Hope

by jenn

*****

It was an hour of kneeling on the floor in shock, rocking back and forth because it couldn't be true, dead receiver clutched in her hand.

It was two hours of hot, unthinking rage that she took out on everything in sight.

It was ten seconds to make a decision that changed everything.

That's what hope cost her.

Backpack on the bed, toothbrush, hair brush, spare gloves inside, did she need her keys? Her wallet, her make-up, her scarves, two changes of clothes. A razor, of all things, but she grabbed it because she saw it while fishing out a bar of new soap in its cardboard container from the cabinet, hands shaking so badly she dropped it twice before throwing it on the bed while she leaned against the wall and took long, deep breaths, razor still clutched in her hand.

Did she need a razor, seriously? How the hell did *that* make the priority list?

"Shut the fuck up, Chuck." She had Logan's personality in her head saying the same thing, in much less elegant terms, but she buried them both beneath her fear, the fear she'd be too late and she wouldn't manage to get away in time. The clock was ticking far too fast and she knew she was forgetting something. Credit cards stuffed in her jacket pocket, and she zipped the bag up. She didn't have time to go to the bank, to clear her savings, but she figured she could get to that later. From somewhere else--banks were everywhere, after all.

Then took a moment to stare at her bag--because wasn't this just the most surreal moment of her life?

"When it's my feelings versus his, mine are gonna win, Prof. Get the fuck outta my head. I don't need this." Hurt him--God yes, and three hours ago, before she got that phone call, she would have been shocked at the idea she'd ever do anything to hurt him. Anything at all.

Of course, the Professor had known for a long time what she'd chosen not to see. Hope made you blind.

"Not anymore," she bit out, looking around the room. The phone looked so innocent on the floor where she'd thrown it, the gaping hole in the wall not quite so innocent, but it'd almost relieved her feelings.

Almost. And *what* was she forgetting?

She didn't need this. She was running out of time, she could feel it. Pulled on her jacket, going to the window, knowing Scott would be downstairs, waiting to ambush her, take precious seconds she needed--Logan had called from Baltimore to tell her, and that was too close. That she'd been in shock for those three nightmarish hours when hope warred with understanding, with truth.

With inevitability. With fucking hope.

"He had time to talk about it." The curtains wouldn't stay back--it seemed logical to jerk them down, listening to the rip of the gauzy white material--and it felt good, destruction did it for her. Little-girl curtains, to match the white wicker furniture of her room. Green plants, because she couldn't hurt them and they sure as hell couldn't hurt her. Posters on the wall. A collection of stuffed animals and books and papers, and her life could be summed up in the childhood reflected around her. Such a Marie-like room. Went with the image of soft voice and gloved hands and pretty smile and hopeless crush.

Like that was all there was to her.

Hopeless. Why the *fuck* hadn't she figured this out before now?

"I didn't believe it." She hadn't. Not ever in the last year and a half of her life, because hope was in some ways a worse addiction than any drug could ever be. Hope was what kept you up at night holding dogtags and rocking in bed wiping away tears. Hope was something she'd clung to for far too long.

And what the hell would she have said, anyway? Let it be me, Logan. I'm not your daughter, I'm not your sister, I'm not your student. I'm an adult, I know what I want, I want you.

Adults didn't handle things this way.

Fuck adults. This was a little girl's room and this was what he wanted her to be. So fuck everything else. The window wouldn't work--what *was* wrong with her fingers?--and she kicked out, head turned away, listening to the glass shatter around her boot, wrapping her hand in yards of gauzy white and knocking the remainder out of her way.

:::Rogue, we need to talk about this. Please.::: Edges of worry now--was he only now figuring out what the hell was going on? Shit, didn't anyone here have a *clue* who she was?

"He's not my father," she ground out. "He's not my brother. He's not my teacher, and he's not--" she stopped, taking a breath, feeling the Professor far too close, edging toward those places in her mind marked restricted, the places hope had grown. "He's not mine. I don't want anything less."

But there wasn't time to talk--he was possibly only thirty-five minutes away and she had to be so gone he couldn't find her. If he even bothered, and there was a possibility he wouldn't bother--oh God, she couldn't think like that, it made her eyes burn. No, don't think, don't think, don't think, don't cry, you did that, and now you have no time. Do. Be. Hand slipped and the gauze didn't protect her wrist, and she winced, drawing her hand back to her mouth, sucking at the wound angrily while her eyes filled.

