St. John Allerdyce was on the red line Metro. At first Rogue wasn't sure it was him getting on at the Dupont Circle station. His hair was longer and lighter, like he'd been out in the sun a lot. He was carrying a backpack and wearing a gray t-shirt. He sat down in the front of the car with his back to her without seeing her.
Rogue hunched down in her squishy orange seat. It was early afternoon and there were only about eight people in the car. Maybe it wasn't him.
He was putting a CD player into his backpack, turned his head to zip the bag on the seat next to him. It was John. Eight months had fined his profile some. She didn't remember that much definition to his cheekbones, and he was taller too. Guys change a lot from seventeen to eighteen.
“Farragut North,” the driver said. Doors opened. One person got out, four people got on. An older woman with big braids sat down in front of Rogue. She could disappear behind her now. John didn't get off. She wondered why he was here.
Rogue had a college scholarship interview at American University. Bobby had wanted to come down to Washington with her, but she had told him no. Mr. Summers had offered to drive her down, but she'd made the point to him and the Professor that two years ago she'd gotten from Mississippi to Saskatchewan by herself without getting into any trouble, and she could surely take the train down from New York, go to her interview, and come back the same day. The Professor had gotten her tickets on the Acela express train and wished her good luck with the interview.
It had gone pretty well, she thought. And she liked what she'd seen of the school. She had about two hours before her train, but she wasn't sure how long it would take her to get anywhere. It looked simple on the map – take the train into Union Station, get the Metro to the Tenleytown/American University stop, and then go back. But that was before she ran into John.
“Metro Center,” the driver said. Five people got off, eight got on. A guy with dreds sat down next to John.
Did he live here? It would be pretty cold of Magneto to be hiding out in Washington right under the eyes of everybody looking for him. Or was John on some kind of mission for the Brotherhood?
“Gallery Place/Chinatown,” the driver said. “Transfer point to the yellow and green lines on the lower level.” Six people got off. Six people got on. Rogue tensed to see if he would move, but he didn't. He wasn't looking at the map or the doors. He knew where he was going, and he knew exactly how long he had before his stop.
She could follow him. Find out what the Brotherhood was up to. Maybe find out where their hiding place was. The problem was Mystique. She could be anybody. She could be the guy with dreds sitting next to John. They could be passing secret information right now. The guy with dreds flipped open a copy of the Post and started reading.
“Judiciary Square,” the driver said. The doors opened. Nobody got on or off.
She could talk to him. Find out what was going on, what he was doing here. That might be a better idea than trying to tail him. Or it might get her nowhere.
“Union Station.” That was her stop. She had to either get off through the rear doors, or stay on and follow him.
John picked up his backpack and got off through the front doors.
Rogue grabbed her purse and followed him out. “John! Hey John!”
He wheeled around. There weren't many people on the platform, no crowd to blend into.
“I thought that was you,” she said.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
Rogue shrugged. “Just visiting. What are you doing here?” John was glancing around the platform. “What are you doing?”
“Just checking,” he said.
“For what? Kidnappers? That's your style, not ours.”
When John got mad he didn't turn red, he got pale. The color bleached out of his face now. “Yeah? Then why are you following me?”
“I wasn't following you,” Rogue snapped. “I was just going about my business and you got on the train in front of me.”
“You followed me off,” he said.
“It's my stop. I just thought it would be real rude not to even say hello or something.”
“Rude.” John was looking at her. “Like leaving a guy in a snow bank is rude.”
“You're the one who left the plane in the first place. How was I supposed to know where you were? I'm not a telepath!”
“You could have fooled me!” John turned toward the escalators.
Rogue grabbed his backpack. “You don't even care that Dr. Grey is dead!”
He whipped around. “How would you know? There's a lot of things you don't know.”
“About you?”
“About me. About the Brotherhood. About everything.”
“How am I supposed to know anything when you just disappear?” Rogue asked. “It's not like you email or something. You just up and walk out and go off with Magneto….”
John took a step closer. “You don't know anything about Magneto.”
“I do,” she said. “He was in my head, remember? I know things you don't. Things I don't understand and wish I'd never seen, ok?”
“How do you know what I know?”
“You don't know anything!” Rogue took a step closer. Her left hand was clenched around the fingers of her right glove. “You don't know shit!”
John's lighter was in his hand. “Fuck off!”
“Yeah? You too!”
They stood there for a minute, people parting around them on the platform.
Rogue cocked her head. John half-smiled.
“You want to go grab a burger?” she asked.
