Author- Fayth
Rating- PG
Pairing- Wolverine/ Rogue
Summary- Rogue has a beautiful voice
Disclaimer- I do not own the characters of X-men they belong to someone else.
She really did have a beautiful voice, thought Charles as he listened intently from his bed. Not that anyone had ever told her, they knew that she�d be shocked and maybe hurt that people had been listening to her or maybe he could only hear her because of his telepathy; he knew that no one else had ever mentioned it.
Or maybe for the first time the X-men were exercising tact. Not that that was likely.
But on this occasion, maybe they knew that she sang because she couldn�t find any other way of expressing her grief at what had happened. It wasn�t as if she could speak outright without everybody finding out and making her feel even more disappointed and humiliated.
Charles shifted as the soft strains of her voice floated down through the window almost lulling him to sleep.
Really she did have the most beautiful voice but it was setting a bad example for the other students.
He�d have to have a word with Rogue about sitting on the roof.
Logan turned over in bed and listened even harder feeling like the lowest life form on the planet.
He knew how she�d felt about him, but him in his infinite wisdom had rationed it as a childish crush; she was too young to have proper feelings right?
Wrong. Being unable to touch had accelerated her years to the point where sometimes she seemed even older than Professor Xavier.
Wrong. Having Magneto, Logan, Mrs Marvel, and that David in her head made her combined age more than two hundred years old.
Wrong. While he had been ashamed of his escalating feelings for a child she had grown up on him.
Wrong. Having left home and run away at the tender age of 16, been ostracised and persecuted; had she ever been a child?
He turned over and punched his pillow remembering not to use his claws because the Professor was tired of buying him new bed linen.
He tried burying his head deep in the soft cotton but thanks to his super hearing he could still hear her loud and clear, and beautiful.
The haunting lyrics were something that he didn�t recognise but would always equate with her.
Maybe he should go out there and talk to her, but what could he possibly say that wouldn�t screw things up worse than they already were?
As far as she was concerned, he was unaware of her feelings and her hurt and that was the reason that they had been able to remain friends.
She could talk to him because he didn�t know how much pain she was in, she could fool around and snuggle up to him during movie time because he didn�t know how much she had wanted it.
But if she ever discovered that he did know, not only would she be devastated but she would stop. Stop talking to him, stop hanging around and stop fooling around, stop giving him that smile that warmed him to his bones even through their adamantium wrapping; and that would kill him.
He rolled onto his back, this time not trying to stoop the music as it caught his attention. She really did have the most beautiful voice.
Rogue sat and stared out at the darkness. Really the whole estate was so beautiful at night. She could see the twinkling lights of the town so far away, like pixie dust and it made her give a sad smile. She rarely gave full happy smiles anymore, not that she had much to smile about anyway.
Not since *that* day. Before then she had at least the hope that� she sighed. Never mind. It wasn�t like her life hadn�t been full of hurt and disappointment before then anyway.
No, in the long run this little bit of heartache wasn�t even a blip on the radar. All those who knew thought she was just hiding it well.
�Oh poor Rogue, you know she was in love with Wolverine. Well she was until she found out about him and Jean. Oh she�s hiding her hurt well don�t you think?�
Oh she was hurt, there was no denying that but, well she had other things that were worse.
She remembered being in a concentration camp and watching as her parents were herded away, watching as her friends were beaten and killed; her cellmates taken away and shot by men with stone cold faces and even colder hearts and hearing the screams and cries of women as they were torn from their husbands, the shrieks of children and the bitter, bitter cold that seeped to the bones and through to the heart.
She remembered fists and abuse, yelling screaming at her that she was no good, that she was inferior and she deserved all that she had coming to her; being beaten down because she was different, she could float and fly; the realisation that no one would ever want her because she was disgusting, a mutated abomination.
She remembered needles piercing through her skin, being held under water by icy metal straps on naked vulnerable skin; veins throbbing as they were filled past capacity with liquid fire, a metal taste in her mouth that wouldn�t leave and panic, fear; the pain harsher than anything and yet more clear since there were no distractions to take it away; men in masks laughing and congratulating themselves on her anguish and trauma and the bitter awareness that she was violated.
It wasn�t the easiest thing in the world holding memories. Especially those of Eric Lehnsherr a.k.a Magneto, Carol Denver a.k.a Mrs Marvel and Logan a.k.a Wolverine.
Three people whose lives had been filled with pain and suffering and they, and their memories currently resided in her brain.
No, her heartache from Logan couldn�t compare to the Holocaust, couldn�t compare to domestic violence or medical experimentation.
Besides he didn�t even know that he had broken her heart when he slept with Jean Grey.
So she rocked back on her heels as she sat on the roof and took another breath
�Early one morning, just as the sun was rising,
I heard a maid sing in the Valley below;
�Oh don�t deceive me, Oh never leave me!
How could you use a poor maiden so?�
Remember the vows that you made to me truly
Remember how tenderly you nestled close to me
Gay is the garland, fresh are the roses
I've culled from the garden to bind over thee.�
She didn�t know which one of her memories had the song, it wasn�t a Marie memory. Maybe it was a Carol thing, some old English Folk song that she remembered her Grandma singing way back before she�d married that man, before she�d lost her sense of self and dignity.
Rogue suddenly choked back a laugh, honestly, like she didn�t have issues enough of her own without adding Mrs Marvels� insecurities too.
�Here I now wander alone as I wonder
Why did you leave me to sigh and complain
I ask of the roses, why should I be forsaken,
Why must I here in sorrow remain?
Through yonder grove, by the spring that is running
There you and I have so merrily played,
Kissing and courting and gently sporting
Oh, my innocent heart you've betrayed.�
It was so great out here. Up here so high that no one could hear her or disturb her when she wanted peace. She could sing to her hearts content to match her mood and there would be no criticism, no one telling her to shut up or giving her those pitying glances that were so common recently.
�How could you slight so a pretty girl who loves you
A pretty girl who loves you so dearly and warm?
Though love's folly is surely but a fancy,
Still it should prove to me sweeter than your scorn.
Soon you will meet with another pretty maiden
Some pretty maiden, you'll court her for a while;
Thus ever ranging, turning and changing
Always seeking for a girl that is new.�
Thus sang the maiden, her sorrows bewailing
Thus sang the poor maid in the valley below
"Oh don't deceive me, Oh never leave me,
How could you use, a poor maiden so?"
Her soft Texan accent sounded sweet in the night air as she smiled serenely. It felt good to sing.
End Part1.