In Dreams
By Elizabeth

Keywords: X-Men: The Movie fan fic, post-movie, Rogue, Magneto, Xavier
Rating: R (mature themes, slash implications)
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters.
Distribution: The xmenmoviefanfic list site and Kielle's site, if they're interested. Anyone else, please ask.



Rogue doesn't notice, but he does. Erik always notices.

She taps her index finger against her skull lightly. "Charles, don't you ever get tired of looking around where you aren't invited?"

Then she remembers who she is supposed to be, flushes, and finds her own voice. "I'm sorry, Professor. I didn't mean..."

"Erik -- he's still...?"

Rogue shrugs and looks at the wall. She can't look at the Professor, not now. Not with all of Erik's feelings pressing against the back of her eyes and making them burn.

Not with the memory of a much younger Charles, his jaw clenched with frustration, so fresh in her mind. How can I ever understand you if you won't let me in?

"I thought it all would go away," she says slowly. "At first, it all seemed like so much surface noise. And Logan was so loud that..." God, she misses those first early days after everything happened. Logan was so loud at first; so loud that she couldn't think about anything else, couldn't hear anyone else. Didn't have to try to sort through the mess that was the inside of her head.

Xavier clears his throat. "I am sorry, Rogue. I should have asked first. I was just startled to see you up so early and you looked so... I just wanted to help."

She nods. "I know. It's just...when I'm tired, or distracted -- and he's always there. Always. It's been almost a year. A year. I keep hoping...I think that's it. I don't think he understands hope. I think he wants to take it away from me."

"Rogue..." God, the sound of Charles's voice makes her want to weep. He once said her name with such reverence, with such joy. With sleepy welcome every morning, the sounds of New York filtering in through an open window...

No, not her. Not her name. His name. Erik. She closes her eyes and presses her thumbs against them. "Not now, Charles," she says wearily. "Please, not now."

She listens to his wheelchair moving down the hallway and runs her fingers down the dog tags she wears. After a while, she lets them go. She walks back to her room and looks at all the things that are hers, all the things she owns that mark her as Rogue. A person in her own right, maybe. Someday.

She crawls back into bed and closes her eyes.



In her dreams, he runs.

She can hear him coming as she sits, waiting for him.

In her dreams, she is sitting in a large room. It looks a little like the dining room of the house she grew up in, although instead of her mother's dining room table -- her mother's pride and joy, handed down from her mother and her mother before her -- and chairs, there is only the bare floor and two doors at either end of the room.

The boy appears, like he always does. She still tries to talk to him even though she knows he won't answer her.

"Why?" she asks him. "Why are you here?"

The boy turns to her for a moment and looks at her solemnly. He could be anywhere from age six to ten. He is short and skinny and his eyes are bright and almost fierce.

He doesn't say anything and then he turns and runs away from her. He always does this too. He runs towards the left door that sits at the edge of the room.

"Why?" she says again. "What are you trying to tell me?"

He pushes open the door and runs through it. He does not look back.

She follows him. "Wait!"

The door closes behind her -- she can hear the soft click of it as it swings shut.

The boy is in front of her, standing on the lawn outside his house. It's a beautiful, sunny day and the grass is green and firm under his feet. His parents are sitting over on the terrace and they wave at him when he calls them. He runs in circles until he is too dizzy to stand. He collapses onto the grass and looks up, ready to watch clouds dance across the sky. He reaches up to try to touch one and closes his eyes.

Rogue sits down beside him and waits.

The noise of the train wakes him. They have stopped again. They have stopped more and more during the past couple of days. At first he thought they were trying to make sure that no one saw the train. But then he looked out of the crack that the old man sitting over in the corner had made in one of the boards -- in a futile attempt to get some fresh air -- and saw people watching the train go by. And then he knew the soldiers weren't hurrying; he knew they didn't need to.

No one is going to try to stop them.

He has been on the train for five days. Maybe six. He is not able to mark the passing days as well as wants to. He is so used to darkness that the glimpses of light that appear during the brief moments that the guards open the doors to throw in scraps of bread and an occasional bucket of water startle him. He forgets how many of these glimpses he's had.

At first, the smell of the train car bothered him and he sat with his head pressed against his mother's sleeve and tried very hard not to vomit with every breath he took. It got worse after the second day, when he was still hopeful enough to count glimpses of sky. The bucket the soldiers had put in for use as a latrine needed to be emptied. People had been sick in various spots all over the train car. Two people, both old, had died in the night and their bodies had been carefully placed against a far wall.

