-A/N-: Wine and chocolates make my endorphins go into overdrive. And when I write in such a strange frame of mind… Well… you’ll find out soon enough.

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She sat there, staring impassively at the lone, unlit candle on her beside table. The weak, glowing table lamp threw various shades of light against it, almost illuminating the pink stick of scented wax artfully.

She didn’t know why she was finding it so goddamn hard to sleep that night and she morosely blamed it on the three cups of hot coffee that she had almost three hours ago. Now, midnight was fast approaching and she was as wide-awake as an owl on the prowl.

Sighing with resignation, she stood and walked steadily over to where her wooden bookshelf stood. Purposefully shifting a couple of Harry Potter novels out of the way, she took hold of the half-hidden box – the one given to her by Bobby on her birthday that was full of photographs - and went back to sit on the edge of her bed.

She paused for a moment, just staring into the nondescript cardboard box, before rummaging through it, not really knowing what she was looking for. If she were to tell you the truth, this would be her first time actually looking through the contents.

She had pulled up several pictures, gazed at each one for awhile and then put them back, only to delve in again and pull another one out. It was a slow and tedious process. But she knew that if she wanted to get over them both - Bobby and her - she would have to go through this. Besides, it was something to pass the time.

There were many – her and Bobby, her and Bobby, Bobby and her, her and Piotr and Jubilee and half of Bobby, her and Bobby and Jean Grey in the background, her standing alone next to the foosball table… Some of these pictures she didn’t even remember being taken. Finally, she found one that genuinely caught her interest.

Bobby wasn’t even in this one. In fact, Rogue was pretty sure that he’d been the person who took it.

It was a small and rather nice, albeit slightly skewed, picture of her and John standing next to the large, monumental fountain just in front of the mansion.

John, John, John. It was the one person who’d been stuck in her head all week, his very thoughts and memories smothering everyone else’s including her own. This caused Rogue to wonder if it really was the coffee that was keeping her up right now, or the wandering thoughts of John Allerdyce.

She shook her head, looking back down at the photograph.

With one hand in his pocket and usual trademark smirk, he was leaning in close to ensure the both of them were in the shot. She herself had a diminutive smile on her face but an expression of abject anxiety hidden in her eyes at the close proximity of them both. Even then she had been wary of her personal space, as though she might inadvertently kill someone if they got too close.

It was a gorgeous photograph of them both though, that much was true. Well, it was the only photograph of her and John that she owned; in contrast to the dozens of photographs she had of her and Bobby. And that was the big difference of it all. It was so painfully obvious how the two of them were different. Ice and fire, tranquil silence and raging fury, Bobby and John. One held reluctance and reservation, the other held passion for power.

They were so immeasurably different and it never ceased to amaze Rogue. It was as if they represented black and white – so diverse yet they were only just shades, not colours.

Aimlessly flicking through the rest of the coloured pictures in the box, she wondered briefly if it would help her if she were to burn the ones her and Bobby. This urge to set fire to every fucking unwanted thing in her life had been growing inside of her for a while now.

And she was pretty sure it wasn’t just the Pyro in her head who sought after it.

Or maybe it was.

She couldn’t tell anymore. It was as though a whole bunch of feelings and emotions had been piled into a blender and someone had hit purée. She couldn’t tell the difference between what she wanted and what someone else did…

It was only after she had returned the box and the rest of the photographs to its rightful place on the shelf when she heard the sure but silent knocking on her bedroom door.

At first she assumed it was the triple dose of caffeine messing with her head. But then she heard it a second time and frowned, stumbling towards the door and cracking it open an inch or so, wondering who could up this late past curfew.

She wasn’t as surprised as she thought when she found herself staring up into the eyes of John Allerdyce. Maybe she had known - had been expecting - it to be him all along. He’d done it before, with Bobby of course, and the trio had sneaked out on countless occasions together. It had been exhilaratingly thrilling the first few times they did it, but after what seemed like the tenth attempt the whole affair had lost its excitement.

“What are you doing here?” she hissed, not knowing whether the panic in her voice stemmed from the fear that John could’ve been caught on the way here or the fear that they would be seen together.

“Hey to you too,” John said in a low voice, giving her a charming smile, “Thought you’d be asleep by now. You look fairly awake though.”

She mumbled something about coffee and owls and pink candles and not being able to sleep and-– she stopped rambling. John only grinned as though he understood everything she had said.

“Need some company?”

Rogue gave him a grateful smile. He could be straightforward at times but he sure as hell knew what she wanted deep down inside. It should be the other way around of course, after all she had him in his head.

She moved slightly to one side, allowing him entry into her room, not thinking twice about it. Because she didn’t need to.

To others, such a move may have raised eyebrows. A girl and a guy in the same room in the middle of the night in a school no less. How could that alone not arouse suspicion? But this was John and this was Rogue and that was all the reason they needed.

