Rogue and Adrienne - Who Are You?

[x-adrienne.livejournal.com]

An amnesiac Rogue returns to her suite from the medlab and finds Adrienne napping in her bed.

Having a concussion and brain trauma meant 24 hours observation in the med lab. 24 long, boring, pointless hours where she tried to look through her phone and figure out who half the people in there were.

It was hard when she apparently had never grown out of giving people nicknames.

Wife. Ex-Douche. Snuggles. Doll. Leader.

Well. The last one was probably Scott, although she had no idea why she had his cell phone number or why they would even text in the first place.

This whole being older than she really felt thing was strange, and it was with relief that she was allowed out of the medlab. Of course, she had to get directions to her room, because she wasn't a student, she was an adult with a suite. Her own suite. All by herself. No rooming with Kitty, or with anyone for that matter. Weird.

Getting to the door, she punched in the code, and peeked inside carefully. It seemed nice, and looked a bit messy. Good to know things were the same, she thought, as she stepped in. And then she saw someone on the bed, and gasped. "Oh mah gawd, Ah am so sorry! Ah was told this was mah room, but Ah guess it's not. So sorry!"

Adrienne came awake with a start, forgetting for a moment where she was. Garrison's? Emma's? No. Swan's. She felt a little like Goldilocks as she sat up and blinked guiltily at the sight of Rogue in the doorway of the bedroom. "Swan! Christ! You're back! Shit!" She jumped out of the bed and tried to smooth the covers down. "I'm sorry. I just... I crashed," she told her friend sheepishly, "and I was worried about you, and I can't go into the suite I used to share with... with Tandy, and Agent Lana brought me back here from Emma's but then had to go out and Emma's asleep and I didn't think I could sleep so I came back here but then I just got so damned tired and I... it's stupid. I'm sorry. Sorry, can I just?-" The losses of Tandy and Jean and Wanda were so overwhelming to her that the fact that Rogue was back on her feet was an incredible relief, and Adrienne couldn't stop herself from rushing forward and hugging Rogue. "I'm so glad you're okay. And that's a good one about it not being your room," she added with a watery laugh.

Rogue was seriously regretting not having someone accompany her to her room. Not only was this brunette happy to see her, she was obviously someone Rogue was close with.

Giving the woman an awkward hug back, Rogue took a step backwards, clasping her own arms close to her. "Oh, so it is mah room after all," she said cautiously. "Ah'm guessin' we're friends, at least, Ah hope we are?" Pacing a bit, she took a deep breath before giving an obviously rehearsed speech.

She'd practiced in the medlb. "Right, so Ah have this concussion and a lil bit o' a brain injury. This may be hard to believe -- or maybe not, considerin' where we live an' all -- but Ah don't quite remember the last ten yeahs. Ah'm sorry."

Adrienne cocked an eyebrow at her and waited a beat before bursting into laughter. "Fuck, I needed that. Thanks. That's hilarious. Wow. I mean, really. I like that. Ten years. So you think you're a teenager again? Riiiight. You're such a bitch, Swan. And way to go with the accent."

Well, that went as well as she thought it would. Instead of answering , Rogue looked away, tapping her fingers absently on her arm.

She tried to think of another way to say it, but couldn't find how to do it without getting mad.

"Ah am such a horrible person that Ah'd joke like that? Ah honestly have no idea who you are, or who this Swan person is, and Ah don't take kindly to your laughin' 'bout me," she exclaimed in a burst of anger. "So unless y'all have somethin' to say, then Ah'd like for you ta leave."

"Wait, what?" Adrienne's eyes widened as Rogue's anger sunk in. "You're pissed off? Wait... are you serious? You lost your fucking memory?I This isn't a joke?!"

"No this isn't a joke!" Rogue threw her arms out in exasperation. "Last Ah actually remember Ah'd jus' graduated from here and was finally an Xman. Now Ah'm told Ah've been on the team forever, Ah'm turnin' 30 this yeah and oh yah -- no one knows if this is permanent or not. So no. Not a fuckin' joke."