He heard people murmuring during his second day on the train. Surely the soldiers would come and let them out soon. Surely they would bring water and take the bodies away. At least maybe they might say something about where they are all going. He heard the doubt in those voices. He heard the fear.

He heard the German guards, their voices booming with commands and occasional laughter, as they stopped the train and walked by their car. They opened the door, shoved in more people. Closed the door. They did not do anything else. He inhaled the scent of human misery, the scent of man's inhumanity, and swore that he would never forget it.

But he did worse. He is used to it. He expects it. Now, when the guards open the door, the fresh air stings his noise and the light hurts his eyes.

He wants to cry, but he has not had any water in two days and he cannot. He chews on his tongue in a vain attempt to find moisture he can swallow.

The train lurches forward again, slowly.

"Erik," his mother whispers. "Ahuvi, are you all right?"

"Yes mama," he tells her.

"This train will stop." she says. "We will get through this. We must have hope." Her hand squeezes his.

He closes his eyes again.

Beside him, Rogue reaches for his hand. It slides right through his.

He doesn't want comfort from her. He never has, not once in all the nights she's shared his dreams.

She wakes up and stares at the ceiling. She thinks about everything that happened a year ago. She thinks about the Statue of Liberty. She thinks about promises that have been made and kept. She thinks about promises that have been made and broken. She thinks about the little boy that grew up to become Magneto.

After a while, she gets up and gets dressed.



Her trip to the prison is a surprisingly short one. Ossining, New York, home of Sing Sing Prison, is located in Westchester County. It's a state prison -- Magneto has already been tried for crimes against the state of New York and found guilty. His federal trial is scheduled for next spring -- his lawyers have been arguing for a change of venue and that motion is still being debated. Until recently, she didn't realize how close he was to the school. To New York. To Charles. She wonders how often Erik thinks about that and knows it's quite often.

She's been out to the prison once before, a few weeks ago. When she got to there, the guards looked at her like she was crazy and told her that prisoners could on be seen on visiting days, and only if their visitors came to the prison on the state-sponsored bus. "Security reasons," they said.

She went back to school. Xavier didn't say anything and she wondered if it was because he didn't know what to say. The thought made her smile and she wondered if she'd ever have any thoughts that were purely her own again. And if she did, would she be able to recognize them as hers?

Before she left the prison that first time she got a schedule of dates/times when visitors were allowed. It took her a few weeks to decide to go back. She thought about what it must be like for Erik to live there and it hurt. And she thought about the ramshackle condition of the prison -- if Magneto was inside a set of dilapidated-looking buildings, how safe could anyone be? -- and it hurt more. She finally went back because she realized she had to. That she wanted to. That she owed it to herself to at least try.

She gets to the bus depot very early. It's located by the courthouse and there are already other people there, mostly women, waiting. Before she gets on the bus she has to pass through a metal detector. Then her bag -- she brought her backpack with her out of habit, she's used to carrying it to classes almost every day -- and her coat are searched. She is stunned by this, and a little humiliated. After she gets her bag back -- everything inside is jumbled and out of order -- she looks around, feels the heat of a blush working its way up her face. Surely everyone is looking at her.

But no one is. Everyone else is looking determinedly at a fixed and invisible spot somewhere right in front of them. The woman standing behind her hands her bag over and doesn't watch as its contents tumble out. A lipstick. A wallet. Two oranges. A tampon. Pieces of paper.

The oranges are whisked away and the remaining contents swept back into the bag. The woman takes it, her eyes still trained on a far-away place. She walks right by Rogue and doesn't see her. The sensation is such a marvel -- she is used to being noticed for her hair, for her gloves, for her accent -- that she smiles. She can tell it is out of place, though and so she tucks it away for later and files onto the bus with everyone else.

The bus ride is interesting in a frightening sort of way. Two guards sit up front and smoke constantly. Everyone else talks in loud, animated voices. Will Darren be feeling better today? Maybe Tommy will have finally found someone to cut his hair -- don't you think? Won't Warren love the pictures of the baby? Junior is getting out soon -- where is he going? Who is he going to stay with?

The woman next to her leans over. "This your first visit?"

"Yes." She doesn't say "How do you know?" because she already knows the answer. Her newness, her rawness, her shock at everything -- it's obvious, and it brands her as different just as surely as her powers do. Her stomach lurches.

