After The Fall

Rogue stretched out, sinking back into her chair with a sound of pleasure. It had been a while since they'd taken anything remotely resembling a vacation - even if in the end they'd only retreated to Genosha - that it felt good to relax and not have to worry about keeping their guard all the way up. The kids could play, and they only had to pay as much attention as an average sapien mother.

"Jeremy!" she called, halting her four and a half year old in his steady forward trek into the open ocean. "Not too far! Y' know you're leadin' th' pack! Remember, y' gotta keep in mind those littler 'n you!"

He heaved a heavy sigh, but sloshed back toward the shore.

"That's better!"

By her feet the twins were sitting on a blanket in full shade, poking at the sand in utter fascination. "I swear..." she commented to her alts. "You'd think he was always invulnerable."

Rogue had her hood up as she moved through the halls, heading toward Mrs. Drake's room and smiling politely at the few people she passed. She'd been keeping to herself a lot more than usual, and even though she could state many reasons for it that she was sure were absolutely acceptable, she didn't like it. She didn't like feeling like she needed to be alone. That was something that she had already gotten over a long time ago, and she needed to make herself get over it again.

That was easier said than done, though, and she didn't want to bother Jean about it, especially since she was pretty sure it wasn't going to be a simple fix. Besides, she needed to do it herself, without putting more on Jean's plate. So it seemed as though the most logical next step was to go to the two oldest versions of herself and see if they had any advice.

She paused outside the door, listening for some sign of whether or not the babies she knew were in the room were awake. After a moment, she knocked softly.

It had been a tough few days. She'd called in over the weekend to cancel all of her appointments for the week, not giving them a real answer as to why, even though she knew that they had plenty of questions. She wasn't even completely sure that she still had a job. The general mood in the mansion had been tense, to say the least, and the twins had, unsurprisingly, picked up on it.

Even though they were all back in their suite, the twins had absolutely no desire to sleep anywhere but in the big bed with her and Kurt... which suited her just fine. Given everything else that was going on, she wanted them as close as possible at all times. She was less thrilled about how long it was taking them to fall asleep, but after quite a few false starts, they'd finally reached the point of exhaustion and were curled up on their parents, sound asleep. Rogue wasn't completely sure that she was going to be able to fall asleep herself anytime soon, and she had a feeling that Kurt was in a similar boat.

"So," she turned to look at Kurt, careful not to move enough to wake the toddler who was sleeping on her and keeping her voice low as she stroked the spade of Katie's tail, "What the fuck are we going to do?"

Anna rooted around in her backpack for a moment before finding what she'd been looking for with a triumphant "aha!" and slowly pulling her hand out, grinning at the excitement on the three tiny faces in front of her. Once the candy was visible, the three practically started bouncing, and she laughed. "You're all going to be good, right?"

After they promised they would be, she unwrapped the suckers and handed them each one, setting her bag down in the sand again as they ran off toward the shoreline. "Don't go in the water with those!"

"She's going to kill me," Anna grinned as Katie pulled her freshly sticky sucker out of her mouth and made a move to stick it to her brother.

She shifted Katie on her hip as she headed down to the workshop, smiling at the girl as she did her best to bury her face in Rogue's shoulder. Apparently Katie wasn't quite ready to wake up from her nap yet, even though it was well past the time that she usually woke. Hopefully that wouldn't translate into being cranky once she actually had more to do than just snuggle up against someone.

Reaching the door to the workshop, she hesitated before deciding on knocking. She wasn't sure what all he was up to in there other than the inducers, so it was better to be safe than sorry.

Rogue slowed her descent as she reached the bottom of the stairs, grinning as the twins giggled in her arms. She landed softly and loosened her grip on them enough that they could make themselves more comfortable now that she wasn't airborne.

"Fy gain!" Matti bounced, patting his hands against her shoulder as Rogue headed toward the elevator to the sub-basement. Not even a second later, Katie was echoing him, bouncing just as enthusiastically on the other side.

"Don't you wanna climb?" She raised an eyebrow, smiling as she stepped onto the elevator. They both nodded. "After we climb, we can fly again."

That seemed to be the kind of answer they were looking for, and she let them both down once the doors opened. They turned the corner, giggling as they headed into the gymnastics room. They had already made a beeline for one of the parallel bar setups when Rogue reached the door and noticed that someone else was already in there.

"Hey," she greeted, heading to where the twins were clambering over the apparatus. "Didn't realize anyone else was in here... we can head out if you wanted to use the room alone."

