Rogue and Emma -- And the world makes sense again....

[x-traction.livejournal.com]

Emma does her psychic magic puts Rogue's fractured brain back together again. Bye bye, teen brain -- hello, adult brain. Now where's the wine...

Rogue had no idea why she was so nervous, but she was. It had taken her
longer than she'd thought it would to contact Emma and even then, she'd
easily re read the email several times before sending it.

This was it. Her last chance to get her memories back. If Emma couldn't do
her psychic magic, then that was it. Rogue had tried everything she'd read
on the internet with no luck. Even the shadows in her brain remained
stubbornly quiet about what they knew.

Arranging the meeting to be in her suite, she'd tidied up as best as she
could. A text message to Adrienne asking for the day off was deceptively
vague of details. Just a mention of an appointment she couldn't reschedule.

Emma generally tried not to read ahead of her appointments, but the tumbled
up mix of anxiety, dread and hope that Rogue was feeling seeped through the
door and through Emma's shields with the ease of intensity. Emma hadn't
realised exactly how difficult the last couple of months had been for Rogue
until that wave of emotion came at her, and she allowed herself to feel a
small pang of guilt at having to leave the Mansion residents without any
experienced telepathic support for so long. She dismissed the pang briskly,
however, and knocked on Rogue's door.

Rogue jumped up, almost skittish, and rushed to the door. Opening it, she
gave a nervous smile. "Hi Emma, thanks for comin'. Ah didn't know if we
needed to be somewhere special, or anythin' an' so Ah figured this would
work. But if not, we can go somewhere else. Like, y'all jus' gotta tell me
and Ah'll make it happen." In the midst of her rambling, she realized she
hadn't let Emma in.

"Oh! In, please! Make yourself comfy. Do you need anything?". She dropped
her arms to a side and gave a laugh. "Ah'm makin' a right fool of myself,
huh."

Emma shrugged and gave Rogue a slightly uncertain smile. The young woman in
front of her was someone she remembered and yet... wasn't who Emma
remembered. Not that this was all that unusual with Rogue, but this didn't
seem the same as when Rogue absorbed another personality. This was... "Not a
fool," said Emma softly. "You're just very young. I know you said but it's
not the same as seeing it."

Rogue gave a strange sigh. "Young in mah brain, but not anywhere else.
Actually," she paused and thought for a moment. "Ah don't think any of us
were ever young...but that's semantics and definitely not why Ah asked ya
heah." Sitting down on the couch, she tapped the palms of her hands on her
knees. "Sit, please? Ah jus', Ah have no idea what to do here and Ah'm jus'
gettin' mahself all riled up. Can you jus' give me an idea of what to
expect? Will this work? Ah mean, if it doesn't, that's okay too, but do ya
really think you can help me?"

Emma made a non-commital noise. "This all happened on M-Day, yes?" she asked
and continued at Rogue's nod. "I'm really quite terribly good at what I do,
but it depends on what happened to you then - if parts got pulled out of
your brain by her, I may not be able to put them back. But," she gave Rogue
a small smile, "you've also got a mind that's used to integrating different
memories. You have some very interesting psychic defences and it's possible
that what's happened to you is just a defence mechanism gone a little bit
wrong. If your memories are still there, I should be able to find them and
reconnect them."

Rogue gave a bright smile. "Okay, Ah can live with that. Ah mean, from what
Ah gathered, Ah got blasted and woke up like this a few days latah. Scanning
mah brain told me nothin'. Like...". She paused and tried to figure out how
to explain. "So Ah got a few permanent friends up heah, right? Logan, Erik,
Cody, Stanley. Ah only take them out if Ah gotta, for like info or powers
stuff. Anyways, askin' them questions was weird cause Ah didn't get a single
answer evah. It was like nothin' existed, which is why Ah think it's all
locked upntight?"

Rogue shook.her head. "Ramblin' again. Ah'm sorry. Jus' boss me around,
kay?"

"Sit still. Be quiet." Emma never needed a second invitation to boss people
around. "Think of your strongest memory from after you woke up. Something at
the beginning, as soon after M-Day as you can."

"Do Ah have to say it out loud or jus' think it?"

"Just think it," replied Emma. "As strongly as you can, until I tell you to
stop."

Rogue nodded and closed her eyes, her hands in her lap, twisting at her
gloves. It was easy enough to remember her first memory, because anything
before that was a blank wall.

