Chapter Text
The heat continued long after the sun disappeared beneath the horizon, trapped in the stonewalls and the earth beneath their feet. It clung to her skin, settled beneath the collar of her uniform, and made the thin layer of dust covering everything feel like a second skin. Even the wind offered some relief.
Still, Rogue had never been partially fond of deserts. And this one, she believed, could go straight to hell.
She dipped a clean strip of linen into a basin of water and wrung it out before turning toward the man laying still on the bed with his open wound exposed.
Erik lifted his eyes towards her as he looked past his shoulder, his mouth tightening when noticing the damp cloth. “I am perfectly capable of dressing my own injuries.”
“And Ah’m perfectly capable of leavin’ you to it. Now, are we gonna sit here yappin’ all night or you gonna let me tend to your wounds?”
Rogue thought he might refuse her aid out of sheer stubbornness. It wouldn’t have surprised her. Erik did possess an extraordinary talent for turning even the simplest request into a contest of wills, particularly when the request involved admitting that he needed help.
Instead, he looked away and sighed, laying there motionless on the bed. “Your bedside manner remains appalling.”
“And your bedside manner ain’t exactly what Ah’d call a selling point, sugah.” She sat on the bed behind him and scanned at the wound before her.
It was ugly, she had to admit. Wolverine’s claws had left deep punctured wounds into Erik’s right side. She was not sure how he had been able to stand or how none of his major organs have punctured him to death. It was nothing short of a miracle. And although Hank had managed to clean the worst of the wounds earlier, the skin surrounding it was becoming inflamed. The dressing had begun to stick to the raw skin and Rogue had to work carefully to loosen the dried fabric without pulling at the damaged tissue.
But Erik made no sound. Of course he wouldn’t. She could have driven a knife through the man’s foot and he would have likely delivered a lecture on the inconvenience of the experience rather than admit pain.
Still, she noticed the tension in both his jaw and shoulders when she pressed too close to the wound. Even the Master of Magnetism can still bleed red.
“Sorry.” She murmured, still gently peeling the old fabric until it was no more.
Erik glanced at her over his shoulder. “You have nothing to apologize for.”
“It still hurts, don’t it?”
“I’ve endured worse.”
Rogue tried to control herself from rolling her eyes upon hearing that. She still couldn’t understand why he would easily dismiss his own discomfort as if it were nothing. “Didn’t ask you that.”
“No… It hurts.” He surrendered after a while and there was something strangely charming about the confession.
Rogue kept her eyes on the wound until she began carefully cleaning it before she could apply the recommended ointment for his injury. “Well, ain’t that a surprising fact. Erik Lehnsherr admitting he’s human.”
“Don’t spread it around. I have a reputation to maintain.” He said dryly, yet the humor was unnoticed.
A laugh escaped her before she could stop it. It was small, barely more than a breath, but it startled her all the same.
For a moment, she was not in a ruined chamber in ancient Egypt 3,000 years before her timeline, stranded with half of the X-Men beneath the watchful eyes of a man who would one day become their greatest nemesis. And she was not a woman who had buried one love and tried to make peace with another.
She was simply Rogue, sitting beside Erik, trading inoffensive remarks as naturally as breathing. The familiarity itself was almost painful, simply because it was a cold reminder of a time in her life that no longer existed.
Releasing a sigh, she returned to dressing his wound. “Ah reckon Hank’ll have ya up and about in a few days, provided you don’t go tearin’ yourself open again.”
“I shall attempt to restrain myself.”
“See that you do. Cause we are far away from our timeline and we don’t have the right stuff to patch up a wound this nasty.” She secured the fresh linen around his torso. Her exposed fingers lingered briefly against his side as she checked the dressing, snoring it wasn’t too tight.
Erik silently watched her work, observing how she tended to his injury, and noticing how her fingers lingered longer than they should be. “You needn’t spend your entire evening tending to me.”
“Somebody’s gotta do it.”
“Yes. But Dr. McCoy is perfectly capable.”
