Thanks for the reviews! I'd just like to clarify, that I love Gambit. He's defiantly in my top five for characters. I don't mean to dis him by writing this story, so please don't hunt me down, hard core fans! I'm just writing this story with Gambit as the 'bad guy' because in this universe he is supposed to be young and selfish. And in this story, instead of making him a person who would know what it's like to be alone so he does all he can to be a good father, he is a person who doesn't know anything about a real family and therefor abandons his little girl. You'd think that a person who suffered from something would know better to do it to someone else, but we have cases all the time where a person is a bully because they were bullied and people beat their children because they experienced domestic violence from their parents. Our world is filled with vicious cycles such as those and that's where this story is coming from.
I'm sorry if I offended anyone with this story. I hope you'll be able to make the stretch to see the side of Gambit I'm working with, a kind of alternate universe Remy, and keep reading, but I'll understand if this idea is too farfetched for you. Everyone has their own opinions, right? No disrespect to you or the Cajun.
And I'm sorry for my horrible grammar. I know it's annoying to be reading something and find all these mistakes, but I don't have much time for writing, so when I do get to write, I do it quickly/sloppily and don't take time to edit it. The curse of a teenager.
And for anyone interested in hearing the lullaby Remy sang, it's called 'Didn't Leave Nobody but the Baby'. There's this guy on YouTube that does a pretty good cover of it, but Town Hall does an okay version too.
xXx
"I-I can't believe this. Remy can't have done this." Jean stated, shocked.
The X-men sat around the table sipping coffee. It had been a long night. They realized it was going to be a very long day when they went to go check on the baby to find Gambit gone with no trace. They attempted to find him, but they knew that if the thief didn't want to be found, he wouldn't be.
"I can." Scott muttered, taking a drink of his black coffee.
Lightning flashed in Storm's eyes. "He'll be back."
"No he won't." Bobby argued.
"Yes he will!"
"Come on Storm, Gambit's long gone. He's not coming back." Bobby said, his face hard.
"But, how can he just leave? Leave the X-men, his daughter?" Jean asked, looking around at each of the other's faces for an answer.
"Because he's a coward. Always has been." Logan said coldly, entering the room. He had just spent the last two hours watching over the baby, talking to her softly so she wouldn't feel alone. He had only left her side because Xavier ordered him to go get some breakfast and promised the feral mutant that he'd watch over her while he was gone.
They stared at Logan, but didn't try to argue with him. Gambit was one of Logan's closest friends from the X-men. They both could be seen smoking on the roof together or racing their customized bikes against each other. But Logan took Gambit's abandonment very personally.
Logan grabbed a cup of coffee then headed back down to the baby's side.
"He'll be back, I know it." Storm said stubbornly.
xXx
A month later, everyone had given up hope of Gambit returning. They heard rumours that he was deep within the Thieves Guild, but little else. Gambit was known for disappearing for months at a time with no word, but this was different.
Logan had unofficially been named the baby girl's guardian. He was by her side every day, keeping her company. She had bad days, when they were sure she wouldn't make it through the night, and good days when they were even able to hold her. He had even been working on setting up a nursery in the room next to his, painting it a bright yellow and building shelves for it. One day when Steve Rogers had a day off, he came over and they worked together to build an adjoining door between the two rooms.
At the moment, Logan was sitting in the chair next to the incubator, reading out loud a motor manual for one of his bikes to the baby. Storm entered the room quietly and watched the man with interest.
"The next sections about changing the oil, we can skip this part since I already told you how to do that last week, but...hey 'Ro." Logan turned to look at the pretty woman with white hair. She smiled softly and walked over to look down at the baby girl.
"Reading her motorcycle manuals? Really Logan?" Storm asked in an amused voice.
Logan shrugged. "She needs to hear a voice and I can't think of enough things to say."
"Have you tried singing?" Seeing the look he gave her, Storm laughed. "Right, stupid question."
Logan got up and went to get another chair for Storm to sit in. They were both quiet for a bit, then Storm broke the silence.
