The Long Road Back
By
All of the characters in the story belong to MARVEL, not me! I am just borrowing them for a while. I will return turn them in good condition with the price tags still attached. So don't sue me because I'm not getting paid for anything I write.
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Remy LeBeau looked at his reflection in the mirror-like surface of the water. He had aged in the seven years away from the X-Men. Grinning, he thought to himself, 'Yeah, but I still look good'.
Remy stood up from his crouched position at the edge of the pond and ran a hand through his dark brown hair before turning and walking away towards his motorcycle. He had a long ride ahead of him, three or four hours on his bike could get mighty uncomfortable, but it was too late to turn back now. He lifted one powerful leg over the seat of the bike and sat down.
He just sat there for a moment, then put on his dark sunglasses. "Well, Remy, dis here's your chance. You wanna turn back?" He asked himself as he wondered if going all the way up to Westchester was such a great idea.
He hadn't exactly left on good terms with everyone. There were many reasons why he left, but the biggest was Rogue. She had never really forgiven him for what happened in Antarctica, she said that she had, but Remy was no fool. He saw right through her. He knew that she resented him for all the secrets he kept even though she had some secrets of her own.
When she had absorbed his memories in Antarctica, she absorbed his self-hatred as well. And truth be told, he hated that he had kept the secrets from her and that had added to her resentment. Like she had taken on his feelings about his inability to tell her about what had happened when she absorbed him.
The arguments flew rampant. He had gotten on the defensive about how she felt even though he knew it was all his fault. The words that had been eating them up inside were exchanged. He had told her that he must have been crazy for trying to be with her. He couldn't get what he wanted from her so the relationship wasn't worth it. All the anger and frustration had finally flooded out of him.
And in return, all of her hurt and pain had poured down like acid rain over him. In the instant that he saw her heart break in two jagged pieces, he realized what he had done. She was lost to him after that. She didn't even say anything, she just walked away.
Logan had confronted him later that day. Wolverine had always been the self-proclaimed protector of the team, but more so over the female members. Always getting involved in things that had nothing to do with him. Logan told him that he had been forewarned about hurting Rogue after he had returned from Antarctica. Those were the only words Logan said to him. He attacked and Remy countered. The fight seemed to last for hours.
As always, Logan had an immeasurable amount of energy. It didn't matter how many times Remy knocked him down, punched him, threw one of his charged cards at him...the man just wouldn't stop going. He had beaten Wolverine a few times in the past, but he knew that time he couldn't have won the battle. He hit him with a charged metal pole and knocked the wind out of him, then walked away.
Several members of the X-Men weren't there at the time of Remy's decision to leave. Hank McCoy, Bobby Drake, Betsy Braddock, Warren Worthington, and Professor Charles Xavier were all away on various tasks. Remy had debated whether or not to tell anyone he was leaving, but decided that he had to at least tell Scott Summers, the leader of the X-Men.
As usual Scott had gone into one of his rampages, saying that Remy was selfish and that the team mattered more than any personal dispute. At some point in the discussion...or rather the argument, Ororo Munroe, or Storm as most know her, and Jean Grey, Scott's wife, walked in.
Jean had been understanding, she always had been. She had tried to calm Scott down, but to no avail. Storm, on the other hand, was unusually critical of him. She called him a deserter. That had stung him more than he cared to show. The one person who had always stuck by him and his decisions, no matter how wrong they were, was now saying that he was abandoning them. Remy shot back that he was never really part of the team, that nobody trusted him. With that, he left.
And now, here he was, seven years later, standing on the fork in the road. Should he go back and face what he had forsaken? Or should he turn away and ignore the overwhelming guilt he still held?
He blinked, then started up his motorcycle, the hard vibration running through his tense body, and drove it up the road. He turned left on the highway, only vaguely noticing the large sign that said: Boston: 243 miles.
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The mansion looked the same as when Remy left it. He pulled his motorcycle to a stop in front of the large building. He tugged off his sunglasses and felt a sudden twinge of nostalgia, the pain in his chest overwhelming for a moment. He remembered the first time he had ever seen Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. A laugh escaped his throat as he hit the kickstand on his bike down with his foot. He unstraddled the bike and stretched for a minute, before shrugging.
"Well, it's now or never, LeBeau."
He walked to the door and rang the doorbell.
He waited for a moment, then rang it again. He turned away from the door and looked over the landscape of the front lawn. He was so preoccupied with taking in every detail that he didn't here the door open behind him.