“Hank’s busy tryin’ to figure out how we’re supposed to get back home. The Professor is workin’ on the same problem, Kurt’s keepin’ an eye on our host, and Ah’m the only one who’s apparently got enough patience to deal with you.”
“Hm. An impressive resume.”
“Thank you kindly.” She sat back and examined her handiwork. It would have to do for now until it needed another clean change. “You feel any worse, you tell Hank. Don’t go pretendin’ you’re fine just because you don’t wanna admit you need help.”
Erik raised an eyebrow. “Is that some advice or an accusation?”
“Take your pick.” She gathered the blood stained cloth and began collecting the discarded bandages.
Behind her, Erik spoke again. “Anna.”
She stopped. He rarely used her name. Her old name. Yet it was enough to draw her attention and she turned her head to face him. “What is it?”
Erik slowly and carefully changed position, moving to rest completely on his back, even while he tried to suppress a painful hiss. But once he was laying fully back down, he released a sigh of relief until his eyes met hers once more.
“Thank you.” The words were simple, but his expression was not.
For a moment, she saw the man beneath the familiar detachment: tired, injured, and perhaps a little more uncertain than he wanted anyone to know.
“Don’t mention it.” That was all she said until she stood and gathered the bowl, leaving before either of them could say anything else.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
An hour later she returned. She told herself it was because she needed to check the dressing. That it had nothing to do with the fact that she couldn’t sleep. Nothing to do with the way the chamber felt strangely empty when she wasn’t keeping an ear out for his movements or how she kept remembering the look in his eyes when he had thanked her. She definitely wasn’t avoiding the memories that began creeping in whenever she allowed herself quiet moments. Those were different matters completely.
Erik was awake when she entered the room. He was found sitting and supported against the wall. In the dim light of the oil lamp she carried, the lines of his face appeared deeper, his expression more severe.
His eyes followed her as she crossed the chamber room. “Back again?”
“Ah just came back to check your dressing.” That’s what she told herself. What lies. But even she won’t admit that. At least not out loud. And most certainly not at Erik.
“You checked it less than an hour ago.”
“And in that time, you could have gone and done somethin’ stupid.”
“Such as?” He slightly raised a brow.
“Existin’ in your current state of mind.”
Now that made his mouth twitched. “Ah. Then I suppose I must be grateful for the supervision.”
“You sure oughta be.” She set the oil lamp beside him and examined the dressing. It hadn’t soaked through, which was a good sign, but when she touched his forehead, she found his skin warmer than she remembered. Rogue frowned, moving her hand from his forehead down to his cheek, and then the nape of his neck. “You feel a little hot.”
“The chamber is hot. And if you have forgotten already, we are in a desert landscape.”
Rogue’s frown deepened at the tone of his remark. “Erik.”
“I am aware of the temperature, Rogue.”
“Fine. Be difficult. See if Ah care.” She withdrew her hand, though the warmth of his skin stayed with her. She sat beside Erik, crossing her arms over her chest, and did not say a word.
Neither spoke for a while. The sound of the desert winds echoed through the pillars of the chamber room, the night silence and darkness commanding.
Then, Rogue glanced toward the entrance and after a while, she broke the silence. “You ever think about how we got here? How we went from fightin’ Bastion to suddenly gettin’ stuck here in the past?”
Erik took a deep breath. “History has a peculiar sense of humor. Whatever the reason, we were sent to this timeline for a reason. For what? I am not sure. But for whatever fate has designed for us, we will eventually learn from it.”
“That’s one way of puttin’ it.” She said and she simply turned to watch the lamplight shine across the walls. Then, without knowing exactly why, she asked, “Do you ever think about what happened in Genosha?”
His shoulders stiffened and his gaze moved from her face down to the floor. “Constantly.”
The answer was so immediate that she wished she hadn’t asked. But she still pressed on, even when she folded her hands in her lap. “Me too.”