She shut the door and turned to regard the boy in front of her who seemed almost surreal in the dim light of her table lamp. The blonde from his hair was fading and she noticed that it was coming back to its natural chocolate brown.

“Guess you couldn’t sleep too, huh?”

John silently paced over to sit down at her desk before answering.

“A lot’s been on my mind lately,” he started, almost evasively, “And I needed to clear my head.”

“So you came here,” she said slowly, taking a seat on her bed.

John tilted his head to look at Rogue, a hint of a smile playing on his lips. “Obvious, ain’t it?”

She gazed at him lightly, and even then she saw from underneath the smile, within the depths of his eyes, that something was troubling him somewhat.

And nothing ever bothered John. Nothing. Well, nothing ever bothered Pyro, anyway.

“You wanna’ talk about it?” she offered quietly and at the same time wondering what the ‘it’ could be, “If Bobby’s giving you any trouble-”

“Nah, it’s not him. Although he’s being a real bitch,” he paused, thinking for a second. “It’s about a decision that I don’t know if I can make.”

He then told her all about his meeting with Charles Xavier and the offer that he had proposed. He never thought such a thing would take so much time to consider and it had reopened old, long-forgotten memories that split right down the middle from events before and after the Brotherhood.

And it was then that Rogue knew why it was so hard a decision for him to make.

He may be living back at Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters again, but he isn’t the same. His beliefs were still partially stuck with the beliefs of Erik Lensherr and he doesn’t know what to do now that he’s being imposed into deciding something that meant choosing sides.

Rogue understood.

“If it troubles you so much, just forget it. Don’t.”

It was a simple resolution even to her own ears, but it was the only thing she felt she could say that wouldn’t sway his outlook on the whole affair.

He shrugged, then looked away.

“But I don’t want to just forget it. I kinda’ want to. Be in it, I mean. And then I sorta’… don’t want to. Well, not like that. I feel that I can’t…” he looked helplessly back at Rogue.

She was startled. This was the first time she’d ever seen John Allerdyce so concerned over something. It was a huge change from the ever-cocky, overconfident, ‘I-don’t-give-a-damn’ John she knew.

Clink. Snap. Click. Snap.

He had his – her – their? - lighter out now and was wordlessly snapping it open and closed and she realised how much she missed the sharp resonance of metal on metal over and over again.

“I understand completely if you don’t want to. But it isn’t without its perks I guess…” Rogue said, smiling.

“If you mean wearing those ugly-as-hell leather suits then I think you’ve mixed up ‘perks’ with ‘atrocities’.”

Rogue was relieved to see that John had a smirk on his face.

“No, by ‘perks’ I mean dangerous Danger Room sessions, getting to ride the Blackbird-”

“I nearly died the last time I sat in the Blackbird. I swear,” John said seriously, recalling the day Ororo had piloted the jet through a storm and a series of tornadoes in an effort to escape a couple of jet planes and explosive missiles.

“Yeah,” Rogue was grinning openly now, “Just be thankful you’re still alive.”

John rolled his eyes good-naturedly. “Still, it was some crazy shit.”

“Hey, at least you weren’t the one who got sucked through the hole and plummeted hundreds of feet down to an untimely death before being saved by this unknown blue, teleporting guy.”

John snickered, “Yeah. Well, just be thankful you’re still alive,” he mocked, mimicking her previous words. “What the heck happened to that blue guy anyway?”

Rogue shrugged, “Storm said he went on to become a priest. Or something.”

“Ah.” John couldn’t, for the life of him, see how such a demonic-looking mutant could be a holy man.

It seemed as though all melancholic and troubling thoughts had disappeared and they both silently decided to stay away from the issue for awhile.

“So, how’re you and Bobby holing up?” Rogue asked.

“Alright I guess. He hates me, I hate him. Feeling’s mutual,” John stated lightly, and then much more seriously he asked, “How about you? You holding up okay?”

Rogue tried not to frown. Her inner turmoil of suffering with the Cure, without the Cure… Powers or not, it was unnerving how alike she had felt towards both.

She opened her mouth to reply John.

Not before being cut off by a loud knocking at the door.

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-A/N-: Umm… Uh oh. This is probably my first cliffhanger ever.

Oh, I'm going on a school camp for a week so don't expect an update anytime soon. I'll post Chapter 10 ASAP after I get back.

To answer Kari Lynn Craine’s question, yep, Jasper ‘Firethorn’ Noel is an OC of mine. He doesn’t play a very big part actually (or at least not yet). Just some random kid I decided to put in there so that Pyro could call him a ‘loser’. Haha.

Huge thanks to reviewers Xtreme Enigma334, secondrate, yaba, we-r-the-cure, BitterSweet Amusement, Obiwanfan, PyScHoThErApY17, Sassy08, Chica De Los Ojos Cafe, Fallen Heart, EvilEyeKat, the sillylittlepanda, GaijinVicarious and Skouris.