"Can I help you?" A voice asked.
Remy swung around and looked the woman dead in the eyes. Immediately, he knew who she was. Jubilation Lee was just a young girl when he left, not even a full-fledged member of the X-Men yet. She was no child anymore though. She had grown into a woman.
"Remy? Is that you?" She asked, her dark brown, almond-shaped eyes widened in disbelief.
"Oui, chere. It's me," he replied as she jumped into his arms.
They hugged for a few minutes before she pulled away. She had the same hairstyle, short and simple. That was the only thing that had remained the same though. Her body had blossomed, her figure had finally set into its natural feminine course. She was an inch or two taller and she had gained some weight, no longer the skinny child she used to be.
"I don't know what to say, Remy. It's been so long. Must be close to six or seven years, right?" She asked, as she shook her head, still not believing he was standing in front of her.
Remy nodded. This was a lot harder than he thought. He didn't know what to say, what to do, how to act.
Sensing Remy's feeling of inadequacy, Jubilee took the reins of the conversation. "Lot's has changed since you left, Remy. Not all of it good."
Panic enveloped him as he managed to say, "what happen'd, chere?"
She smiled and took his gloved hand in hers, then led him inside. "About a year after you left, Jean and Scott were driving up to Martha's Vineyard and Scott lost control of the car. They hit a semi-truck and Scott was killed instantly."
Remy's heart sank. He and Scott had never seen eye to eye, but Remy considered him his friend. He closed his eyes, letting the news sink in slowly. "How did he lose control, chere? What about Jean?"
Jubilee's eyes began to water. Her gaze drifted to the floor then back up to Remy's burning red and black eyes. She shook her head slightly. Remy could tell that Jubilee hadn't thought much about the ordeal in quite a while.
"Professor Xavier said that he believed the car had been tampered with but we are still not sure who was responsible. Someone cut the brake lines and when Scott went to slow the car on a steep hill the car wouldn't stop. There was a sharp curve and he couldn't make the turn." Jubilee explained, her voice beginning to choke her throat.
"An' Je-"
"She was in a coma for five weeks and she lost the baby she was carrying. She didn't even know she was pregnant until after the baby was already gone. She went into to this depression and caused her psyche to shut down. It took another year before the Professor could get her back, but she hasn't been the same since." The tears streamed down her face but she continued walking with Remy down the hall.
Remy didn't know how to take it all in at once. Scott's death, Jean's breakdown, and the baby they lost. Those two were the glue that held the team together and now they were gone. How did the rest of the team cope? He couldn't even imagine.
"I don' know what to say to dat, chere," Remy replied.
"There's more."
Jubilee's words echoed in his head. What else could have happened?
"Logan and Storm got married a month after Jean regained her psyche."
Remy looked at Jubilee for a minute. Had Storm and Logan really gotten married? For a second, Remy was debating whether or not he had ever seen anything even close to romance between them, but then his thoughts turned. Why was that bad? Something else must have happened for Jubilee to bring it up in this topic of conversation. They were talking about the bad things that had happened, not the good.
"What else happen'd?"
"Logan was kidnapped by those people that put the adamntium in his bones and they erased his memory. When we found him, he didn't know who we were. He tried to attack us. He almost killed Storm. The Professor convinced him that we could help him, so Logan came back with us. He got most of his memories back, but he still has lapses," Jubilee replied as she squeezed Remy's hand.
"Is dere anymore, chere?"
"Yes, Betsy has been missing for two years. She was here, then she just disappeared. Warren left the team shortly after she came up missing. He's obsessed with finding her.
"Hank infected himself with a deadly virus, but thankfully, he found a cure before it was too late. He's in Washington right now, lobbying for more federal funding for his research.
"And the most exciting thing that happened was Rogue learned how to control her absorption abilities."
Remy stopped walking and froze, just staring at Jubilee. Rogue learned how to control her power. She could touch people now. She could touch him. "Where is she?" He asked, determination and obsession compelling him to find her, to touch her skin.
"I think she's in the kitchen, but Remy-"
Remy ran away from Jubilee and towards the kitchen, thoughts racing through his mind. It didn't matter what happened in the past, it could be mended as long as she still wanted him. How could she not? He was still in love with her after all this time and she felt the same way about him before he left. She must still feel for him. Things would work, they just had to try and--
Remy skidded to a stop in front of the doorway to the kitchen. His eyes widened as he saw her, his heart shattering into a million pieces. She wasn't alone.
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