They aren't mine, they belong to Marvel, but I'm not making any money off them so don't bug me about it. The story belongs to me. The historical information was taken from a variety of reliable sources, and is correct as far as I know. My apologies if I made a mistake.
Continuity-wise, I'm not sure. Somewhere in this whole Genosha thing, I don't really know where. It would help if I had all the Magneto Rex series, but I only have the first one so far. Anyway, who cares. :-)

by Diamonde

Rogue looked out over the rooftops of Hammer Bay as the sun sank into burning clouds, the orange fading into red. "Nice sunset," she said, lacking anything better to say.

Magneto looked over at the clear, innocent face. Even the faint marks of stress and concern couldn't mask it, behind the grown-up face and definitely adult body was a little girl who still believed in fairytales. What was it about that little girl that irritated him so much, wanted to make him shake her and make her see that the world wasn't nice, never would be. It didn't deserve her faith, she was a fool to give it. As foolish as he was cruel for wanting to take it away. "I wish I could see it that way." The look on her face was confused, asking how anyone could see it as something other than beautiful. Magnus was overcome with a sudden, desperate desire to be able to see through her eyes. To have the sunset turned into pleasing stripes of colour by her innocence. "Tell me how you see it, what you see. Why is it a nice sunset?"

Rogue frowned. "Ah see a sunset. Pink and gold clouds, orange run, red sky…" She shrugged helplessly. "You can't say why something's beautiful, Magnus. It just… is. Why isn't it? How do you see it?" She watched in frustration as he turned away, looking back at the somehow not pleasing atmospheric display.

"Does it matter?"

"Yes. Ah want to know." She stamped her foot angrily. "What is it with you? You just can't let anybody find out anythin' about you that might make you look more human!"

"I'm not human."

"Yes you are, whether ya like it or not. Now tell me about th' sunset." Rogue gripped his arm, eyes glittering with frustration.

"I don't like red skies." He shook her off, irrationally angry. "They reflect the innocent blood we spill down here back at us, and all anyone ever says it 'how pretty'." She was giving him that odd look, the one she used whenever she thought he was being unstable, and it was usually followed by that 'soothing' voice which he hated. He'd be irrational if he damnwell wanted to.

"Magnus…" Yes, it was the soothing voice, one which would be better used on petulant children.

I wish someone would just get her pregnant so she'd have somone other than me to fuss over, he thought uncharitably.

"It's just because red has the longest wavelength of visible light. That's all."

"No. The more pollution there is in the atmosphere, the redder the sunset is." As he watched it began to fade into purple. Red and purple, sunset colours. His colours. "The sky burned red over Auschwitz, because the ashes of innocent people filled the sky. I should know, I helped put them there." He help up a hand to stop the tumble of sympathetic, placating, useless words. "Don't. I know it was not my fault, there was nothing I could have done. That is why it hurts." He sighed. "One day ... August I think, 1944 ... we burned twenty four thousand bodies, they say. I am not sure, I only knew there were more than I could ever hope to count. Twenty four thousand people, and it still was not enough. There were always more bodies than we could manage, the crematoriums could not work fast enough."

Rogue watched in horror as he spoke, almost oblivious to her presence. She wanted to reach out, try to be some comfort. But he won't thank me for it. He'll push me away like he does everyone else, he won't ever let anyone think that he can't deal with his own pain, even if it kills him. He must be so lonely...

Magnus continued, looking at the sky, lost in recollections of a horror she could never even imagine. "And you had to keep working, as fast and as hard as you could, because if you did not it would be your body they were handling, not your friends and your family. Sooner or later many of the Sonderkommando came across the body of someone they knew. A family member, a neighbour, someone they went to school with ... and you had to carry on, not be a person, just be a machine with no feelings, because you didn't dare stop ... and then in the odd times when you were outside, you could look up at that red sky and let yourself remember who they were, and that they were gone. A visible reminder of the horror, the killing, the senseless cruelty... And as an angry young boy I swore that as soon as I was big enough, and strong enough, I would make sure it never happened again."

"And we're all workin' on it. You, me, the X-Men, everyone... Magnus, we all know what happened and we aren't gonna sit by and let it happen again." She had to keep believing that, otherwise she'd go mad.

"You do not know. You can not understand. And down there, Rogue, in that city, are dead and dying who I cannot save. But I will stop this pointless civil war. Go back and tell the UN that. I will stop the killing, no matter what the cost. If they thought this would break me..." He looked at her once more, and Rogue shivered at the coldness of that glare. "I have survived far worse."

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