Waking up in the med lab. Scott. Logan. Relief on both their faces until
she mentions Kitty, her roommate. Scott carefully explains to her what had
happened. So many dead. So many lost. She looks at Logan. Tries to figure
out if that's the same, except there's this stronger feeling, a more
intimate connection than before. She blurts out a question. Asks if they've
slept together because she can't figure out what this is. Regret is
immediate. Quiet embarrasement on Logan's face. Amused look on Scott's. She
escapes as soon as she can.

Well, that was awkward, thought Emma. Then again, considering at the time
that the universe had just been destroyed and stitched back together like a
giant crazy quilt, awkward awakenings were almost a given. Questing outwards
with her telepathy, she followed Rogue's memory, going back and back and
back until... Until nothing. Not a wall or resistance, just black nothing.
Carefully, Emma tested herself against the blackness, found the smallest
shape of it starting to resolve under her probing.

"Logan," she said to Rogue. There were strong memories associated with him
in both her past and her present, and Emma wondered if they would bridge the
gap. "A memory of Logan. Something vivid."

Logan. A vivid memory. She almost felt her cheeks redden. To be honest, she
hadn't talked to him much since Adrienne's party but that was a memory she
relived often. Damnit, did Emma get that? Rogue tried to relax instead of
burning up with embarassment.

His smell. Something so different than anyone else. His enhanced
senses are a tool she pulls out frequently, even if they fade after time.
Light touches keep them keen. He's the only person in her life who never
flinches, who doesn't act like she's poisonous. She never wears gloves
around him. The party is done. He's so handsome in his victorian clothes.
She's tired of being scared. Five seconds isn't long, but it's long enough
to kiss and be kissed back. It's better than she imagined, his lips on hers.
A tightening of his hand on her waist. Did he notice that? Even afterwards,
even when he's brushing her off, there's something in his eyes. Damnit, she
can't decipher it, but it's familiar.

Now, that was interesting, thought Emma. But not surprising. Ignoring the
contents of the memory, and following only its strong contours, Emma traced
it back to that black void again, followed it into the darkness again and
traced the contours further, another part of the shape becoming clear. She
followed up with further names, memories that crossed from the now back into
the then: "Adrienne", "Scott", "Bobby" and, "Jean Grey".

Each name traced against the black void, defined it, until Emma could at
last make out the full, almost ovoid, shape where Rogue's memories fell
away. It almost hurt to look at with her telepathy, as if it twisted thought
upon itself. There was nothing else to do but deal with it, though.

"Hold onto a thought of me," she told Rogue. "I need you to think of me, as
strongly as you can, make yourself a beacon to orient my power on, in case I
get lost in there." Emma placed a picture in Rogue's mind, the oily-black
egg and, outside it, a bright light to guide her back. "I need you to be
that light, in case I need to help to get back."

The younger woman nodded, her brow furrowed in concentration. This would be
a bit harder, considering she didn't have a lot of experience with Emma.

Adrienne. Adrienne would be her beacon. The link between the two of them.
Rogue would focus on the planning of Adrienne's party, the emails, the
constant back and forth, even the manoeuvring. And then, at the party, the
sheer joy on Adrienne's face when she was with her sister.....that was what
Rogue would centre her thoughts on.

Emma gave a swift nod as Rogue's choice of memory became clear. She reached
out a tendril of her telepathy and latched onto Rogue's thoughts of her and
then sent the rest of her power towards the oily egg. Defined in shape now,
she let her power roam over the surface of it, hating the sensation of it
inside her head. It was a wrongness; every touch of it felt like space and
time were warped and crawling the wrong way across her skin, across her
mind. Shaking her head to rid it of the sensation of ants crawling through
her brain, Emma concentrated and dug tendrils of her power more fiercely
into the shape, trying to find out why it was wrong, why its passive
non-resistance hurt so much, like it was trying to turn her head inside
out.

Ah. Inside out. With that thought, Emma sharpened her power into a knife,
sliced in and around, a slash wound in the egg that she could grasp and
shake back from inversion into its normal shape...

Stanley. She remembered it all. Meeting him, talking with him. Absorbing
him. The gult and shame at causing his death, the horror at having his
personality, his id, merged with hers permanently. The onslaught of emotions
ripped through her, causing her to feel physical pain.

She never wanted to be the reason someone died.

Emma felt Rogue's re-awakening memory like an earthquake in the mindscape -
a small earthquake but enough to shake the dark egg in front of her. With
renewed boldness, Emma drew her sharpened power through it again, a small
cut, ripping it open with her psychic hands again, turning it back the right
way.