"What's bothering you Logan?"
"Who says somethings bothering me?" Logan replied.
"I know you, Logan. The vein at your temple is throbbing. That either means you're about to kill someone, or you're thinking very hard about something."
"Do I have a stalker?"
"Don't flatter yourself, I'm just observant. Now tell me what's bothering you."
Logan sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. "I've been spending the past month with this baby, and I keep thinking of her as 'the baby'. She doesn't have an identity."
Storm nodded, knowing that all the X-men only called her 'the baby'.
"So, I think we should change that. It doesn't feel right, she should have a name."
Storm furrowed her brow. "Logan, we can't. We're not her parents. That's Remy's-"
"Come on 'Ro! He ain't coming back!" Logan said in a louder voice then he meant to. Taking a breath, he continued. "It's not fair to her. If we keep up this act, that kid's going to be starting college and still be called 'the baby'."
Storm thought about this. She felt guilty about the idea of naming her brother's child without his consent. In her heart she still felt like he would come back any day with a brilliant explanation for his disappearance. As an abandoned child himself, shouldn't he be more empathetic and willing to care for his child? He is young, only twenty, but Storm knew that he was a good man and would do the right thing. Eventually.
Softly, as if she felt she was betraying Remy less if she said it in a quieter voice, she said. "Any suggestions?"
"Claire." Logan said without hesitation. When Storm looked at him in surprise, he said "What?"
"Nothing, I was just sure you were going to suggest 'bub'."
xXx
Within another two months, Claire was strong enough that she was able to move into the nursery Logan set up. While she still had to have an oxygen hooked up to her, Claire was able to eat without the assistance of a feeding tube and had a healthy heart. Since there was no current emergency going on in the world that called them away, the X-men felt this was a good excuse to throw a little party. Sort of a 'congratulations for living'.
Xavier had ordered lots of pizza to feed the crowd, as well as having an assortment of chips, cut up fruit and vegetable trays and many salads. Jean had done a last minute decorating job, putting balloons in every nook and cranny and hanging different coloured streamers from the walls. She had even gone to the trouble of making a banner out of an old bed sheet that read 'Claire-Bear, jr. X-woman!'. And what kind of party would be incomplete without a steady supply of beer.
"Aahh, a cold brewski." Bobby sighed, snagging a beer from the table.
Scott frowned and took the beer away. "Not for you, minor."
"Ah, come on Scott!" Bobby whined, tracing after the X-men leader as he walked away. "Just one! I promise, I won't tell anyone! Scott!"
They pasted Hank who was helping Jean and Angel fold up the clothing they had bought for Claire that day, and talking about a rumour they heard that Tony Stark was dating his assistant Pepper. Storm and Logan talked quietly as they ate pizza, with Claire sitting on Logan's lap.
"-so then we woke up and there was this huge bear rooting through our supplies and-hey you, what do you think you're doing?" Logan interrupted his story, looking down to see Claire gumming the slice of pizza in his hand. He bounced her lovingly on his knee and gently took the slice away.
"Aww, look at that!" Jean cooed, pointing over them. "I'm getting a picture!"
"Is pepperoni poisonous to babies?" Bobby wondered out loud as the others gathered around to look. He began to take a sip of his stolen beer only to have it taken away by Hank. "Hey!"
"She probably shouldn't be eating it, her digestive tract isn't ready for it." Hank replied easily as he held the beer out of Bobby's reach. "Which is too bad, the pizza might have helped her gain weight faster this way."
Gaining weight was a problem for Clair. Despite the doctors' efforts, she had only been able to gain three more pounds, and now roughly weighed five and a half pounds. Though she was eating, her body refused to store the fat.
"We're not worrying about her health problems tonight." Jean ordered, snapping a couple more pictures. "She's doing a lot better and we're going to be positive. Now everyone get together, we're going to take a picture."