"You feeling a little sick?"

Rogue nods.

"Take deep breaths. And look out the window -- not at the ground -- at the sky. Go on, now."

She does, and a few minutes later she feels better.

"Thank you," she whispers.

The woman snorts and doesn't say anything else.



The prison is gray and tall and looks like it could only be a prison. She was expecting that, she remembered that. She still doesn't like how run-down it all looks but she reminds herself that Magneto has been here for almost a year and he hasn't escaped.

She reminds herself that Erik is not being hurt here -- not hurt like he once was. She can feel a headache blooming behind her eyes. Too many voices, too many memories.

They all wait in line for a long time -- so long that Rogue starts to contemplate sitting on the floor because her feet are starting to hurt -- and then they are all taken into a room and searched again. They aren't allowed to wear coats or anything that looks suspiciously bulky inside -- those items are handed over to guards and stored inside lockers. She was expecting that too.

There is another pass through a metal detector and then an impersonal pair of hands wanders along her body. Again, expected.

And then someone asks for her gloves. "I'll need to take those."

She folds her arms across her chest instinctively. "I can't take my gloves off."

The woman who asks for her gloves is short and round and matronly-looking. "I'll need to take those," she says again, and there is more than a hint of impatience in her voice.

"I..." Rogue says wildly, looking around. But there is no Xavier to intervene on her behalf here. No Storm, no Jean, no Scott to stand up for her. There is no one to depend on but herself. There are voices of doubt in her head. There are voices urging her to try. She doesn't know which ones she should listen to, and her head hurts again.

But she's come this far, hasn't she? She takes a deep breath. "I really need to keep my gloves," she says. "Besides, it's cold."

"It's a rule," the guard says, but her voice is a little softer. "You can't wear..."

"Oh for god's sake's Joyce. It's as cold as fuck in here, who cares if she keeps her gloves on?" A hand pushes into Rogue from behind and she stumbles forward.

She turns back to see a large man, his face almost obscured by his jowls, his eyes hidden by fat and bushy eyebrows, gesturing angrily at the woman who has stopped her. "Go on," he tells Rogue, and turns back to his argument, which has now moved onto the woman who was standing behind her. She wants to say something, but "thank you" seems like it doesn't belong here. So she walks down the hall, following the woman in front of her, fighting down a wave of nervousness from her own fear -- and the memories of others who've found themselves somewhere they don't want to. Logan -- he's felt this way before. She holds onto his memories tightly. She can understand them.

No, she wants to understand them. They are so much easier to accept. Aren't they?

She curls her hands into fists. Even now, even here, Erik still mocks her. Questions her. Won't let her be.



It turns out that she got nervous too early. She thought that once she'd had her bag and her coat taken away that she'd get to see Erik. But that doesn't happen. Instead she waits in line to go to inside a waiting room for another hour. Then finally she gets inside the waiting room. After thirty minutes she is asked which prisoner she wants to see.

The guard's eyebrows go up when she gives Erik's name. He stares at her for a moment, and then walks over and confers with another guard, who then leaves the room. That guard returns after a few minutes and ignores her.

More time passes. Some people leave, ushered out of the room by guards. Rogue assumes they are being taken to see whomever they've come to the prison to see, but she thinks that maybe the waiting room is getting too crowded and they are being taken to wait somewhere else. She wonders if this is what life is like for all the inmates. Is time this endless for them? Is their life always defined by others' plans for them?

Her head starts to hurt again.

Finally another guard comes over to her. He asks her who she wants to see. She tells him and he frowns. "Did you make arrangements in advance?"

She almost tells the truth. But then she realizes that if she does she will have waited for nothing. She also realizes that no one will be able to tell she is lying. "Yes. I did. Will I be able to see him soon?"

The guard mutters something about paperwork and how he's never told anything and stomps off. He goes and talks to the other guards and then leaves the room. She sighs and wonders if she should leave -- then remembers that the bus doesn't leave for another three hours. So she'll have to wait either way.

She doesn't have any excuses to use; she has no reason to leave.

The guard reappears ten minutes later, gestures at her with his hand -- a quick "hurry up" sign -- and says, "Okay, let's go."

He walks down many corridors, so many that Rogue becomes hopelessly disoriented after a while. They go outside and walk through another building. Then another one.

Finally the guard stops. "You followed the clothing code?"