The landscape in her mind changed. She was younger. Exactly how she
remembered herself and the presence surrounding her was overwhelmingly
familiar. Logan. Out of all her shadows, his was always the strongest. The
only person who was never afraid of her, who never flinched if she had bare
hands.

In her mind, there was no time. The memories and slivers of his personality
were all intertwined, the past and present. All of it stemming back to when
she woke him up during a nightmare.

She never made that mistake again.

So that was how that had happened. Emma knew that Rogue had absorbed Logan
in the past, but she hadn't known how he'd let it happen. Unconsciousness
was probably an acceptable excuse for his lack of care for personal
boundaries, she decided.

A small pause, a moment to check that Rogue's level of distress remained
manageable, a glance back at the bright beacon that still shone in Rogue's
mind for her and Emma sliced again, another black layer sliced, removed,
turned outwards again - a personality so strong it blew past Emma and into
Rogue's mind like a hurricane.

Almost instinctively, Rogue put her hands on the side of her head, her eyes
wincing tight in pain. Erik. Like Stanley, she ignored his presence in her
brain but unlike Stanley, it was due to the sheer strength of Erik's mind,
even after all these years.

Rogue never let him out. Not because she hated reliving his memories. It was
because he never wanted to be put away again.

Yiddish, while an interesting language, wasn't really her preferred method of
communication.

It was quite the conference in there, Emma concluded, as Erik’s mind bloomed
and strained against Rogue’s boundaries and then slowly settled back into
acquiescence as Rogue reasserted control. One more to go. And back, a last
slice, a last blossom of consciousness awakened into Rogue’s mind.
Cody.... Rogue felt tears slowly welling in her eyes,
overflowing to the point where she felt their warmth down her cheeks.
She'd never admitted it to anyone, but their kiss, her first kiss...it
filled her with such an overwhelming feeling of care and love....it
took her far too long to realize it wasn't her emotions she was
feeling, but his. And then she put him in a coma. And then she ran
away.

She'd never gone back.

I'm so sorry, Cody....

Everything started with him, and it seemed only fair that things ended with him.

Not quite the end, thought Emma, as Rogue's grief lapped against her mind - old regrets made new and fresh. But Rogue hasn't asked her to take away those kinds of pain; they were Rogue's to re-examine and put back in their place. But first she would need to find herself.

It was black beyond black, the density and distortion of the oily black egg making it feel like a collapsed star inside Rogue's head. Emma's power, nonetheless, was as gentle as a kiss, whispering through the egg's surface, so it opened with the softness of a flower's petal unfurling.

Was this what death felt like, Rogue idly thought. The warring emotions were causing havoc on her body, and the sense of nothingness that quickly overpowered her memories.....she almost cried out until she felt a calmness spreading and light shining in.

It felt agonizingly slow, but Rogue knew that wasn't the case. Time had no meaning.

And all she had was time right now.....and memories. So many memories. One began where another ended, even ones she'd completely forgotten about. Her journey to Canada. Garrison. Leading the team. Deep cover. Friends. Family.

It was hard to keep her breathing under control.

Emma turned back to the beacon in Rogue’s mind, centred on it and stepped out of the mindscape and back into the physical world. She was not surprised at the near-pleading in Rogue’s eyes, the hands pressed to her sternum as she made obvious attempts to rein in her physical reaction to the resurrection of so many years of memories. “Would you like to sleep?” asked Emma gently. “Give it time to settle in? Dreaming helps. Sleeping helps. The brain likes to sort things out as you sleep – get your filing in order.” Emma smiled, trying to keep her tone light in case Rogue was on the edge of panic.

Rogue nodded enthusiastically, barely managing to reign in her emotions. Taking a few deep breaths, she closed her eyes and tried to count to ten before speaking. "I need to sleep after I've absorbed someone, to help set my mind." She vaguely noticed that her accent had greatly diminished, and was back to the light southern drawl she was accustomed to. Swallowing hard, she tried to sit up, and stopped midway. Another moment to breathe and she finally lifted her head. "I think I might need more than a night's sleep. Can you tell Adrienne I won't be into work tomorrow either? And can you make me sleep until who knows when?"

"Of course," said Emma softly and reaching out, tapped into Rogue's mind, letting the girl - no, woman, now, the feeling of her mind very different against Emma's - fall into a deep sleep. She made it deep, a plunge downwards into blackness to start with, before it would change into a more normal cycle. Emma made the equivalent of an alarm inside her mind to wake Rogue if she slept for more than 18 hours and then let herself ease out of her mind. "Sleep well," she whispered and turned off the light as she left the room, leaving it plunged in darkness and peace.