Unspoken: There Was No Design

There Was No Design
by Jennifer Hallmark

Rating: PG

Summary: Rogue reflects on order and chaos.

Timeline: Directly After "The Masks We Wear."

Notes: Just sorta jumped into this, I did check and didn't see where it wasn't nighttime in recent installments, so hope I didn't miss it and contradict something else. This hasn't been beta-ed, so all mistakes are mine, Victoria's comment about what would Rogue's reaction be to Jubes' little offering just got me going and I couldn't ignore it. So blame her.

Date: October 15, 2001

Rogue stared at the empty spot where Jubilee had stood for a moment and then two and then three. Finally, shaking her head, she looked down at the dogtags that the young girl had just placed within her hand. Her hand that had been slightly outstretched, her palm open before the words -- "... I found these dog tags out by the lake ..." -- were even out of her mouth.

As if she knew.

Closing her hand, she took a step back and shut the door, completely ignoring Bobby who still stood there with a tray of food. The cold metal bit into her fingers and she could feel the bump and ridges of each letter engraving into her skin, winding its way to her heart.

W-O-L-V-E-R-I-N-E.

Moving over to the bed, she lowered herself down, her hand clutching the dogtags tighter, she didn't even remember them coming off; he had been wearing them in the lake. Her eyes shut in memory, seeing the moonlight glinting off of the metal resting against his bare chest. Water running in rivulets down his shoulders, traveling down the lines of his muscles and even in the midst of her guilt, her pain, she could still feel the desire that had rushed through her. Desire that she had never imagined, had only read about it and rolled her eyes at the absurdity of it. Desire didn't make you lose your senses; it didn't make you forget yourself, your place ... who you were.

"Who I am," she whispered into the quiet room.

And yet, desire had. Desire for that man, a stranger in so many ways still, had made her forget and she had forgotten who she was, forgotten her untouchable skin. She had forgotten to think, to be safe; she had forgotten everything in her desperate need to touch him, to feel him, to have him close to her, closer than even Scott had ever been. Desire such as she had never known driving through her body because of a stranger ... a stranger who knew her in soul-deep ways better than even Scott. Logan had come into her life and had completely shifted her world, her life, her views. Simple things that she had taken for granted -- the definition of desire, the solidarity of her relationship with Scott -- she no longer could. Because of Logan ... and Jean.

Laying down, she curled herself into a ball, wondering at the lack of anger, absence of pain that was there at the thought of that woman for the first time since she had intruded into her life. Stretching out, she opened eyes to a darkened ceiling. Staring at the shadows upon them, she tried to find logic, patterns in their movement, knowing even as she did that it was the years of being with Scott that made her do so. Everything had to make sense, everything had a system, a design in the world according to Scott Summers.

The shadows shifted and try as she might, she could find no rhyme nor reason in their dance. The dogtags went lax in her hand as one of those simple things she had taken for granted fell apart in her mind. There was no rhyme, no reason, no pattern, no logic, no simple black and white. There were a hundred shades of gray inbetween the haphazard movement of the black, the flash of light that winked as clouds left the moon clear.

There was no design.

Sitting straight up, her eyes shot wide open and she looked around the room, seeing the orderly arrangement of her things exactly as Scott liked. And then from the corner of the dresser, a scarf fell loosely and in her mind, she saw Scott putting it away. There was a glass of half-drunk water on the night table bereft of a coaster and mental Scott placed one beneath it. With a start, she jumped up, the chain of the tags wound between her fingers, falling loosely against her wrist -- uncovered -- as she moved towards the dresser. Her hands came out and began moving things out of order. Scott's order.

She created chaos: The scarf pulled further out, the powder away from the deoderant, and next to the make-up. No matter that one followed the other, she had always put the two together before Scott's system where logic ruled supreme. Everything made sense.

But there was no design. Not in life, not in her head, not everything followed a pattern, not for her. For Scott, yes. Control was how he approached life, it was what his mutation had taught him and served him well, made him the better man ... it worked for him. But not for her. Not for Rogue. Her strict need to follow the controlled-patterns of Scott's world had led to last night. She'd been so rigid, so unwilling to let loose even the slightest that when given that heady taste of freedom, she had gone wild.

Desire had not made her forget. Freedom had. Freedom in forgetting control if only for an hour had made her forget. Bringing her hand to her face, she brushed the tags against her lips. That is what Logan had been saying with his words, his actions, his looks. That is what God -- the one she no longer believed in, the one she had made foolish promises to -- had been saying. This was her design. Not losing control, but letting go just a little bit. This was her world, not Scott's. She didn't fit in his order and ...

... she looked about the room and then ran to the bed, pulling at the sheets, throwing the pillows in the air and a laugh ripped from her throat as she spun about the room, her eyes gleaming at the chaos. This was her world. Letting go, taking chances, flirting with a stranger, skinny-dipping in the moonlight ... her gaze fell upon the dogtags clutched still in her hand, albeit loosely ... trusting her instinct.

Trusting her heart. With shaking hands, she let the metal fall from the safe comfort of her palm, holding the tags by their chain out and high. Closing her eyes, she whispered softly, "Let go, Marie. Let go." And then she slipped the chain over her head.

The name Wolverine rested against her heart.

~*~

Unexpected by Victoria P.

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Disclaimer: All X-Men characters belong to Marvel and Fox; this piece of fan-written fiction intends no infringement on any copyrights.