Jean set up the camera and set it on a timer. Logan handed Claire off to Charles, and knelt beside his chair, giving a wolfish grin. Storm took a position behind Logan, laying her hands on his shoulder. Hank and Warren stood together with their arms crossed, showing their flexing muscles. Scott stood with his arm wrapped around Jean's waste. Bobby waited until the last second to jump on Scott's back, hugging him tightly as the flash went off.
"Bobby! Get off!" Scott yelled, pushing the teenager off as the others snorted with laughter.
"You goofs better not have ruined my picture." Jean muttered, collecting the camera and checking the picture.
"Do we have to take another?" Storm asked, looking over Jean's shoulder to look at the picture.
"No, it looks great! Look, Claire even opened her eyes! See?" Jean said proudly, holding up the camera to show the others. Everyone was excited until they got a closer look at the little girl's eyes.
"Oh my…" Hank said, breaking the silence.
It wasn't uncommon from premature babies to have their eyes closed for the majority of the time, even when she was awake. And to protect her sensitive eyes from the light, they had her wear these pads over them. Only now they realized that none of them had ever seen her eyes before, but now they had them on camera. They weren't the light blue that most babies' eyes are, not even the red on black like her father's. Claire's eyes were a pure black, everything from the iris to the cornea. It was looking into a starless night sky.
"She looks possessed or something, like out of a horror movie." Bobby muttered, earning him a hard glare from everyone. "What! I'm just saying, pure black eyes on a baby is creepy!"
"Shut up Bobby." Logan ordered, taking Claire into his strong arms. When she made a small sound like a yawn, he declared. "She's had enough for today, I'm going to take her to her new room."
"Do you want some help putting her to bed Logan?" Storm offered.
"Nah, I got her." Logan shook his head. He exited the room, with Bobby tagging after him.
"Logan, you know I didn't mean anything! I love Claire, she's awesome, it's just that her eyes startled me." Bobby apologized weakly.
"Yeah, I know."
By the time Logan had set Claire's oxygen tank up and her monitor in case something went wrong during the night, she was sleeping soundly in her crib. Logan laid another blanket over her, knowing how she got cold easily.
"Don't listen to that kid Claire Bear, his mouth thinks faster than his brain." Logan muttered softly. "Don't listen to anyone who gives you guff about your eyes. Because as long as those eyes do what you tell them to do, they're fine."
Claire made a little snort, making Logan smile. He turned on the mobile above her head that had the top ten Canadian hockey players hanging from it. "Night kid."
A few minutes after Logan left, a shadowy figure opened the large window and let himself into the nursery. Without a sound, he crept to the crib side and looked down. The baby awoke but didn't make a sound. Instead she just looked up so that her pure black eyes met black and red ones.
"Hey petite, how yah do'n?" Gambit asked in a very quiet voice. "I hear you've been do'n better. And yah've grown, you're such a big girl now. Still got a ways to go though."
Claire tilted her head and studied her unknown father.
"Ah'm-Ah'm sorry, baby girl. Ah know I should have been here for yah." Gambit whispered. He reached down, but just before his manly fingers could brush her soft pale skin, he retracted it. "But trust me, I wouldn't be no good for you. Ah ain't know nothing bout babies or how to be a pere. And yah've been getting good care here. Logan's older, he know how ta take care of yah, and'll kill anyone who tries ta hurt yah."
Claire's only reply was a look that made Gambit feel as if she was looking into his soul. He shivered and stepped back. He didn't know if it was to calm his own nerves or to make her stop staring at him like this, but he began to hum their old Southern lullaby. It seemed to work because Claire closed her eyes.
"Yah'll understand when yah're older, petite, believe me on that." Gambit said defiantly. He placed a black and silver velvet necklace box on the bedside table. Inside was a silver necklace with a moon charm decorated with small diamonds, something Gambit picked up on his last job with the Guild. He heard distant footsteps coming closer, but was out the window before Storm entered the nursery.
Storm checked on the sleeping baby, then spotted the black velvet case on the table. Guessing who had left the gift, Storm picked up the case and took it with her as she left. She figured Logan would not be happy to know that the Cajun had come back to Claire, only to leave again.