Rogue had nearly forgotten that she had an appointment that morning, but did manage to get to work just in time, after making plans for Kurt to bring the twins into town for lunch later. It had been a relatively long sitting, the last of a large back piece that she'd been working on for over a month, off and on. She finished up a tiny bit later than she would have liked to, but still early enough that she wasn't going to hold lunch up much.

She was just finishing up with the clean-up when the door to the shop opened and a familiar tiny voice started babbling excitedly. Looking up from her table, she grinned and headed around the counter to scoop Matti up. "Hey, baby!"

"Hey, other baby," she added, reaching to give Katie a grin and a handshake before turning to kiss Kurt on the cheek. "Husband. Session went a little bit long, but I'm almost done puttin' everything away. We're gonna want to get out before the new girl who works the counter gets back from her lunch break, 'cause she's all kinds of baby crazy."

Rogue squatted and leaned against the wall as Katie grinned and hit it a few times, pulling herself up with a giggle. It had taken no time at all for the twins to realize that if they could crawl on the floor, they could crawl on the wall. The fact that they didn't seem at all concerned with falling was a little bit scary, even if it was somewhat admirable.

Katie turned her head and burbled, bouncing a little bit as she picked her hand up to keep moving up the wall. She was barely two feet off the ground and moving relatively slowly, but Rogue kept a hand at her back just in case. "I'm gonna regret lettin' you do this whenever you want, ain't I?"

He wasn't entirely sure about this whole solid food thing. It sounded good in theory, but pureed baby food and fur just didn't seem like a particularly good combination in his book. Still, Rogue was adamant that she wasn't nursing them if fangs started coming in, and he sure as hell couldn't blame her, so starting to supplement with solids was probably a good idea. Still, he looked dubiously at the pair sat up in their high chairs, little arms flailing cheerfully as they banged on the trays. They were just about lost behind their almost full body bibs, which was a good idea in his opinion, and Kurt shifted his attention back to the jar in his hand.

"Strained peas, huh?" Jeremy had done all right with strained peas, he seemed to remember...to the extent he'd paid attention, anyway. But Jeremy also hadn't had a full body fur coat. "You're sure they need solids, huh?"

She made a face at Matti as he gurgled and drooled and was generally way too adorable for anyone's good. He babbled something completely nonsensical and she laughed, leaning down to brush her nose against his. "What're you trying to say? That don't even make any sense."

He grinned up at her, kicking his legs up as he waved his arms, stopping as his hand hit the spade of his tail. Still burbling nonsense, he swiped at it, not quite managing to grab hold of it. He was getting closer, though, and she reached to help him, making another face at him as she used the tail to tickle his stomach. He went from grinning to outright laughing, and she couldn't help but laugh along with him as she leaned down again to kiss his forehead. "You are too effin' cute, Matti."

"One of the ladies at the grocery store said this place is nice," Petra told Rogue as they pushed the kids down the sidewalk in their strollers. "Not that I asked, mind you. But you know how those ladies are," she continued, certain Rogue knew what she was talking about. All these older women with nothing to do but chat up new moms, pinch baby cheeks, pat pregnant bellies. Petra was just glad she wasn't showing yet.

"But I want to get Bobby something to cheer hi- her up. She's so upset about what happened. Don't get me wrong, I am too," she added quickly. "Ali wasn't- well, we weren't close. Not like the Ali back in the dome but still. I'm going to miss them all." Petra sighed. "I didn't want to be a downer today and look at me."

"Hey, you," Rogue cooed, leaning down and giving Matti a kiss on the nose and then pulling back to stick her tongue out at him. After a second, he copied the action and she grinned again, leaning in to let him know, "You are too fucking cute. Don't tell daddy that I said fuck. Twice."

She fully intended to stop cursing around them, and she was doing a pretty good job, considering just how often she usually swore. She'd managed to cut out about 85% of it, which was definitely an improvement, but sometimes it just slipped out anyway. She turned her head as Katie started making noises and she scooted closer on the bed, making a face as she came into Katie's line of sight. Thankfully, it wasn't the kind of noise that signaled the start of a tantrum and she gave her a kiss as well.

"Why do I get the feeling that you're the one I'm gonna have to be extra careful around?" Katie already "talked" a lot more than Matti did. Even though she looked a lot more like Kurt, Rogue was pretty sure she was starting to take after her in terms of attitude. Katie gurgled and flailed a little bit, bopping Rogue in the face in the process. Laughing, Rogue took hold of Katie's hand and kissed it, then nodded. "See? That's what I'm talking about."

"Grass Grrr aaaaaa sss," James enunciated carefully, grouching in front of his daughter and holding out a handfull of grass to her. "It's grass, see?" Mia giggled and took the grass, throwing it up in the air.