She could still remember the island before the devastation. The excitement, the promise, the feeling that perhaps, for once, mutants had finally found a place where they could live without fear of persecution. The smiles and joys of her people had been proof enough. That the dream Erik had once spoken so passionately to her in the Savage Lands had become a reality. It was enough for Rogue to finally believe in its fruition.
Yet, everything happened so quickly. The fact Erik proposed a position to govern Genosha at his side, to be his queen. It was a lot to take in, especially with Remy standing in the middle of it all.
She at least owed him the truth by confessing her past relationship with Erik, the history they shared, and the reason their connection had been complex. She tried to explain what it meant to be with someone she could finally touch without fear, someone who had once offered her a kind of intimacy she had never known with anyone else, someone who made her feel special and not be ashamed of her gifts.
And yet, when the music began and Erik held her in his arms, she had let herself be swept away by the familiarity of it all. For a moment, she had remembered what it was like to be with him, to feel his hands against hers without the fear of hurting him. When they kissed, the past had come rushing back.
But it did not change what she wanted.
Remy was right. And Rogue ultimately turned away from the future Erik had offered her. She had chosen Remy, the man who had stood beside her through all their uncertainties, the man she loved despite the one thing that had always kept them from being close.
She made her choice and with it, Genosha fell without warning.
The towering Sentinels came upon the island, tearing through its streets and slaughtering mutants by the thousands. The celebration was replaced by screams, explosions, and the cries of people desperately searching for shelter and for loved ones amid the carnage. The very place that had promise them a bright future became a nightmare of fire, twisted metal, and death. No one had expected they would run directly towards their graves.
Rogue had fought with everything she had. Alongside Remy, she had tried to save as many people as possible while Erik confronted the monstrous machine himself. But no matter how fiercely they fought, the Sentinel continued its attack relentlessly.
It all happened so fast right before her very eyes. Even when she watched Erik make his stand, watched as he used his powers to protect the Morlocks, refusing to abandon them even as the Sentienl unleashed its devasting blast. There was nothing Rogue could do but watch, their eyes connecting one last time until the force overwhelmed him, his sacrifice buying them precious time to survive.
Omega threat eliminated.
She thought she had lost him then. Consumed by rage and heartache by Erik’s sudden death, she was ready to charge hurriedly into certain death until Remy knocked her out of the killing machine’s path before taking the fight upon himself.
Impaled by it, Remy destroyed the Sentinel with every ounce of kinetic energy he could assemble in just one explosion, and with it took Remy’s life. She remembered cradling his lifeless body, desperately reaching for the familiar touch she had spent so long wishing she could experience. But all that was gone. No touch, no warmth, no trace of the man who had filled her heart.
Only silence.
Sugah, Ah can’t feel you.
That very same night she had lost both men she loved. Erik, her first love, the man who had once held her heart and whom she had believed she could finally leave in the past. And Remy, her second love, the man she had chosen, the man she loved, the man who had sacrificed himself to save her.
Now, with Erik alive and sitting beside her again, she could not help but wonder what they were supposed to do with everything that had happened. Yet, despite that, despite what they had endured, despite whatever so-called closure they needed, Rogue couldn’t help but feel a dark bile boiling within her.
It just wasn’t fair.
“Ah keep goin’ over it. Every little thing. Everythin’ Ah could’ve done different. If Ah’d gotten to him sooner, if Ah’d been stronger, if Ah’d just…” Her voice broke, her lips pressing together as she tried to compose herself.
Erik did not interrupt. He only glanced at her, aware of the grief tormenting her heart and mind altogether. A feeling he was much too familiar with. He did not blame her broken sentiment, but he hoped she would never have one day experience it. Alas, not even the great Master of Magnetism can predict when death would make its arrival.
“Some days, Ah wake up and for half a second, Ah forget. Then Ah remember and it’s like losin’ him all over again.” She looked down at her hands for a moment before she glanced up at him, her eyes shining. “And Ah hate it. Ah hate that he’s gone. Ah hate that Ah can’t do anythin’ about it. And Ah hate that everybody has moved on and expectin’ me to figure out how to live with it.”
