behind her and put his arms around her shoulders, pulling her back into his chest. Rogue fought him, but not strongly.
"Damned onions!" she said, but she could fool him. Still, he let her go as she clearly didn't want to appear weak.
"How old were you when..."
"Thirteen."
Her tears began to fall harder and Remy handed her some kitchen paper.
"For the onions," he said when she gave him an odd look. She accepted and wiped at her eyes.
"They uh, they captured my momma," she said, returning to her onions, although she had already diced far more than they needed. "She wasn't my real momma, but she and her friend had looked after me for as long as I can remember."
She lapsed into silence and Remy didn't dare ask anything else. He could tell that something heartbreaking was coming, as long as she trusted him enough to share. She remained silent until her tears had all but stopped.
"She gave me to them. Swapped me for her freedom." She sounded like she was choking on the words.
Finally, all vestiges of composure fled and she began to bawl. Remy pulled her into his arms, despite her mild protests and held her tightly, rubbing her back and gently rocking her.
Poor kid; sold by her mother and turned into a soldier at 13. It didn't bear thinking about.
He had thought that his paranoia about her past might be untoward, that he was over reacting and being paranoid, but now he was glad for all the precautions he had taken, like her 60,000 dollars worth of new identities and insisting she hide her hair when they fly.
Right now he would have given anything to have been wrong and overreacted.
Suddenly he became fearful; she hadn't said who 'they' were but clearly they were powerful. What if his precautions weren't enough? What if they could track her? What if they recaptured her?
He was teaching her all he knew, of course, but it took years to become a thief, and up to a decade to become a master thief, unless...
There were risks attached, of course, and she might end up hating him but he had to take that risk, he had to do what he could to help her stay safe.
He waited until her tears began to slow.
"Thank you for telling me, chère."
Her arms, which up until then had been holding herself, now wrapped themselves around his waist and she held tightly.
"Do you trust me?" he asked.
Rogue nodded against his chest. Remy pulled away a little and looked down into her eyes. He wanted to cup her face but he didn't have gloves on.
"Do you trust me?" he asked again.
Rogue studied him for a moment, wondering what the point of his question was.
"Yes," she admitted.
"Then trust me," he asked. Slowly his head began to lower until they were millimetres apart. "Trust me," he whispered, then he kissed her.
He tried not to lose himself in the sensation, although there was nothing he wanted more, and instead tried to concentrate on everything he'd ever learned about thieving. He had no idea if focusing on the memories would help her absorb them more easily, but he hoped so. He thought about how to pick different locks, crack safes, con someone, pick pockets and hack electronic alarms. He thought about his hardest jobs, how he had handled them, how he had found help when he needed it, how to stay below the radar.
He had no idea if this was working, but he was having a hard time thinking straight at all now. All he could think of was Rogue, and how her soft lips were as they pressed against his. She was everything to him, even more than Bella Donna, which made him feel awful.
His last waking thought, was that now Rogue probably knew about Bella, and how there was probably no way she would ever forgive him.
***
Rogue gently lowered Gambit to the floor and cried over his body.
His thoughts were still swirling through her head but she ignored them for now. She had seen his intention when he first kissed her, which was why she allowed it to continue. He had risked his health and possibly his life just because he wanted to protect her, to keep her safe even when he wasn't around.
No one had ever done anything so selfless for her before, and she was quite overcome with the emotions she was feeling.
She was also feeling guilty. No matter how much he wanted to do that, she shouldn't have let him. She cared for him, didn't she? Although she didn't claim to be an expert in relationships, she was pretty sure that one did not put someone that they cared about into a coma, no matter if they agreed to said coma or not.
She wondered how long he would be out for. The kiss had been quick, perhaps five seconds, maybe ten, so hopefully he would awaken in a few days. If not she was in trouble, because he would start to dehydrate after 3 days.
She had drained a lot of people in her time but she had never had the task of caring for them afterwards, so she had no idea of what to do. Would his swallow reflex still work so she could spoon water into his mouth, or would she have to get an I.V.? What about food? He could last longer without it than water, but not too long. And then there was muscle atrophy, how long did that take to set in?
'Chère, relax, please don't cry. I wanted to do that.'
'That doesn't make it right!' she insisted to her mental Gambit. She would lock him up tight soon but for now she liked hearing his voice, even if it was only in her head.
'I wouldn't have taken no for an answer. I can be just as stubborn as you when I want to be.'
'It was a foolish and dangerous thing to do! Why the hell did you do it?'