"Laffa! Ipputsh laffa!" she cheered, clapping her hands and smiling.

"Well, yeah, I guess it's leaves too," James agreed, shaking his head and chuckling. "Leaves of grass," he insisted, taking a long piece and tickling her nose.

She chewed on her lip slightly as she concentrated on the tiny device in her hand, looking past it for a moment to grin at Matti. "One sec, Matti. You're gonna look awesome."

Patting him on the stomach with one hand, she shifted and continued to program the inducer. It was really far too much fun, even if it fucking blew that they needed to use them at all. At least they were interesting to tinker with. She finished up and leaned in to kiss him on the forehead as she slid the inducer back into place on the belt, looking up at Kurt. "Ready for it?"

Raising both eyebrows, she hit the button on the inducer and leaned back, smiling as the image appeared pretty much just how she wanted it to. Nodding, she explained the hair and outfit, "Disco baby."

Rogue picked up the pace slightly, still letting Jeremy have a bit of a lead as he giggled and ran toward the water, dragging his pirate along through the sand. Apparently, he thought that the captain needed to be claimed by the sea. While Rogue was fully aware of the danger that went along with being a pirate (and she hoped that the pirate was too), she was pretty sure that Jeremy didn't really want his favorite toy to end up at the bottom of the sea. Grinning, she took to the air, swooping in to grab Jeremy and his pirate up just before he reached the water.

"I don't think ye want to be doin' that, matey," she informed him, grinning as she floated back toward where Rogue, Kurt, and the twins were. Her pirate imitation left a lot to be desired, but she found herself not giving a shit as she added solemnly, "The sea be a harsh place."

Somewhere in her head, somebody started mocking her for being so pathetic, but she shut them up. Yes, it was stupid. Yes, she probably would/should have punched herself for being such a huge dork and saying something like that. It didn't fucking matter, though, and she planted a kiss on Jeremy's forehead, straightening up and landing as she reached the blanket. Jeremy started to squirm as soon as she sat down and she loosened her grip on him, looking at the others. "Got him."

Rogue stretched out on the blanket alongside the twins, who were blinking up at... she didn't know if they were actually looking at anything, really. Matti's eyes were doing the weird probably not focusing thing, and she couldn't tell what Katie was or wasn't seeing, thanks to her inheriting her father's eyes. Still, Rogue turned her head and looked up as well, smiling at the umbrella. She'd picked a very shaded area of the garden to set up shop, hoping that the sun wouldn't get to them too much since she had no idea how sunscreen and fur were supposed to work. It had rained pretty heavily earlier, too, and the added protection of the hugeass umbrella she'd propped up to shield them from any drips from the trees was probably enough to guarantee they'd be fine.

"I'd tell you what it is you're lookin' at, but y'all don't understand a word I'm saying anyway, and so as long as I say it like this you're gonna be happy," she cooed at them, smiling as she added, "Unless you get all cranky 'cause your daddy ain't here. But daddy isn't here because your momma's what people call a bitch." Kurt was up in the room, taking a much needed nap. The twins had been particularly restless the night before and she'd decided that if they didn't need to be fed, she wasn't getting up. She still hadn't slept through the whole night, but she'd gotten more sleep than he had, and once she'd woken up enough to realize just how awful he looked because of it, she felt horrible for doing it in the first place.

There had been a great thunderstorm earlier, and though she woke up for part of it, the twins hadn't. As soon as it started to clear, though, she offered to take the babies outside for a while so he could have some peace and quiet. At least for a little while. Leaning in and giving Matti, who was closest, a kiss on the forehead, she assured him, "Don't worry, momma's working on it."

She smiled down at the twins as she settled down beside them in the bed, reaching behind herself with a little bit of a grunt as she adjusted the pillows at her back. Hank had given them the okay to go back up to the room, and she'd been more than willing to get out of the makeshift med lab. It wasn't like it would be hard to get in touch with him or Josh if they needed either of them, and the twins looked like they were in good shape. So for the time being, they were up in the room. Hank had said that he'd be up to check on them periodically, but Rogue didn't really expect him to be up for a while. She leaned in to kiss Katie's forehead, brushing a finger across her tiny cheek.

"Is it creepy that I just kinda want to stare at them?" Turning her head, she looked at Kurt. "'Cause it could just be the exhaustion talking, but that's kinda where I am right now."

Plus, staring and not really thinking sounded like a great plan for a little while. She thumbed the spade of the tail that was coiled around her wrist, sighing. Staring really hadn't gotten old yet.