"Break your ethics and force it, Chuck. You can make me stay and make me talk and make me do anything you want. Make me do this." She paused, waiting, but he was silent in her head and that was enough. Dropping the blood-stained gauze, she reached over to her dresser and pulled out a t-shirt, ripping it between her teeth until she got a decent strip. Quickly, she bound it around her wrist, then used the shirt over her hand to knock away the remainder of the glass, now sprinkled beautiful and deadly around her feet. Jacket on, backpack secured, her passport tucked in her inner jacket pocket.

Blood smearing over the white paint around her window. How--appropriate.

She bit her lip hard, then put a foot on the windowsill. Behind her, there was someone knocking--*Scott*--someone trying to get in, but she'd been trained better than that. {Thank you, Logan. See, I learned more than how to smoke and how to drink and how to hurt. You taught me to run too.}

The door was locked and she'd moved the entirety of the second dresser in front of it over an hour before. He'd have to blast his way inside and she didn't put it past him if he felt the need to do it.

No time at all.

"Rogue, listen--"

Not now, not ever, so what the fuck if she couldn't deal? Wasn't everyone allowed a nervous breakdown a time or two in their life?

"If it was Jean comin' here with someone else, what the fuck would you do?"

God, she hadn't meant to speak, knew on the other side of the door Scott was pausing, putting together a response that didn't include his automatic reaction, which to be honest would probably have been just like hers, but with interesting percussive beams out of the eyes as an extra kick. The sound of his breathing, and shit, she was forgetting something, she knew it. Something important, but she didn't care, bracing a hand on either side of the window.

"You son of a bitch!" Turning, wishing she could see him, wishing she could just grab him and ask him how you ever prepared yourself for what you thought would never happen. What you hoped would never happen. "You think I don't *know* that? You think I didn't *live* with knowing that?"

Shit, hope could fuck you over. Fuck you over every way possible. She'd never hope again.

"You're asking me for something I can't do. I can't stay here, I can't see that, I can't see him, I can't see *them*. Don't you understand? Why the fuck won't you understand? What makes his feelings so much more important than mine?" A pause, she was breathing too fast, she was too close to hysteria. Bring it down, make it calm, make it even, don't lose control. No time for that now.

Nothing. She was at the window, foot on the sill, and it wasn't so far down--she knew how to get down, could jump the last six feet easy. Leaned her head out, taking a breath of the wind, wondering if the tiles were really as sturdy as they looked. It'd been *years* since she'd done this.

"Yeah, sir," she whispered to an empty room. "Tell me you don't know how hope can make you stupid."

Outside her door, Scott, trying to find words, and she had to smile, because God, was he persistent. Or relieved that he could sleep at night knowing Jean wasn't in any danger anymore--

"Rogue, talk to me. Please don't do this."

No time left. Stared down, thinking it through--once she was away, she could hide, she could run so fast they'd never catch up. After all, she had the past expert in her head, even if he was throwing a fit about her methods, and she asked him what he would have done in her position. Oddly, he went silent.

Answer enough.

She could do that. One step at a time, just like Logan had taught her. Get away first. Worry about the rest later. Whatever later she had. One foot up, then two. Then pushed her hair from her shoulder and her fingers skimmed the edge of the chain.

The thing she forgot. Of course.

She bounced back to the floor, holding the skin-heated metal in her hand. Shut her eyes and then pulled, hard enough to dig into the back of her neck, hurting her, and the chain's clasp was edged with blood. She wrapped it briefly in her blood-streaked hand and threw it on her bed.

It was freedom, the kind she'd never wanted, never asked for.

:::I'm sorry, Rogue.::: Fuck, he might actually understand. What a shock. What a fucking hilarious shock.

"You can't possibly be as sorry as I am, Prof. Tell him to give those to her--maybe it'll mean something then."

One step, two steps, and she was out and climbing down. Knew somewhere on the ground, Ororo and company were maybe ready for her, but she was more ready for them, and she took the back way out, running through trees over uncertain terrain, until she reached the highway.

A trucker stopped within seconds as she looked over her shoulder and she climbed in, flashing a smile that with any luck didn't shatter when it spread her lips.

"Thanks."

"Where you headed, kid?" Older man, settled in routine, barely giving her a once-over and never seeing her blood-soaked wrist. The type of trucker that once upon a time took her from Mississippi to Alberta chasing a fantasy. She stared at the road ahead, eyes closing as she leaned back into the seat.

"Wherever you are."

The End