"Temptation Eyes Looking Through My Soul"
The Grassroots "Temptation Eyes"

Part 2: Temptation Eyes

Rogue wandered the grounds in the cold late fall morning. Now that she didn't have helping Magneto to occupy her thoughts she missed Remy terribly. When Magneto was here, and she was helping him, if those feelings for Remy came up, she could push them down by thinking of ways to help Magneto. Well that taught me real good the dangers of amateurs playin' psychologist. Ah'll remind mahself of that next tahm ah'm tempted. Probably won't stop me though, she thought with a lopsided smile. Preoccupied she didn't notice Remy up in the tree until he hopped down right in front of her. She ran right into him.

"T'inkin' of me, chere?" Remy said with a grin.

Rogue panicked, being so close to Remy, she pushed him away and yelled, "No, get away, or ah'll hurt you!" Then so softly she thought he wouldn't hear it,"...again." Rogue ran away from him.

Remy had heard though, suddenly her strange behavior clicked, he knew why she had done this. His eyes flashed and he broke into smile, and gave chase. She really cared for him, cared for him so much she was terrified of her strong feelings for him. He bet she thought she would kill him if she touched him again. He would show her otherwise, he just had to have patience, as usual, with her.

Because Rogue had just run away, not flown away he quickly caught up with her. Remy couldn't resist teasing her now that he knew that she cared for him. He didn't touch her, but ran around in front of her.

"Oh you mean, chere, dis was all for me. I knew you couldn't resist my charms. For a moment dere you had Remy worried..." Then in a serious tone he continued, "Chere, I love you, I don't want you t' push me away again. It's not gonna work dis time either." Remy walked away then, back to the mansion.

Rogue squeezed her eyes shut, moaning in anguish. Oh Remy, she thought, yoah determined for me tah hurt yah permanently.

Remy walked back into the mansion, practically walking on air. The first person he saw was Storm. He was so exuberant he blurted out to Storm, "I'm back! An' not leaving dis time. She'll have t' t'row me off the grounds! Now I be courtin' her again. I win her over dis time!"

"Remy." Storm smiled slightly and shook her head bemused. He was nothing if not persistent.

Remy whistled and walked with a bouncing step back to his own room. When he opened the door, he was happy to see nothing had been removed yet. Stormy must have told de Professor I'd be back.

When he came back out of his room Logan was waiting for him.

"Good to see you back, Cajun. I know why you couldn't stand being around Magneto. Don't know how I managed myself. Stayin' out in the woods, I guess. Glad that yard ape Magneto is gone."

"So am I mon ami, so am I."

"You wanna go out for a beer, Cajun? We can celebrate."

"Not tonight, Wolverine, got someone else in mind."

Logan grinned. "You don't give up Gumbo, do you?"

"Non, `specially since de lady still loves me."

"Figured that out, huh. Good for you. Got a plan?"

"Always, mon ami."

Logan grinned. "You never change."

That evening Rogue was typing in her computer journal she had kept since she joined the X-Men. Professor Xavier asked her to keep one. He asked most of the members, told them it would help them sort out their thoughts. As she was typing her computer beeped she had an e-mail message. Curious, she called it up. It was Bobby.

"I'm depressed Rogue. I'm getting drunk in this bar." He gave her an address close to his parents' house on Long Island. "Could you come and drive me back to the mansion?"

He must have taken his laptop with him, and most everyone knew she did her journal around this time most nights.

"Sure." She typed in, "I'll be there as soon as I can." She'd fly there of course. She'd be there in next to no time.

"Thanks." was Bobby's response, then he logged off. So did Rogue.

Rogue quickly threw on some jeans, a dark green sweater, her leather X-Men jacket, and the dark brown suede calf boots Sam had dubbed her "shit boots".

Poor Sam had been drunk at the time. Logan had taken him out and gotten him drunk again. When they came back Rogue had ready to go out to a late supper with Magneto. It was just two weeks ago. Rogue had wanted to talk to him about the re-emergence of his arrogance. Sam had taken one look at her new boots and loudly told her that those boots were just the exact same color as fresh horse shit.

The dinner was a disaster, Magneto just kept talking about himself, Rogue couldn't get a word in edgewise. But Sam's contrition the next day was funny. She had never heard Sam use cusswords, apparently his mama had made big impression on him about that, to never use them, especially in front of a lady, and any southerner knows that all women are ladies, unless they tell you otherwise. Sam made a red-faced apology, "I've got no excuse Rogue, `cept I was drunk, somethin' I'm not lettin' Wolverine do to me ever again!" Logan and Bobby who were in the room at the time, not wanting to miss this scene, were laughing at poor Sam. Rogue just grinned back at him and said, "That's okay shugah, they are a mighty ugly color, but they're real comfortable, so ah bought `em anyways." This had become one of the latest jokes in the mansion; whenever she went out since then someone tease her, usually Bobby, would ask her if she was goin to wear her "shit boots". Even she had quickly come to think of them as that. That's why she put them on to pick up Bobby, maybe seeing these boot would make him laugh.

Rogue knew something was wrong as soon as she saw the building from the air. This definitely didn't look like a bar. Who knew though, maybe it was some upper-class bar. Rogue suddenly felt severely underdressed. Drake, why didn't you tell me this was a snobby bar. She sighed. Oh well ah'll just be in there a minute, maybe no one will notice me. She landed in the dark part of the parking lot. Rogue was in the entrance hall of the restaurant, when she heard a voice she didn't expect.