She shakes her head automatically and then realizes that the question is an important one. "Wait, what?"

The guard closes his eyes briefly and makes a grimace. Then he opens his eyes again. "You can't have on any metal items," he says slowly. "No belt buckles, no jewelry, no watches, no shoes with metal eyelets, no clothing with metal fasteners."

"Oh," she says. How could she have not remembered something as important as that? She knows Magneto's power first-hand, how could she have...she sighs. She forgot. It's that simple. She thought, "He's in prison." She should have realized that doesn't mean his power is gone. She shouldn't have been lulled by thoughts of the boy he once was, she shouldn't have been lulled by thoughts of Erik. "I do have some metal on."

The guard glares at her. He is tall and very large and if she didn't have the power to steal everything that makes him whole she might be nervous. As it is, she is still embarrassed. "How much?"

She looks down at herself. Shoes -- slip-on clogs. Safe. Wait, what if nails -- even tiny ones -- were used to put the shoes together? Damn. Jeans. Metal button and zipper. Crap! Shirt. That's safe. Her watch will have to go. She puts her hand up to her neck, wanting to reassure herself with the familiar weight of the tags she wears around her neck...

They aren't there. She has a moment -- a short but utterly panicked filled moment -- in which she thinks she's lost them. Lost them in the prison, lost them to where Magneto lives.

But then she remembers. She left them back in her room at school. She didn't want Erik to see them. She wanted to keep them all for herself.

"My shoes," she tells the guard. "And my jeans, and my watch."

The guard -- his badge declares that his name is Tyrone -- rubs his head briefly. She wonders if he has a headache. She feels a pang of sympathy for him. What would it be like -- to work in this place every day? Inside her head, Magneto snarls about humans and guards and pity and she pushes his anger away. "I'm sorry," she tells Tyrone by way of apology for her clothes and for his job.

He sighs. "Well, I guess if you take your shoes and watch off we can take care of your jeans. Come on." He starts walking again and she follows.



Magneto's cell is in what looks like it was once a cafeteria or maybe a machine shop. It's a large, tall building. Outside, it looks like a wreck. Inside, money has clearly been spent to modify it. She rides in a plastic cage/elevator with the guard up to a long corridor that appears to have been welded onto the side of the building. She can see Magneto's plastic cube. Her stomach starts to hurt again, throbbing in time with her head.

Tyrone takes her to the first room off the corridor. He has a long conversation with the guard who is in the room, mostly about a recent football game. After about twenty minutes, he points to Rogue and says, "She's hear to see the old guy."

The other guard looks at her and arches his eyebrows. "Huh." He turns to Rogue. "You know the rules, miss?"

She starts to nods and then stops herself. Tyrone sighs. "Run 'em down for her Roy."

The other guard -- Roy -- starts talking. Her visit can't last for longer than twenty minutes. She is not allowed to touch the prisoner. She may not touch the walls or the floor of the cell. A guard ("Me," Roy says) must be in the cell at all times. She is given a large stack of waivers to sign. While she signs them, Tyrone tells Roy he is going to get a soda. "Do you want one?"

It takes a moment for her to realize that he is talking to her. She is startled by his kindness and she smiles at him. She likes proving to herself that Magneto is often wrong about humanity. "Thank you, but I'm okay."

After she signs the waivers she takes off her shoes and her watch. Roy puts them in a plastic bag and labels the bag with a number. This strikes her as rather bizarre -- there is no one else waiting to visit Magneto after her, so it's not like her stuff is going to get confused with anyone else's -- and Roy notices her puzzled look. "Regulation," he says and she nods as if she understands even though she is not sure she does.

Roy leaves the room and as he exits a female guard comes in. She gives Rogue a pair of drawstring pants and holds out her hand for Rogue's jeans. She doesn't talk at all and her expression is so forbidding that Rogue is too scared to attempt conversation. After she puts the pants on the woman places her jeans in the numbered bag that holds her watch and shoes. Roy walks in as the woman guard leaves and Rogue realizes they are making sure she is never alone. She feels the equilibrium she found with Tyrone's smile slip away.

"Let's go," Roy tells her.

They go back out into the hallway, back down the corridor. Back into the plastic cage/elevator, only they stop at a platform suspended above the floor. Roy makes her walk in front of him. She presses her
hands together and tries not to look down.

And then she is inside Magneto's cell. He is looking at her and there is no curiosity in his eyes at all. Only boredom and behind that, what she knows is rage. She thinks about the crumbling concrete walls of Sing-Sing and shivers a little.