“Ok.” John gestured to the escalator. “There's a food court upstairs.”
They sat in the food court at Union Station. Rogue was eating a burger and John was eating pepperoni pizza with extra cheese. She had half expected him to disappear again while she got her food, but he hadn't. He was just standing there with his tray, waiting for her. By silent mutual consent they found a table way in the corner where nobody could hear them. It was the middle of the afternoon, and it wasn't busy anyway.
“So do you live here?” Rogue asked.
John gulped up a piece of pepperoni that was falling off. “No. You think?”
Rogue shrugged. “You seem to know your way around pretty well.”
“I've been here before.”
“For the Brotherhood?”
“Duh.” John picked up his Dr. Pepper. “Traveling by train is easier. Not as much security.”
“I know.” Rogue twiddled with her right glove. “I can't fly. They make me take my gloves off to go through security. Mr. Summers can't fly either, and neither can Logan.”
John laughed. “Metal detectors?”
“Duh!”
“Not like Magento can fly. He'd get stopped in a minute.”
“Well, when you hang out with America's Most Wanted….”
“Like Logan's not a badass.”
“Yeah.” Rogue shrugged. “But if he hadn't taken those soldiers out back at the school a lot of us would be dead.”
“And that makes it ok?”
“It does to me.”
John leaned forward. “Then what's the difference between Logan and Magneto? They both do what they've got to do. It's a war. You've got to take care of your own.”
Rogue put her burger down. “And who's your own, John? Are you going to come after us?”
“Do you see us coming after you? You've got it all wrong if you think we want to tangle with the X-Men.”
“Cause we'd dust your ass,” Rogue said.
John grinned. “You think. No. Because you're mutants. We don't harm our own.”
“Tell that to Magneto when he tried to kill me.”
“He thought it was worth it. To save everybody else. Do you think the Professor wouldn't do the same thing? Sacrifice one person on the team to save everyone else?”
“There's a big difference between what Magneto did and what Dr. Grey did,” Rogue said. “Dr. Grey only sacrificed herself. That's your right. To give your own life. That's different from sacrificing somebody else. If he'd put himself in the stupid machine, I'd think that was ok. Stupid, maybe, but ok. But kidnapping people and trying to kill them is not ok.”
“Sometimes things are necessary but not ok.”
“The end justifies the means? You've changed, John.”
“I haven't changed at all.” John picked up his slice of pizza. “And neither have you. You'd do exactly the same thing if it was your decision. You said you've got him in your head. Then you know why, and you'd do exactly the same thing.”
“Maybe. But that wouldn't be right.”
“I never said it was right, and neither did he.”
They sat in silence for a minute, eating.
John looked up. “So are you and Bobby still a thing?” he asked with forced lightness.
“I broke up with him,” Rogue said. She shrugged. “It's so over.”
“Oh.” John took a bite of his pizza. He didn't look at her. “What happened?”
“It wasn't my thing,” Rogue said. “I mean, we're friends and all, but it just wasn't working.”
“Oh.”
Rogue ducked her head to look at him. “Does it make a difference?”
“No.”
She crossed her arms on the table. “Really?”
“Yeah.” John looked up. “When someone says maybe enough times, it means no, right? You've got to get on with your life.” He shrugged elaborately with what was probably meant as a wry and cynical expression. “Love is overrated. Sex isn't.”
Rogue heard something in his voice, some echo that woke up little voices kept in neat little drawers in her brain, words that went with dark hair, a dancer's stance, a place with bright neon lights and too trendy music.
“What?” John said.
“Nothing. You just reminded me of someone I never knew.” She lifted one eyebrow. “Nothing, really.”
“It creeps me out when you do that,” John said.
“Do what?”
“Your accent disappeared. And you raised your eyebrow just like he does.”
“I told you, he's in my head. I know who you remind him of. He died.”
“Yeah, I know,” John said. “He told me.”
“He told you why?”
“Yeah, that too.” John fiddled with his napkin that had fallen on the floor. “You haven't told the Professor that, have you?”
Rogue shook her head. Her accent was back. “Of course not. That's none of my beeswax. It would just all worry him to death, and it's not like he and Magneto are….”
“Speaking?” John supplied.
“Yeah.” The look between them spoke volumes.
“Does he know that – you know….”
“I expect he figures,” Rogue said. “After all, he knows you and he knows Erik.”
“Right.” John looked at his watch. “I've gotta go.”
“Train to catch?” Rogue asked.
“Something like that.” John grinned.
“You want to call me sometime? I'll give you my cell,” Rogue said.