"Dere y' are chere. Wonderin' when y' get here."

"Remy, what are you doin' here? Ah came out..." Suddenly it dawned on her, when she saw he was all dressed up, in a tux no less! "Yah slimy jerk! Yah tricked me tah get me out here!"

Remy gently took her arm, "Chere, our table is waiting for us."

"Ah'm not goin' in there! Look at the way ah'm dressed! They won't even let me sit down!"

"Sure dey will, chere, long as we got de green dey don' care."

"Everybody will be starin' at me." Rogue began to relent and walk with him into the restaurant proper, instead of making a scene, since everyone was already staring at them.

"Den dey be starin' at a very beautiful woman, neh?"

Rogue sighed, she'd go through with this ridiculous date.

Ping, ping, ping. Something was hitting Rogue's window.

What in the world? Rogue thought as she got up from the bed. It was two day after her surprise date with Remy. It had gone really well. They had spent hours at the restaurant just talking about the difficulties in their relationship. She had talked much more than Remy, but when he had talked he had revealed, somewhat reluctantly, about how much her apparent rejection had hurt him. She had to draw it out of him, he just wanted to forget it, he had already forgiven her. It made her feel just horrible. Then Remy told her forget about it didn't deserve being remembered, it wasn't that important. Rogue knew she was already in love with him again, as much as she had ever been. It was harder and harder to dredge up any desire to physically push him away. This made her fears of hurting him permanently dominate her thoughts even more. Why hadn't he given up when she could distance herself emotionally? Like most guys. Most guys would have left long before he did, and never come back. Damn the man's persistence! Doesn't he deserves a relationship with the physical side she couldn't give him?

Rogue looked out to see what was hitting the window. Remy. he was throwing pebbles against her window. She quickly opened the window before he took even more drastic measures that would wake up the whole mansion.

"Chere, y' told me t' ask next time. Well I'm askin'. Will y' go t' dinner wit' me at a fancy New York restaurant?"

Rogue sighed, obviously he wasn't lying when he said he wasn't giving up this time. "All right. Wait there while ah change intah nice clothes. Don't do nothin' else tah get mah attention, yah got it." She just hoped he hadn't already got everybody else's attention with his antics.

Rogue looked in her closet to see what would be suitable to wear, with the cold early December weather, she definitely wanted to be warm! She picked out a pale yellow long sleeved blouse, with a solid hunter green jacket and a matching ankle length full skirt. Then she pulled out her forest green wool ankle length duster. She already had on her pale green tights. She had to hunt for them in her closet, but she finally found her emerald green lace up boots. She put on gloves that matched her boots. She did up her hair in a sort of "Gibson Girl" style. She laughed, Remy would hate it. He hated it when she put her hair in a bun or a braid. He liked it free flowing.

Rogue looked at herself in the mirror. She looked sort of like a young woman of the early twentieth century. She threw on the duster and flew out the window, taking time to pull it back down, outside, so that the heat would stay inside.

Remy waited impatiently on the ground, then looked briefly annoyed when he saw how she done her hair. He definitely would have to get that hair down before the evening was over. It wasn't very flattering on her, neither were braids. Apparently she didn't realize that's why he didn't like her hair that way.

Rogue looked at Remy. Up close she could see his outfit matched hers pretty well. His clothing resembled men's evening dress of the early twentieth century, and he had, again, pulled his long hair back into a ponytail. However, the shorter hair in the front was already beginning to escape the ponytail. Well, she liked the fluffy look he usually wore anyways, it was more flattering, not that he wasn't exceedingly handsome this way too, it was just even more so the other way. And mah heavens! He'd actually shaved! He looked so good! Oh lord! There go those feelings! Get yoahself under control girl!

They walked over to Rogue's Miata. As they did the other X-men observed them . Logan and Hank were grinning at each other.

Logan said, "How much you wanna bet they'll be back together, for good by next week? Wanna go for twenty bucks?"

Hank's eyes danced with amusement. "Hmm. I believe it may take two weeks."

"Deal. One week, the money's mine, two it's yours!"

Storm just laughed, things had finally gotten back to normal here.

Rogue parked the Miata and they walked the last two blocks, rather than fool with valet parking. They passed a New York Times newspaper box. The headline was disturbing as usual:"`MUTANT MENACE' DISCUSSED." Just another thing to worry about.

As they passed a dark alley they heard the phrase: "-kill the weather bitch."

Both Rogue and Gambit stopped in shock, and listened to hear the rest of the conversation.

"That's why we killed that alien, to get that box. The boss told me today that the box let's you travel back in time."

"So we kill some ancestor of that Storm bitch's, then scoot back here and collect the cash?"

"Yeah just go back before the Civil War, kill this woman named Judith. She was supposed to of escaped North with that Tubman woman. This Judith married some guy. Well we gotta kill her before she escapes. If she's dead. no Storm, cause her father ain't born, cause one of his great grandparents ain't. Thing's already set, boss did it this morning, all we got to do is turn it on."

"Sound's good to me. Easy job, lots of money. Let's go."

Rogue said anxiously to Remy, "We gotta stop them!"

"I know chere." They ran down the alley just in time to jump into the breech following the two men.}