He smiles at that. "I see you've recovered."

"It was almost a year ago."

He shrugs. "As you can see, I don't have a calendar..." He gestures around the cell, "just four blank and see-through walls. Why don't you have a seat?"

And so she does.



She sits down on a plastic chair across from him. He looks so much like a harmless uncle or grandfather than she feels a little thrown. She remembered him as being much younger. Much taller. Much less tired-looking. She can hardly believe that he is the same man that nearly succeeded in killing her.

"You were going to kill me." It comes out as almost a question and she knows it shouldn't. He told her she was going to die.

He raises an eyebrow. "You came out here to tell me what I already know?" He leans forward, cocks his head to one side and studies her for a moment. "Did Charles send you?"

She smiles at the evidence of his ego. He is so much like she knew he would be.

"No. He doesn't even know I'm here."

Magneto looks thrown by her smile, but only for a moment. He doesn't say anything and silence stretches between them. Rogue places her hands against the chair arms and holds on.

Finally he leans back in his chair. "Why are you here?"

"You could have done it earlier."

This time no expression crosses his face. But she knows him. She knows all his tells. He rubs his arm, rubs right where faint traces of the number he once wore still remain. "What?" His voice is bored.

"The machine was ready months before you came to New York. You knew who I was; you knew where I was traveling. Why did you wait till after Xavier found me? Why did you send Sabretooth after Logan and I when you knew Xavier would be able to track him using Cerebro? You knew he'd find me. You could have had your revenge on the world if you'd acted sooner. You could have found me, taken me and the machine to New York, and killed everyone in Manhattan -- including all the world leaders who were at the UN for a pre-summit meeting five days before Xavier found me. Why did you wait?"

He rubs his arm again. "Guard," he says slowly, and he turns to look at Roy, who is leaning against the far wall. "This visit is over."

Roy shrugs. "Miss?"

She shrugs at Roy and then stands up and starts to walk out of the cell, Roy behind her.

"Have you told him?" Erik's voice is raw and she almost feels sorry for him. "Have you told Charles this?"

She turns back. "Ahuvi," she says and she watches his eyes widen at the nickname that only his mother and Xavier ever used for him. She watches as he realizes exactly how much he gave her when he transferred his power to her, "don't you think he already knows?"

She doesn't wait for a response. She walks out of the cell and she doesn't look back. He doesn't watch her leave and she is glad for that. She changes and gets the rest of her belongings back. Tyrone walks her back to the waiting room and after a while, she is allowed to get on another bus.

She is home by four. Xavier looks at her for a long moment when he sees her at dinner and then comes over to where she is sitting.

"Why do you think he waited?" she asks.

Xavier places his hand on top of hers. "I'd like to think...I'd like to think that he has a little hope."

She looks at him, really looks at him. He looks like someone who has helped her. He looks like someone who cares about her. Her. Just her. "Thank you, Professor."

He smiles at her and there are no memories hidden behind it. For once, there is silence in her head.



In her dreams, she runs.

She runs through the neighborhood she lived in as a child, racing past Paige's house, Laura's house, David's house. She runs into what used to be her home and races down the hallway, turns into the dining room.

She stops. There is all the furniture she remembers. The table, the chairs, the picture of a forest that her mother put up on the left wall in an attempt to decorate the room. The doors are still there, like they never were in real life, but like they've always been in her dreams, and the boy is sitting at the dining room table.

He stands up when she comes into the room and walks over to the door.

She does not say anything to him.

He opens the door.

She still does not say anything.

He starts to run and he disappears, leaving the door open behind him.

She walks over to the other door. The doorknob is made of brass and it is very shiny. When she was a little girl, she used to help her mother polish all the doorknobs in the house before holidays. She used to like the way they shone. She reaches her hand out and hesitates, her fingers quivering over the brass surface.

She can hear a train in the distance, the sound of it drifting to her from the other open door.

"Goodbye," she whispers.

She opens the door in front of her and walks through it, leaving the past behind.


END


Notes: Thanks to Gali for pointing out the word "Ahuvi" (which means "my beloved") to me. Sing-Sing Prison really is located in Westchester, New York. here's a lot of information available online about the Holocaust -- several notable sites include http://remember.org/, http://www.holocaust-history.org/, and http://www.ushmm.org/

Back To The Movieverse