Gambit was rather surprised when he returned home and found Rogue still up, sitting at the dining table with her laptop.
"Rogue?" he inquired.
"Huh?" Rogue said, lifting her head up and looking at him in surprise. "Oh, hey. What are you doing home so early?"
"Actually, I was going to ask what you were doing up so late," he replied in bemusement, pointing to the clock.
"Wow," she said as she looked. "I had no idea what the time was."
"Evidentally."
"Come see," she said, patting the seat next to her. "I had a visit from Mick tonight."
"He's that guy from the Caretakers, right?" Gambit ask as he slowly walked around to join her.
"Uh huh," Rogue confirmed.
She then proceeded to explain about the survelience - Gambit was just as ticked off as she was about that. Rogue assured him she was going to have Forge and Doug check the place over tomorrow, erm, later that day, and Gambit decided he would look at upgrading their system. Rogue then proceeded to tell him about the results of the power monitoring.
"See, they've noted all the times I've micro-absorbed you or... umm... someone else... in the house and interestingly enough, well, most of the time... that is..." she stammered uncertainly, feeling a blush coming to her face and unable to articulate it, instead founf the relevant paragraph.
"When we've being initmate?" Gambit said aloud. "Chere..."
"They umm, think that it's a subconscious, umm, thing," Rogue said, unwilling to meet his eyes. "They think it's a case of me wanting to be as, umm, close to you as possible so..."
"So you end up absorbing me," Gambit said slowly.
"But it's not killing you or anything!" Rogue inisted quickly. "They think that life force is a flow. Like, umm, picture a tap right, and you have a bowl in the sink under the tap. The tap is always running. I mean, over time as you get older the flow starts to taper off, but that's not the point. Anyway, during the day you use it up, y'know, like fuel or whatever. And people with a healtier lifestyle have a bigger bowl than others. If you have an accident it's like there's a hole in the bowl that makes it run out faster."
"And if you don't use it, it overflows?" Gambit suggested.
"Exactly," Rogue said. "They think that the amount of life force I'm taking from you is so small that you instantly recover. They also think that my mutation allows me to store unused life force. Otherwise, what would be the point of being able to siphon it if it just goes downt he drain anyway?"
"So you have a plug in your sink?"
Rogue chuckled and nodded. "Something like."
Gambit considered thoughtfully.
"How sure are they?" he asked.
"Okay," Rogue said, tapping away at the computer. "This was one of the recommended examples. Okay that's you. I have no idea how they measure life force, but anyway. You came home at 2am and you slept until 10. As you can see between 2 and 10 your life force levels rose steadily. Then you got up and hit the gym, levels went down. Had breakfast -"
"I get the idea," Gambit said. "Looks like I had another workout here too."
"Umm, yeah," Rogue said. "You might say that. We were kinda umm..."
"Being intimate?" Gambit asked, teasing her lightly.
"Yeah. And umm, apparently I absorbed you, umm, a couple of times," Rogue said, pointing out another chart on the screen. "There and there. Now we can compare this to a similiar day... and see? Your life force levels stayed pretty much the same. In fact, they're apparently rather impressed with you, Remy. Your life force levels measure much higher overall than most people your age."
"Well, who wouldn't be impressed with me? I am fairly impressive," Gambit replied expansively and wrapped his arm across Rogue's shoulder, much to her delight. "What are your life force levels like?"
"Off the scale," Rogue replied with a slight smile. "They didn't pull their 'infinite storage' theory out of thin air."
Gambit chuckled.
"Anyway, so at least now we know you're not in danger from me any more," Rogue went on soberly. "The only thing I'm not sure about is, umm, the psyche's making their presence known to you -"
"Je suis desole, ma chere," Gambit cut in. "I... was upset and exaggereated. It doesn't really happen that often. Sometimes I see myself, sometimes Ms Marvel, but otherwise it's only when the absorption is recent that I see anyone else. You had absorbed Frank and he's the last kind of person I wanted in your head."
"I didn't want him in my head either," Rogue replied. "We're going to be keeping an eye on him though. I need to know when they're planning the attack so I'm going to keep going to Barney's for awhile. I have a telepath on standby. He doesn't play poker though so I can't really bring him in."
Gambit chuckled.
"I go there regularily enough, so I'll probably join you," he said.
"Yeah... actually that's probably a good idea," Rogue said thoughtfully. "Frank hates you, both because you're a mutant and because you're way better than him at poker, so he's especially interested in the days you show up."
"I'm all for pressing the advantage," Gambit said. "But enough about Frank. There's something I've been wanting to do for months now."
He cupped her face in his hand and kissed her lips gently. Rogue wrapped her arms about his neck and kissed him back with equal passion.
"I've missed you," she said.
"I've missed you too."