Note: A year after The Last Stand, Rogue never took the cure, and Jean, Scott, and the Professor are alive!

Summary: Rogue is left with the tortured nightmares of her teachers and friends, as well as their mutations, which are getting out of hand. Meanwhile the government has torn a hole in the space time continuum, bringing Apocalypse and younger versions of Charles and Erik to this time. Rogue never took the cure, and everyone is alive.

Burning. Scraping. Screaming.

"Ah Erik, I missed you. But that is not your name anymore is it?" He gave gave a terrible smile that could easily be mistaken for a sneer.

"No, no you have no name anymore, tell me are you comfortable 2-1-4-7-8-2?" I swallowed hard. And tried to move. Instead I felt leather on my bare wrists. My head turned and I saw the black numbers tattooed on my left arm. 214782. I had no name.

"Now it's time for that fun I promised you earlier."

Blood. More screaming. Small red droplets moved in a like rain off a roof. "AHHH!" The metal in the room was humming to me, then it was vibrating.

"Wonderful! Well done 214782!" Tears were mixing with the blood. And I knew that agony had only begun. This would not be my last session with Dr. Schmidt.

"He has done so well! I suppose he made take the rest of the day off, to see his...friends." He let out a witch crackling laugh as he motioned to the guards. "Take him to work with the others."

Anxiety settled in my heart. What could he mean? My friends?

A bag was shoved over my head as the guards took me away. Doors opened and closed. What was going on?

I felt a sudden cold breeze hit me. We were outside. The bag came off my head.

Bodies. There must be a thousand. One was standing at my feet. Uriel. My friend since childhood, his family had fled with mine to Poland.

NO! No. Tears trickled down. A shovel was thrust into my hands. Why? Why?

(Rogue POV)

I jolted upright in my bead. A thick layer of sweat covered my body. "Warum?" I whispered. The German word for why.

Had this been the first time I would have asked myself how I was speaking German and why I was having this nightmare. But this wasn't the first time. And I already had the answer to those questions.

I want to hate him for touching me, I want to hate him for giving me these memories, but I can't. Just like I can't hate the others.

His memories of torture may be the strongest and the most frequent, but they are not the only ones.

Sometimes when I sleep I'm underwater, strapped to a table and needles are filling my body with hot metal.

Sometimes I'm in a plane that's crashing forced out by my parents trying to hold onto my brother.

Other times the walls are closing in on me as my mother lies dead on the floor.

I, Rogue was truly cursed. Their memories refused to fade. And I am forced to relive them. Using magnetism I made a quarter float towards me. I weaved it in and out of my fingers slowly letting the hum of the metal calm me.

The next morning slowly. My roommates chatted while I changed.

"I swear I heard it again last night!" Kitty insisted in her argument with Jubilee. "The muttering in German! I swear those boys are playing pranks on us! And I swear I heard something shaking!"

I winced. Oh great not again. I knew of course that it was me that was muttering German in my sleep, and me that had caused the metal in the room to shake, again in my sleep.

"Whatever Kitty." Jubilee sighed. Kitty made a 'hmp' noise as she walked towards the door. But just as the door opened she turned around and said "Don't expect me to be back until late, I got a date with Bobby, hopefully we get to do some more touching!" I froze.

'Bitch.' I thought. Every opportunity she got that little bitch just had to bring up the fact that Bobby left me for her.

"Kitty!" Jubilee hollered. But Kitty just smiled and walked out, Jubilee hot on her heels.

The metal in the room started to shake, and I mean really shake!

'I should have taken the cure when I had the chance.' Maybe then I would not be plagued with poison skin, nightmares, and voices.

Ok technically I didn't hear the voices anymore after I grasped some control over the Professor's telepathy and learned to build psychic barriers, but after the voices were blocked out I was left with the nightmares. Talk about short lived relief. Then of course there's Bobby's betrayal.

Cursed.

I held back tears as I finished getting ready.

Patiently I waited until I was calm and the metal was still before going to class. I didn't need an outburst in the middle of the danger room session, beacuse then the risk of the Professor finding out about my nightmares increased.

And I certainly didn't want him finding out about those, because then the X men, my teachers, would know, and let's face it, their going to be pissed I know everything about them. Everything.

Well now that I think about it, the X Men are more teammates than teachers now, but it's not like that changes much.

It had been about a year since we had recovered Dr. Gray, a year since the Phoenix was killed.

