Tears in the Rain (X-Men ROMY)

Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven

Life at the mansion continued as normal. Rogue began to go out with the girls more often, and Remy had at least two nights out per week, though Rogue noticed that he never seemed to stay overnight with his lady friends any more. She didn't think much about it and knowing Remy, she certainly didn't think that he was just keeping up appearances and actually drinking alone, or sometimes going into the city to gamble on those nights.

Their relationship jogged along much as it used to, aside from the occasional longing glance when they thought that they were unobserved.

Psylocke, also known as Betsy Braddock, joined the school as its resident psychic. She wasn't a very skilled psychic but it was better than nothing. She was also able to teach English and History, which was very welcome.

Rogue, Pete, Bobby and Kitty each also took on more teaching duties, since they were still short staffed. They only taught academic subjects to the youngest kids though, because they simply weren't qualified to teach the older ones. They were however, much more useful in the rooms below the school, helping all the children with with danger room sessions, or to learn how use and control their powers.

Storm was thankful for the help, even while she felt guilty for imposing on them and their own studies.

Life was fairly quiet at the moment. Since Magneto had been stopped, there was little in the way of mutant attack on humans, and the mutant haters got to see justice served as Magneto and his army was tried and sentenced.

When news broke that the cure wasn't permanent, many mutants appeared on television telling stores of never having being accepted, never benign understood and just wanting to be normal. They painted a very sympathetic picture, and it was hard for the hate groups to summon up enough ill will to grow any further.

Numerous lawsuits were filed against the pharmaceutical company, both from mutants for whom the cure had failed and surprisingly, even mutant hate groups. There was also talk of criminal charges being brought (though no one was really sure who at Worthington Pharmaceuticals deserved to be charged) and even an investigation into the FDA, who had approved the cure.

All the while that the humans were fighting amongst themselves, the mutants were fairly safe. Everyone knew that this calm couldn't last forever, but they were grateful for an opportunity to catch their breath.

Christmas came and went, and once again all the staff were saddened by how many students stayed over Christmas, either because they couldn't or didn't want to go back to their families.

Although she usually blocked out all thoughts of them, Rogue couldn't stop thinking about her family this year, wondering what they were doing, especially on Christmas day.

She knew that the X-Men and the school were her family now, she just wished that she didn't still think about her own family so much.

Her powers were almost totally under control now, aside from surprises that caused them to switch back on, almost as an instinct. Remy was working on that, and some of his methods were nicer than others.

First he's had her shake hands with everyone in the school, saying that she needed to get used to touching other people and they needed to get used to touching her. What he didn't tell her was that Bobby, Kitty and Storm were wearing a hand buzzer, which gave her a small shock as she touched them. Her power snapped back on as she shook Storms hand, though thankfully she was already pulling away because of the shock, so no harm was done. It was the same when she shook hands with Bobby a little further down the line but by the time she got to Kitty, she was prepared and while she didn't like the shock, her power didn't switch on.