John nodded. “Sure. Friends, right?”
“Sort of. Friendly enemies?”
“I think we've already got enough of that,” John said.
Rogue leaned forward over the table and lowered her voice. “Does that drive y'all as crazy as it drives us?”
John started laughing. “Fuck, yes! What is their damage?”
Rogue shrugged. “You know.”
“Yeah. But at least I've got enough sense not to go there. Are you going to tell Bobby you saw me?”
She looked down at her gloved hands, suddenly serious. “I don't know.”
“I don't care. Whatever,” John said.
“Right. You don't care whichever.” Rogue sounded unconvinced.
“It's up to you what you tell people,” John said, standing up. “Give me your cell.”
Rogue scribbled the number on her burger receipt. “You better call me, ok? I just want to know you're not dead.”
“Right.” John went and dumped their trays, then came back and took the receipt. He folded it neatly and put it in his wallet. “Bye,” he said awkwardly.
“You take care of yourself,” Rogue said, putting her hands on her hips, “But I guess that's what you're best at.”
“You know it.” John looked suddenly serious. “Don't let it get you down.”
“What?”
“Losing.” John turned and walked away into the crowd.
Rogue went up to the gates. She had twenty minutes until the Acela boarded. She checked to make sure she had her ticket, hung around the gate. She wished there was time to go back to the bookstore she'd seen, but she didn't think there was.
Maybe she would call Bobby. And say what? I saw John and he's sleeping with Magneto and he's over you just like I am? Not.
She could IM Jube. Rogue looked at her watch. Only Jube was in English class, and the Professor always knew when people were messaging under the desk and took their phones away.
So who did that leave? Ms. Munroe? And say what?
She called Logan. He didn't answer. As usual. She called again and left a message. “Hi Logan. It's me. If I was in trouble you wouldn't know it cause you don't answer your damn phone. But I'm not in trouble, and I'm on my way home. So I'll see you.”
It was time to board. She took a seat in one of the back cars. The train was pretty empty, so she sat by the window with an empty seat beside her. It was big and cushy and had lots of room. She wondered why more people didn't take the train since it was way more comfortable than flying anyway.
Rogue watched the city slide away, through the busy rail yards and then picking up speed. They came by and took her ticket, put a slip on the back of her seat saying it was taken through to New York. Rogue got out the magazine she'd been reading on the way down and tried to read it again.
By the time they'd left Baltimore she was bored. She got up to go forward to the rest room at the back of the next car. The movement of the train was so smooth that going between cars didn't really feel any different. There wasn't the sense of being between at all. She opened the doors to the next car and froze.
John was sitting about four rows ahead of her on the aisle. And she knew that white head in the window seat.
Rogue backed out of the car and went back to her seat. She could go the restroom in the car behind hers.
They were on the same train. And for some reason being on a train with Magneto seemed like a bad plan to her.
She flipped her phone on. She had service. That was a good thing. Sometimes you didn't when you were between places. She started to call the main number for the school. She'd probably get Mr. Summers. Or maybe the Professor if he'd gone back to his office after class. And say what? Hi Professor, I'm on a train in Delaware with Magneto? Want me to say hey?
Come and rescue me seemed a little extreme to say. Especially since he probably didn't even know she was here.
Of course he knows she's here, the little voice in the back of her head said. He knows the Acela stops in New York, and he knows that you were in Union Station waiting for a train home. He may not know exactly which car you're in but he knows you're on the train. He knows Charles would spring for the Acela ticket rather than the cheaper Metroliner one.
The loudspeaker began announcing arrival in Wilmington.
I could get off the train, Rogue thought. I could get off here and call Mr. Summers and ask him to drive down and get me. Which is like a five hour drive. Each way. And he'd hit rush hour traffic on 95. While I sit in Wilmington, Delaware.
Or I could get off and buy a ticket on a later train, call Mr. Summers and tell him I missed my train in Washington and I'm on a later train and not to worry, I can still get a commuter train in New York and I'll just be in Westchester later. If I'm going to do that, I should get off in Philadelphia where there are more trains.
Or I could get off in Philadelphia, call Mr. Worthington the Flying Alumni and tell him Magneto is on the Acela. Or call Mr. Worthington now, and have him meet me at the station and….
Rogue ran out of possibilities. She didn't know Mr. Worthington the Flying Alumni very well. She knew he worked in downtown Philadelphia, and he was on the list of emergency numbers, but she had no idea what he'd do about Magneto on the Acela.
The train pulled out of Wilmington with Rogue still on it.