Erik’s expression only softened. “Rogue, I do not believe anyone is really expecting you to have figured that out.”
“Maybe not. But the world’s still turnin’, ain’t it? Everybody’s got somethin’ else to worry about. There’s always another fight, another crisis.” She let out a bitter laugh. “And here Ah am, sittin’ in the middle of the desert, complainin’ about how unfair it all is.”
“You are entitled to complain. What you experienced, what we all have, was traumatic. I wish you never would have experienced something as I did once before. That you and every mutant on Genosha may have been spared from what I have longed feared of what could happen to our people. And now, I have once again survived another Holocaust.” Erik shifted, wincing slightly as he adjusted his position. His gaze never left her and seeing the pain in her eyes, the older man gently reached for her hands and held them with whatever little comfort he had in him.
Rogue would have pulled away from his touch, but she was much too emotionally numb to even care at this moment.
“Remy was a good man.” He said to her, his thumb gently drawing circles on her hand.
“He was.” She nodded.
“He loved you.”
Her throat painfully tightened. “Ah know.”
“And you loved him.”
“And that’s what makes losin’ him so hard. More than Ah can explain.” And that’s why it was so sore for her.
“Rogue…” He drew a careful breath before continuing. “I said what I said back in Genosha on how loving you makes us broken men whole so that even as you deny us, our heartache is not in vain. Whatever happened between us, I have never wished you unhappiness. I would not wish you to have loved Remy any less simply because I was not the man you chose.”
She felt something twist painfully in her chest. “Erik…”
“I confess that I have loved you, still do, and I have no intention of pretending otherwise. I understand that you made your choice.” He said, his voice slow but unguarded. Yes, he was opening his heart to her. Although she had denied him, he could still not deny her. “And with that, I still value your company regardless. Just know that whatever happens from here on end, you can still confide in me for whatever reason you may have. No matter what they may be. The door will always be open to you, Rogue”
Rogue looked down, remembering the choice she’d made, the reason she’d made them, and the way she had convinced herself that choosing one future meant she had to abandon every other possibility. She remembered the hurt in Erik’s eyes when her choice did not include him. And she remembered Remy, who had loved her and she would treasure for the rest of her life.
“Then why are you still here?” The question slipped from Rogue’s lips before she could stop it.
Erik went still when she asked him that, not having expected that to come from her. “What?”
“Why are you still alive, Erik?” Her voice trembled, anger and grief twisting together until she could hardly distinguish one from the other. “Why did you get to survive when Remy didn’t?”
For a moment, he simply stared at her. “Rogue…”
“No!” She snatched her hands from his grasp. “Don’t you dare say my name like that! Like you understand what Ah’m goin’ through! Remy’s dead, Erik! He’s dead and you’re sittin’ here tellin’ me how much you loved me and how you accepted my choice as though that means a damn thing now!”
His expression suddenly hardened at this. “You believe I do not grieve for him?”
“Ah don’t know what you believe anymore!” She shouted at him, releasing all her anger at him. “All Ah know is that Remy is gone and you’re still here and Ah can’t understand why!”
Erik’s face had gone pale, but his gaze remained fixed on hers. He knew this was just grief and anger speaking, but that did not mean it hurt any less.
“Do you think I chose this?” He asked her, his voice dangerously quiet. “Do you think I wanted to survive that night knowing what it cost us. I watched Genosha fall, Rogue. We all saw it fall. We saw our people die. I would have given anything to prevent what happened to them, to Gambit.”
“But you didn’t, could you?” Her green eyes, once so soft and playful, burned with anger and grief. “For all your power, for all your grand plans and promises, you couldn’t save him!”
Erik flinched as though she had struck him across the face. Indeed, words could be sharper than a sword. And this case was no different.