'Because I love you and I can't stand the thought that you'll ever be in anyone's power ever again, especially theirs.'
'Stupid Cajun!'
'I'm sorry, chère, I didn't mean to hurt you.'
'You didn't hurt me, I hurt you, which hurts me! I should never have allowed it! God, I'm such an idiot!' She buried her face in her hands.
'I hope you aren't an idiot because you trusted me?'
Rogue didn't know how to answer that.
'So, did it work?' he asked.
'I don't know, I haven't tried to access your memories yet, I was rather more worried about the real you.'
'I'll be fine, chère, trust me, I've had worse. And for the record, that kiss was Hot, capital H.'
Rogue couldn't stop the small smile that played on her lips.
'Stupid Cajun,' she thought as she picked the real him up and carried him through to her bedroom.
'I prefer Remy, if it's all the same to you?'
'Remy's you're real name?'
'Oui, Remy LeBeau. We don't need secrets any more, chère.'
'We can't have secrets, you're in my head.' She reached out and carefully brushed a strand of hair off Gambit's forehead. 'I wonder if the real you will feel the same though.'
'Why wouldn't he?'
'Cos draining someone isn't very nice. 'S painful, 's intrusive and... maybe he'll be scared of me after this.'
'I'm no coward, chère. This won't change anything. Trust me.'
She wanted to believe him, really she did but of the few people she had seen again after being absorbed (usually accidentally in the early days of her captivity) none had ever been the same, not even the few who were nice to her, liked her after that.
Of course, she didn't like them much either after absorbing their thoughts; it's safe to say that no one working for them had clean hands, but the rejection still hurt.
Deciding that she would go insane if she thought about this too much, she decided to see if Remy's idea had worked, and set out to challenging herself.
***
Five days after she had absorbed Remy he was still sound asleep, and Rogue had broken into 12 different buildings. She would like to do more, but she simply couldn't find anywhere with a more sophisticated security system. She would probably have to break into a military facility to get that kind of test, and she wasn't ready to leave Remy's side for long enough to accomplish that.
Still, she was rich. Well, richer.
As per Remy's instructions, she hadn't stolen from anyone who couldn't afford it. She also hadn't taken too much from any one place.
Her favourite break in had been a drugs den, because of them all, that had been the hardest. It was guarded by mean looking men with guns (she may be invulnerable but bullets still hurt like a bitch and in her book, getting shot would mean she failed). It also had an expensive security system and the job had tested her new skills well. She had also made sure not to use her powers unless she absolutely had to, and do all the jobs the old fashioned way.
She had passed her tests, and at 5am on a cold Thursday morning, the local police were somewhat surprised to find five million dollars in heroin and cocaine left on their doorstep. It had made the news but she had put her hair up under her baseball cap so they couldn't even see the length, worn dark glasses to hide her features and she had worn bulky clothes under Remy's trench coat, so on the grainy black and white pictures they had of her, it was hard to tell if she was a man or woman. Most assumed that the person brave enough to steal those drugs then hand them over to the police had to be a man, and she was perfectly happy to let them go on believing that.
With her thieving skills tested to the city's limits, Rogue took to practising with the power inhibitor each day. Remy had only practised for two hours a day but Rogue had little else to do, so she kept it on most of the time. She bought one of those stress relieving balls and kept trying to squeeze it with her super strength. Of course, nothing happened (and it didn't do much for her stress, either) but she kept squeezing the ball until it became a habit.
She checked in on Remy often and saw to his needs. She had discovered that he did still have a swallow reflex, so she used turkey baster to drip water into his mouth. It wasn't much, but it was better than nothing.
She decided to keep the power inhibitor away from him because she couldn't be sure if his powers would aid his recovery or not, but it seemed to her that most humans took longer to recover from her absorption than mutants did.
A part of her wanted to bring the inhibitor into the bedroom and kiss him while he was unconscious, since that might be her only chance to feel his lips on hers again but as tempting as that was, she daren't in case it did harm his recovery in some way.
Now that she had little else to do, his other memories began to resurface in her mind. She didn't have much about his past, just lots of flashes that didn't make much sense, and mini-Remy (as she had taken to calling his psyche) either wouldn't or couldn't elaborate on them for her.
She worried about what kind of man he really was. She trusted him but she didn't know anything about him, not really. From the little she'd seen of his memories, she was quite ready to be disappointed.
She only saw two possible outcomes for this situation. Either Remy would shun her after being drained, or he would prove to be a married, womanising murderer. Possibly both.
The odds of him both forgiving her, and being the stand up man she believed him to be, were not in her favour.