It doesn't take long to get from Wilmington to Philadelphia. But it was about two minutes after they left Wilmington that Magneto came along the aisle. He didn't look particularly surprised to see her.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I'm going to the diner behind this car to get a cup of coffee,” he said, standing in the aisle, one hand on the back of the seat in front of her.
“I mean, what are you doing on this train?” she demanded.
“I'm assuming Pyro told you we were on our way home.”
“He didn't say anything about you,” Rogue said.
“Well,” Magneto said, sitting down in the seat next to her.
“You get out of that seat this minute or I'll scream that you're sexually harassing me,” Rogue said. “There are a lot of big, tall businessmen in this car, and I don't think you want the attention.”
He raised one eyebrow. “You're too frightened to talk to me.”
“I'm not that easily manipulated,” Rogue snapped. “Now get your butt out of that seat.”
Magneto stood up. “You're not the slightest bit curious about what I have to say to you?”
“I want you to leave me alone.”
He shrugged and walked off toward the back of the train.
Rogue flipped her phone open. She could call Logan. If he answered his phone he'd know what to do.
The voice in the back of her head that was Logan's already had an answer. Punch him out and throw him off the train.
Oh, like that was a good idea, Rogue thought. First of all, punching Magneto probably wasn't a good plan, and she had no idea how to throw him off the train in the first place. Not like there were a lot of windows that opened. It's a passenger train, not a boxcar.
Which took her places the other little voice in her head didn't want to go.
Ten minutes later he came back down the aisle holding two cups of coffee. Rogue leaned out into the aisle. “Who's the other coffee for?”
“Pyro,” he said. “Who do you think?”
She took one of the coffees out of his hand. “Tell him to get his own. What was it you wanted to say to me?”
Magneto looked amused. “May I sit down, or will you scream?”
“Sit.” She took a quick gulp of coffee and regretted it. It was extremely hot.
He slid into the seat next to her. “To what do I owe this change of heart?”
Rogue looked him in the eye. “I want you to know that if you screw up John I'm going to come after you and mess you up. He's my friend. Got it?”
Magneto blinked. Whatever he'd been expecting her to say, this wasn't it. “I have no intention of screwing up Pyro, as you put it.”
“You may not have the intention, but you've done a whole lot of making people regret you without intending it.”
He opened the lid on his plastic coffee cup carefully. “Is that what you think?”
“That's what you think,” she said.
“Ah.” He smiled wryly without looking up. “A small side effect of our earlier association, I see.”
“Believe me, having your memories in my head wasn't my idea.”
“Yes, I know that.”
“Yeah, well.” Rogue wished she had something to stir the coffee with to cool it off. Of course Magneto hadn't brought any spoons or anything. “I'm stuck with you.”
“That can't be very pleasant,” he said.
She pushed her hair back with one gloved hand. “Some of it isn't. Some of it is very, very pleasant. I know things about you I doubt anyone else does, even Charles.”
He looked at her sideways. “Has it occurred to you that it might be something of an ego boost to know that in some sense my memories will live on after my own death?”
“You would see it that way,” she said. “Everything's always all about you.”
“I believe that's my line,” he said and smiled.
Rogue found it hard not to smile back. “And now you're probably thinking that I remind you of Raven.”
“Like living with a telepath,” he said, “but one who only knows what's going on in my head.”
“I know where your base is,” Rogue said.
“So does Charles.”
“Does Charles know you're fucking John?”
Magneto raised an eyebrow. “I always assume Charles knows everything. Whether or not it's any of his business.”
“If he knows, he's not going to do anything about it. But I will, if you mess with John's head.”
“You'd be better off with the Brotherhood, you know. That kind of loyalty won't be rewarded by Charles.”
“Don't even try me.” Rogue took a sip of her somewhat cooler coffee. “You lost that chance about the time you tied me up in the Statue of Liberty.”
“I'm just saying….” He let the sentence trail off. “If you should change your mind.”
“Don't bet on it.”
Magneto got up. “I'm glad we had this time together,” he said. It was exactly what the Professor said after a particularly annoying teacher conference, and they both knew it.
Rogue lifted her cup. “Thanks for the coffee.”
She nursed the same coffee almost all the way to New York. John never did come past going to get his own. See, she and John had been friends a long time, and she knew he hated coffee, and he knew she took hers black.
It was nearly 11 by the time Mr. Summers picked her up at the train station in Westchester. “How was your trip?” he asked as she climbed in.
“OK,” Rogue said. “Kind of boring.”