“I did what I could to protect you both from getting in the way. Whatever happened after was out of my control. Gambit made his choice and, in the end, it cost him his life. That has nothing to do with me.” His voice rose, the restraint he had maintained until now finally breaking. Again, he understood her situation, but that did not mean he deserved to be treated as someone else’s punching bag. “You can accuse me all you want. You can lash your anger or point your finger all you want, but in the end, it won’t bring him back and neither will your cruelty at me!”
His outburst back at her was just enough to make her fall silent. Erik drew a strained breath, pressing a hand against his injured side as he shifted against the pillar. The movement brought a brief wince to his face, but he ignored it.
“I understand that you are hurting, Rogue. I understand that you have lost the man you loved, and I would never ask you to make peace with that loss before you are ready. But do not sit before me and suggest that my being alive is some kind of injustice to you. I did not take Remy’s place. I did not choose to survive at his sacrifice.”
“Then maybe you should’ve died instead!” The words rushed out from her with such sudden rage that it even startled Rogue. Like a piece of herself had immediately vanished in that moment.
Erik stared at her, nearly horrified by her words.
Rogue saw the hurt in his eyes. It wasn’t the quiet disappointment she had witnessed when she rejected his proposal, nor the familiar sadness of a man who had learned to accept that the woman he loved would never be his. Instead, this was something far worse. She had taken the one thing he could not change and made it sound like a reason he should never have survived.
“Is this… truly what you wish for me?” He asked her, trying to mask the emotional ache in his voice.
The question made Rogue’s voice tightened. She could have taken it back. She could have told him that she was just angry, that she was grieving, that she had no clue what to do with the unbearable ache inside her. She could have apologized to him. She could have admitted that she didn’t really want him dead at all.
But instead, she looked away. And while she would have typically had shown empathy and regret for what she had said, she was too deep in her own sorrows, in her own carelessness to even bother at all.
“Ah don’t care anymore.” The lie tasted bitter on her tongue, but she forced herself to continue. “Do whatever you want, Erik. Make your injuries worse, get sick, or whatever. Ah won’t give a damn if it kills ya. Ah’m done with you!”
“Rogue—”
“Don’t!” She moved away from the pillar and away from him, shaking her head as tears slipped down her cheeks. “Ah can’t do this. Ah can’t sit here listenin’ to you talk about love and loss when the man Ah loved is dead and you’re still here. Ah just can’t!”
She turned toward the door, ready to make her exit as she felt herself nearly suffocating from her emotional dilemma.
“Rogue, wait.” Erik called after her, even as she reached for the handle. Erik attempted to rise from where he was sitting, but the shift of his weight caused a sharp pain through his side. He winced, a strained hiss escaping between clenched teeth as one hand flew to his injured side. Still, he pushed himself forward and reached out for her before she could walk away. But his body would not be supportive. The pain overwhelmed him, stealing whatever strength he had in his legs and was forced to stumble. He hardly managed until he caught himself at the edge of the bed. The attempt made him catch his breath, feeling slightly weak from his state.
Yet, his gaze remained on Rogue. He could not bear the idea of her leaving with those words hanging between them. Not like this. Not while they needed to find some closure from what they had experienced that tragic night. He knew from experience what it was like to wallow in one’s own suffering, in one’s heartbreak and reaching a breaking point all alone. He did not want that for Rogue. He did not want her to fight her pain alone with out support like him.
“Please, do not leave like this.” He said, the unexpected softness of his voice nearly stopping her at the door. “Do not storm out of this room with this much rage. Not when we have already suffered enough to last several lifetimes. I do not want you to leave with things ending like this between us. We cannot change the past, Rogue. We cannot undo the choices we made, nor can we bring back those we have lost. But… we can learn from what happened. We can learn to find a way to move forward without allowing our grief to destroy what remains of us.”
Rogue gripped tightly on the door handle, her eyes fixed on it as she let Erik’s words go by.
“I am not asking you to forgive me nor to forget Gambit or what he meant to you.” Erik’s fingers curled into the bedsheets as another wave of pain tore through his side. “I only ask that you do not let the worst moment of our lives become the last words between us.”
