During some down time from saving the world, events leading up to a swimming lesson one fateful afternoon, change Gambit's relationship with his team mate, the mute empath, Poe, for the better... feat. Gen X & X-Force -Please R&R (Gambit X OC)

Disclaimers: I do not own the X-men, Generation X, or X-Force, or even Remy (though my hormones wish I did!). My only claim to any of this is Poe's character and abilities. All the rest belongs entirely to Stan Lee and those wonderful people at Marvel.

Uncanny X-men/X-Force/Generation X crossover

' The Swimming Lesson'

Chapter 1

'Angel Eyes'

It was a cheery April morning when Remy Lebeau aka. 'Gambit' ,came down from his room to join the combined teams for a big home cooked breakfast that Jean Grey and Ororo Monroe were preparing....

He didn't see the need to go too fancy with clothes, so he just kept his black silk boxers on and tugged a white bonds shirt on to cover his well sculptured chest.

When he came from the stairs, he found most of the teams assembled around the huge extended dining table with pancakes piled on plate galore. As always, his eyes searched out his sapphire-haired angel, and his breath caught loud enough to make a few of the others stare at him when he saw her....

She stood by out on the deck overlooking the lake in the early morning sunshine, nursing a bowl of porridge on the railing as she stooped over to sip it, making her little butt all the more prominent faced towards him...And what she was wearing didn't help him either; a thin little white nightgown with shoe string straps and a plunging neckline of lace...The way the sun shone through it and silhouetted her pettie yet curvy form made his boxers fit a little more snuggly....

"He's doing it again!" Jubilee quipped to everyone in a sing song voice and snickered.

Logan sniffed the air, and picked up the scent of the Cajun's arousal once his attention was brought to it by the kid, and he just smiled. As he passed Remy on his way into the kitchen to snag a brewski, he muttered to him; "Yeah, I know... Nice view, huh?"

Remy glared at his back in hot jealousy, and Logan grinned to himself, getting the reaction he had been fishing for.

Deciding he was sick of the others sneaking glances and whispering behind their hands about him, he stalked out onto the balcony to say good morning to his reason for living....

"Mornin', ma chere..." he whispered, always slipping into the soft and calm voice he used when he was around her. It was a bad idea to get mad around Poe. Her empathy was unprecedented, and even a negative undertone in a single word could put her on the defensive or make her rather upset. And he would sooner die than be the reason for any grief to his 'Angel Eyes'....

She straightened from the rail, setting her bowl down on the patio furniture as she turned to grin ecstatically at him. That smile just made his heart palpitate and speed up. In the sun light, her sky blue hair shimmered like gossamer silk, matched only in its brilliance by her alabaster skin, reflecting the light so it seemed she glowed....

Her eyes were her enigma, drenched in the feelings she could not express, strong enough to break a grown man's heart.

God, he loved those eyes when they smiled at him like that. They were the most lurid cornflower blue, and when she stared at him, they had the effect of big brown puppy dog eyes to a child looking in the pet shop window.

She always got all excited when he talked to her, he only had to utter a single word to make her smile at the sound of his voice, and her smile just broadened ear from ear. She swept up to him, beaming, to throw herself into his arms and hug him tightly. Remy's breath caught in his throat when she did that. The fact that she was so close to him, that he could touch her, it was indescribable. As he often did, he now gently wrapped his arms around her to reciprocate the hug -one snaked around her waist, the other up across her back to hold the back of her head in his hand and pat the sapphire silken hair gently. He had died and gone to heaven in her arms, he was certain -but then again that was what he thought every time she touched him like this - and he guiltily felt himself savour it when she settled to press in against him in all the places that counted; belly to belly, thigh to thigh, snuggled in the paradise of her hips -- Just stop thinkin', LeBeau, stop right there! he scolded himself. He tried to distract himself now by turning his head into her hair and inhaling deeply, taking in the smell of her, and she smelt gloriously just like sunshine, blueberry scented shower gel and warm skin, there was no other way to describe it.

"Uh oh," Jean mused as she set down a towering plate of pancakes on the table, at the same time turning to watch the breakfast entertainment that had everyone captivated out on the balcony. "Did he just smell her hair?"

"Looked like it to me!" Jubilee grinned, snagging a pancake from the top and smothering it in syrup.

Jean shook her head and wandered back into the kitchen, tsk-tsking to herself.

"What? Is that a crime??" Beast enquired sheepishly. Jubilee rolled her eyes.

"Gawd, Blue! You of all people should know, being the sciency type nerd!" she exclaimed, apparently not noticing Beast's glare for her description. "Cosmo says that women let out these 'fero-moan' things through their scalp, and when a guy gets a whiff of 'em...Well, it's on!"

"What's 'on'?" Paige asked, looking puzzled.

The Jubester rolled her eyes again and Cable conceded that if she did that again, they'd roll right out of her head.

"Yanno!" Jubille made gestures with her index finger and thumb, using the other finger to demonstrate what she meant but jabbing the pointer into the ring made by her fingers a couple of times and grinned. Paige went red.

Douglock blinked at this new information, then promptly leant over to smell Wolfsbane's hair, much to the girl's puzzlement.

* * * * *

Back out on the balcony, Remy had found it somewhere within himself to let her go from the lock of his arms, and sat and watched her finish her porridge with the backdrop of the shimmering water reflecting the sunlight off it in glittering splendor at her back. She caught his eyes on her, and broke out into another grin that almost made him reach across the table and drag her mouth to his, kiss away that smile and make it his own forever.

The most adorable thing about Poe, was she was honest in everything when it came to him. With the others, whom she still hadn't opened up to, she had every psychic and proverbial wall in place to hide behind, everything was so locked down and she was so cautious... But with him the barriers just weren't there and she expressed her every spontaneous desire. If she wanted to hug him, she hugged him, if she wanted to cry, she cried, without any thought to what any one else would think. As am empath, Poe was really a by-product of her surroundings. She took in the emotions of those around her, and in some way, she made them part of her own and they affected how she acted. On the same token, the mute communicated by projecting her own emotions to those around her, rather potently sometimes. It was her empathy that had saved her from the basement in Department H's compound. If she hadn't of entered their dreams, conveyed her sorrow, they never would have found her down there... The thought made him shiver and want to hold her sometimes when he saw her as she had been for the first time that day: hanging from the restraints which pinned her arms above her shoulders, outstetched as if crucified upon the horrid contraption. She had been wearing the tattered remains of the filthy, thread bare, thermal panties and a breast band. Those awful plugs embedded in her flesh along her arms, her collar bone, her thighs, wrists, ankles, temples, and spine were like festering sores, some of them indeed bleeding where the thousands of wires were hooked into her neural system...

He wondered to himself if in all this time, she had felt his emotions coming off him. Did she have any idea how much he loved her or the reasons he held himself back?

"We're goin' down de lake swimmin' after breakfast... You wanna come, ma amour?" he asked casually.

Her eyes lit up and she nodded enthusiastically, beaming and leaping up out of he chair to hug him again.

"OW!" came a yelp from inside.

Both of them straightened and peered curiously at Jubilee who sat at the table clutching her chest.

"Jeez, Poe!!! Whaddaya tryin' ta do?! Give me a cardiac? Tone down the happy-happy joy-joy!!!"

Poe looked horribly guilty and the others burst out laughing.



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