Not much had changed since then, Logan ran off again when Jean and Scott got married, but hey that's expected. I was still called Miss Untouchable by the younger students, and a certain bitchy teammate.

I nearly jumped when I heard the Professor's voice.

"All X Men please report to the Blackbird immediately, in uniforms."

I was the last to arrive. The Professor was rolling himself onto the jet when he turned around and gave me more heartbreaking news.

"Unfortunately Rogue I've decided that your mutation isn't of much use on this mission, and I've no wish for you to get hurt." He paused.

'Aw fuck! That's the third mission in a row that I've been discluded from.' But I kept my face straight and forced a smile. "That's okay Professor, I needed to catch up on sleep anyway."

He smiled back, only his seemed to be genuine. "That's good to hear Rogue, but please keep an eye on the children." I nodded and retreated back inside as the jet took off.

'Why me?'

As I sat down in the rec room with my ice cream I noticed the talk among the younger students decreased.

I closed my eyes and leaned my head back. The nightmares had gotten considerably worse. In the beginning They only can once maybe twice a month, then soon it was once a week, before I knew it they were coming every time I slept.

And because of that I had a sympathy for my former teachers. How could I be mad at them, much less hate them, while knowing what they each went through?

Simple answer I couldn't. Despite my best intentions I found myself nodding off.

I tackled a man wearing a helmet to the ground. "No Erik! NO!"

He shoved me off and continued to control the missiles flying at the ships.

"Bang!" Erik was forced to stop what he was doing to deflect the bullets.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!" I wanted to scream at Moira, she was only going to get herself hurt. I tried to stand up but a sharp and excruciating pain in my back prevented that.

"CHARLES!" My name echoed through the beach. The missiles had stopped, and I was laying in the sand. "Charles." My head rested in Erik's lap.

"You did this." Moira was choking. "No Erik." I said firmly. "You did this."

Unlike the other dreams I did not bolt upright as I normally would, instead waking up and moving again seemed to be slow. A good thing to.

There were still students in the room. I was just thankful nothing seemed out of place. Nothing was shaking, no screaming, just the feeling of sadness.

"..not surprising..." It was like a whisper. I looked around the room. There were only a few students in the back, most playing Foosball. I rested my head again.

"No wonder Bobby broke up with her."

"Must suck to be her."

"Miss Untouchable."

I sighed loudly. Now I understood. The Professor's telepathy was kicking in. Damn those students and their opinions about me. I'm just lucky I didn't have one of Scott's memories, then my eyes might have destroyed something.

For some odd reason after I have a nightmare about someone, their mutation will come out, even if I haven't touched them recently. It was a bit disturbing, and some mutations were harder to hide than others.

"Do we really need a babysitter? I mean that's all she really is though, the X Men can't bring her along because she's dead weight."

I winced for the second time today. Damn students. David Bowie was right, the truth hurts like hell! I needed to get out of here, away from all the voices.

But just as I'm leaving the newswomen catches my attention. "Later today, there was some type of explosion in the Nevada Desert. Some say government experiments, others say mutants were involved. Tell us what you think." I chose that moment to leave. At least now I know where the X Men probably were.

Deep in the forest it was so peaceful, no voices. But I couldn't help but wonder what the X Men were up to.

I wonder if I could take peek while I had the professor's mutation? Kind of like he did in his younger days when he first met Erik.

Take control of someone, see what they see. Simple right?

'Could I even do that?' My mind reasoned, it may not be possible. 'Why not? You have his mutation.'

It's not like I was reading anyone's mind, I could control the person but I wouldn't, hell I'm part of the team too! So it's not like this was crossing any of the Professor's lines of ethics. Well sort of.

I raised two fingers to my temple and concentrated on taking someone such as Bobby or Kitty, someone who probably wasn't flying the jet.

Well they were in the desert all right. There were government officials in green suits with their entire chests covered in medals, defiantly high ranking officials.

They were in front of Bobby arguing with the Professor. And next to the Professor were two others, men with their backs turned.

Angrily a goverment official thew his hands up in the air and walked off. The two men turned around. And I could never be more shocked in my life. The men I had seen in the Professor's memory. In the same yellow and black jumpsuits! (Which were terrible by the way.)

Erik and Charles.

The Professor and Magneto, but much much younger.

Tell me what you think! Criticism is welcome.