"Holy shit." But why hadn't Jean warned... Oh. Right. "Wow. Well, uhh... Sorry I was sleeping in your bed, for starters, I guess," she said, still sounding stunned. This was actually happening? It wasn't something that just happened in the movies?

Adrienne looked around, then at herself, reevaluating everything. Rogue didn't know who she was. And this was probably the absolute worst first impression ever. She was in her usual sleep attire of yoga pants and a tank top, hair in a messy braid. No makeup anywhere in sight. Shit. "Well... I'm sure it's not permanent? The memory loss?" She told Rogue, trying to sound encouraging. "I'm sure you'll be back to your old self in no time."

"Here's hopin'," Rogue muttered under her breath. "So Ah guess we go back to who are you? Ah'm guessin' we're close, else you wouldn't be sleepin' in my bed...wait, am Ah a lesbian now? Are you my girlfriend?"

She didn't remember having any lesbian tendencies, but she really couldn't understand who this person was.

The psychometrist's eyebrow shot up. Well, this could be a lot of fun. "I'm the person you listed in your phone as 'Wife,'" she informed Rogue. She was going to just leave it there, because having to explain the truth was going to be tedious and probably annoying. Adrienne didn't really want to take it seriously. And maybe Rogue should be figuring all this stuff out with some sort of therapist or something? Maybe she should just bail now and tell Rogue she could figure it out for herself.

But then Kane would find out, and he'd probably frown at her. In fact, he'd probably frown at her if she told Rogue a bunch of made-up shit, too. Damnit. "But in actuality I'm dating a guy who lives here called Garrison Kane," she confessed, taking out her phone and showing Rogue a picture. "He's your friend. As am I. The 'Wife' thing was a joke. On your part. You started it," she informed the other woman defensively. "I'm 'Wife,' and you're 'Swan,', because you can fly like a bird but you're also a badass motherfucker so if you were a bird you'd be a swan because you do not wanna mess with fucking swans," was her explanation.

"Oh." That was an interesting explanation. Looking at the picture, she had to admit that this Garrison and Adrienne were a good looking couple. And Rogue was friends with both of them. More so with Adrienne, since she was a 'wife', which also meant nothing to Rogue.

Apparently she had a good enough friend that she considered her more than family.

And there was that flying thing. Scott had talked to her about her new powers. Well. Old power, but new to her. This was all giving her a headache.

"Right. You're mah wife. Garrison is mah friend. Ah can fly." A pause. "Ah need to sit down." Which she did, very loudly, and in a way that almost broke her chair. Rogue sighed heavily. "And Ah have super strength or somethin'. This is ridiculous. Ah have no clue what is goin' on, or how to even begin to figure things out."

"Yeah. I'm with you there." Adrienne sat on the bed. "Too bad you don't have telepathy. If you did, I could use my powers to Read a piece of jewelry or something you've had for a long time and with telepathy, we could link our minds together so I could show you some of your own history. But I think you're kinda humped."

Rogue sat in silence, trying to continue to process this all. It was bad enough the day before, with Scott and Logan but at least she'd known them ten years ago.

"Well, how about you tell me 'bout us? Like how did we meet? Anythin' Ah should know?"

"Uhh, we met at Keller's housewarming. Julian Keller." Adrienne searched her phone for pictures. She'd had a couple of him with Tandy. But those were gone now. "I don't have a picture of him. Sorry. But you and Keller are buddies. He took you shopping to buy sheets. You wrecked them when I broke into your room and scared the shit out of you and you spilled nail polish all over them because you were trying to paint your toenails upside down. This is really fucking weird," she admitted. But it felt good, in the midst of this new environment of not being able to talk about the past with so many people, to just tell Rogue dumb stories. "You used to date Agent La- Kane," she corrected, figuring she should stop using nicknames in front of Rogue.

"That's really why we met," she explained with a smirk. "I wanted to check you out. You'd just come back to the mansion after something like five or six years away. You were his last girlfriend before me. So I wanted to meet you. I kind of wanted to hate you," she admitted, sounding a little guilty about it now. "I never expected we'd become... friends. Let alone the sort of friends who would joke about being married." It was still strange to Adrienne to think she had any friends at all.