He hesitated, his gaze lingering on her rigid figure by the door, but he still continued. “God knows how much I need you, Rogue. Perhaps just as much as you need me.”
Rogue went still. His words struck her as an insult. Need you? Need me? How could he possibly ask that of her? How could he just be there, wounded and tired, and speak as though their shared suffering might somehow bring them back together when she could hardly endure the sight of him?
But there was no demand behind the pain of his words. No expectation that she should abandon her grief for his sake, nor any attempt to lessen what Remy had meant to her.
Instead, Erik was simply reaching for the one person who might understand the weight of what he had lost. The one who had loved him once, the one who once been open to sharing each other’s dreams under the starry nights in the Savage Lands, and the one who had suffered the same terrible night that had taken so much from them both.
If anything, he was asking for her company. For understanding. Perhaps even the chance to grieve alongside someone who didn’t need him to explain what Genosha had meant or what it had cost them.
Erik was simply being human.
But Rogue could not see any of that through her sorrow. Then, she finally turned to look at him. In a flash, she remembered Remy lying lifeless in her arms, the helplessness of watching him die, and the grief that followed her.
And now Erik, sitting there alive, was asking her to stay here with him.
“How dare you?” Her voice lowered, so quiet that it sent a chill down Erik’s spine. “How dare you sit there and tell me you need me? You have no clue what Ah’ve been doin’ since Genosha or how Ah’ve been tryin’ to figure out how to keep breathin’. Everythin’ Ah thought Ah had was taken from me! Ah lost Remy! Ah lost a possible future with him! And now you want me to help you carry your grief too?”
Erik’s expression tightened, but Rogue pressed on.
“You don’t get to tell me what Ah can and can’t feel!” She flinched at the sharpness of her own voice once more. She wasn’t sure whether she was angry with Erik or with herself. “You were supposed to be dead, Erik. Ah thought Ah’d lost ya that night. And now you’re here, alive, askin’ me to find a way forward with you while Remy’s gone.”
The confession came out raw, her eyes burning with stinging tears, and shaking her head once tears started slipping down her cheeks. “So, no! Ah can’t and Ah won’t be your comfort or your companion or anything else. So don’t tell me you need me, Erik. Because Ah don’t need you.”
Her breath hitched and when she looked at Erik, sitting there with his face wincing in pain and a hand still pressed to his injured side, the anger in her expression gave way to something more helpless.
Why, just why did this man have to look at her like this? His blue eyes that could cut right through ice now looked at her with such tiredness, helplessness, and defeat. She didn’t like the look in front of her. She didn’t like the sight of the man she once loved, who was so strong and indestructible, look so mortal.
She wiped her cheeks with the heel of her hand, almost angrily, and groaned. “Don’t you dare look at me like that.”
“Rogue…” He whispered her name, his voice so frail and nearly unrecognizable.
“Shut up! Just shut up! Why couldn’t you have done us all a favor and have stayed dead?” She cried out at him, her confession struck another sting into the older man’s heart.
She turned toward the door and stormed out, shutting it behind her with a force that echoed down the empty corridor. She couldn’t look at him anymore, couldn’t stay with him anymore. Because staying meant confronting the unbearable truth that she still loved Erik and that love could not bring Remy back.
Inside the bedroom, Erik remained motionless. He stared at the closed door and his jaw clenched against the pain in his chest. He gazed down at his shaking hands and slowly leaned back against the pillows.
He had endured hatred before. He had been condemned, feared, and blamed for things he had done and things he had only dared to believe. Tis nothing new.
But hearing those words directly from Rogue hurt more than he cared to admit. The same woman he had grown affectionate for, the same woman he had offered to be his queen, the same woman who had made a broken man like himself feel whole, all felt like a knife had pierced right through his heart and soul.
After everything that had happened between them, some foolish part of him had still hoped she might have found some comfort in knowing he was alive.
Alas, he was terribly wrong.