Rogue listened intently but one thing stuck out. "Kane? The hottie from your picture? Ah dated him? And yet Ah like you better?"

She cocked an eyebrow and gave her first real smile. "Are ya sure Ah'm not a lesbian?"

Adrienne laughed, relaxing a little when Rogue smiled. "Well, it's never been proven, despite my shameless flirtations." She showed Rogue some pictures she had on her phone of Rogue and Kane. "I think you dated for a large chunk of time, except you two never bent any mattress springs, or so you told me. And I think the two of you are more... sibling-y these days."

That made sense. Otherwise she probably would've seen this Kane character in the medlab. Maybe. Oh, she couldn't think straight.

"That makes sense. Ah can't control my powers and probably never will, so Ah can see why a relationship wouldn't work," she mused outloud. "Ah appreciate the brief history of me though. This probably ain't easy on ya either...if we're as close as you say we are..."

"You're alive," Adrienne shrugged. "Right now, that's easy enough for me. Too many of the people close to me aren't." She pulled a canister of hand coating solution out of her purse. "You've probably got one of these around here somewhere. I gave you a can a couple weeks ago." Fuck, had it really just been a couple weeks since all of this happened? "It's a solution you use to coat your skin so your powers don't activate."

Rogue looked at her with a frozen stare. "What?" She reached for the can and stared at it. "Like....Ah put this on and Ah can touch people?"

Unbelievable. It was like a dream come true, although apparently one she'd learned of a few weeks ago. Regardless, it was overwhelming and the weight of the last few days finally took over.

Bursting into tears, she sobbed heavily. "Ah jus' want mah brain back to normal. Ah don't remember any of this and Ah don't know how to pretend it's al okay and now Ah have a bottle of hairspray ta make everythin' better...."

To demonstrate, Adrienne sprayed the coating solution on her own hands and hugged Rogue, pushing some hair back from Rogue's face and touching her cheek in the process. "See? I dunno if it can make everything better, but hopefully it'll help a little. And hey. My sister happens to be the greatest telepath in the entire world," she told her friend proudly, making no qualms or caveats about the statement now that Jean- her Jean- was dead. "I'm sure she'll have some ideas on how to get your brain back to normal."

"You think?" Rogue sniffed, and reached up to wipe the tears off her face. She could see why she was friends with this person -- Adrienne. Adrienne. The name didn't sound familiar at all. "Gawd, Ah'm a mess. Ah didn't mean to cry heah, and make it all awkward." She looked at the hairspray canister and smiled softly. "Ah appreciate it. Ah really do."

"The crying's been going around," Adrienne shrugged. "And I expect it'll be continuing for a long while in the future. Did people talk to you about what's going on with the world?"

Okay, so that meant Adrienne knew too. Good. Rogue had gotten the sense that Scott and Logan were her Scott and Logan. Add another to the list. "Kinda? Ah feel like Ah know anyways?". She sighed. "This jus' makes it all so hard....we can talk in heah right?"

"Yeah, we won't break this universe if we talk in our own suites amongst ourselves," Adrienne assured her. "Apparently. I guess it's gotta be kinda nice for you that you don't remember, so you don't have to worry about talking to the wrong person, huh?"

Rogue gave a funny laugh. "You're all the wrong people ta me, sugah. But yeah, Ah get what ya mean." She paused. "This is our new life and Ah start it with nothin'. No good memories,no bad ones. Jus' old ones."

Another sigh. "Do we ever get a break? Ever? Or is this our life.."

"This is it," Adrienne informed her, not even trying to smooth the bitterness out of her voice. "Destruction, pain, and death. That's our life here. And it's only going to get worse in the aftermath of what happened. So, y'know. If I were you I wouldn't even bother trying to build anything with anyone here. If you have nothing, you have nothing to lose."

Rogue looked at her curiously. "But you have lots of people.". And then she clued in. "Oh. Ah'm sorry. You must've lost someone. Ah'm really sorry for bringin' it up."

"I was a teacher here," Adrienne muttered glumly. "I lost a lot of someones. Two of my best friends. And my... my ward. It's fucked up. I didn't want to take on the damned kid in the first place," she told Rogue with a rueful shake of her head, staring at the floor. "Now that she's... gone, it's... I didn't think it would feel..." She trailed off, unable to voice what she was feeling about Tandy's death.

Rogue nodded, feeling very natural as she listened to Adrienne. Instead of saying anything, she sat there and let the other woman have her silence.

It was a powerful tool. Reaching for a tissue box, she placed it near Adrienne.

Adrienne frowned at the tissue box. "I'm not going to cry," she told Rogue, sounding mildly insulted. "I don't cry. I'm a Frost. Hundreds of years of inbreeding have made it genetically impossible for us to cry." She'd disproven that several times already yesterday- as had Emma, but Rogue didn't need to know that.

Rogue tried not to feel defeated. She didn't know Adrienne was a Frost. Well. She probably did know, but she didn't remember. Instead, she tried her best to shrug it off. "More for me then," she said. Her voice wavered as she felt tears threatening to spill again.

"Ah need to let everyone know 'bout this thing....we still got the journal system?"

"Uhh, yeah. Can... can you do that? With the 'rules' of this new universe or whatever? I don't want you to get in trouble or, y'know, break the universe." Adrienne looked concerned. "So when you say 'everyone'..."

"People need to know Ah got no memories. Ah ain't gonna go postin' bout the differences of the last world 'n' this one." Rogue suddenly felt very tired. "Otherwise people are gonna expect certain reactions that Ah can't deliver."

Adrienne was confused. "But... if half the people here don't know who you are anyway, why would they expect any sort of reaction from you?"

Rogue hadn't thought of that. "Ah jus' don't want to explain this over 'n' over again," she explained, fresh tears flowing down her face. "But Ah guess Ah ain't got no choice. Or maybe Ah'll sleep til Ah remember again."

Balking from the crying, Adrienne pulled her knees up to her chest defensively. "Christ, don't cry. It's really not a crying thing, is it? Maybe you could just email the people who actually know you? I think there's a mailing list for us, so we can... whatever. Commiserate."

"Sure, whatever." Rogue's head was throbbing, and she couldn't even think any more. This whole situation was ridiculous. Yes, Scott and Logan had tried to prepare her for this, back in the medlab, but ...this cosmic joke was getting worse and worse by the minute. "Ah think Ah need to lay down. It was nice meetin' ya again, Adrienne. Ah promise Ah'll remember ya next time."

Adrienne got off the bed eagerly, almost grateful to be let out of this insane situation. "Okay, yeah. Sure." She was about to say something vague and polite, like she would to a stranger, but she caught herself and held her tongue. There were already too many strangers around here. Rogue was still her Rogue. She just... didn't remember that right now. "I'm glad you're not dead," she told Rogue with a hint of her usual smirk. "I'm gonna go get a truckload of McDonalds for you when you wake up. And if you need anything, yeah. Don't fucking forget me."

Rogue gave a faint smile. "Sounds good to me, sugah....or Ah guess Ah should say wife. Jus'...don't divorce me quite yet? Please?"

"I don't do divorce," Adrienne grinned, actually smirking this time. "I just hire people to kill my spouses. But I think between you and a hired gun my bet would be on you, so I won't waste my blood money."

The look Rogue gave Adrienne was a mix of horror, confusion and a general "what the fuck". Instead, she simply nodded her head. "Good idea. Ah hear Ah'm invulnerable anyways." She sat down on her bed, and kicked her shoes off. "Ah'll text ya, Ah guess."

"Yeah, okay. Whatever," Adrienne retorted, voice wavering a little. Despite her request that Adrienne not divorce her yet, Rogue's last phrase sounded a little like a brush off, and part of her knew it was just because Rogue was overwhelmed and tired, but the other part wondered if this version of Rogue- not an alternate universe one, but one that thought she was nineteen- wanted nothing to do with her. That would hurt, maybe more than all the death and the dead who had come back but were complete strangers. But she'd deal with it if it happened. She was a Frost. She wasn't going to let this get to her. Nose raised defiantly, she exited Rogue's suite and closed the door gently behind her.