Chapter 2 – Ice Cream and Logic

Jessie Crowell dug her spoon into the oversized triple chocolate sundae sitting in front of her. Chocolate sauce oozed down the edges of the tall glass, and the ice cream was melting in the heat of the Bayville Ice Cream Shop. She looked at across at Mr. LeBeau, who was sitting opposite her, a desert fork poised over a slice of lemon cheesecake.

Jessie wasn't an expert at reading adult's expressions, but she had the distinct sense that he was distracted, thinking of other things, and definitely didn't want to be there.

Of course, she knew he didn't; she'd heard Miss. Pryde trying to convince him to take her for ice cream. Miss. Pryde probably would have, of course, but she could barely fit behind the wheel of the car anymore, and Jessie had overheard her telling Dr. McCoy she was afraid of being caught in labour in the middle of nowhere drive between Bayville and the mansion.

"You not hungry?" Jessie asked, trying to break the ice. She hated long silences, because long silences meant the people she was with were probably thinking about things and she hated not knowing what people thought.

"Not really," Remy pushed the plate forward a little, he put his desert fork down. He had a guilty look on his face – she recognised that, at least.

"I don't mind," Jessie admitted, "I'm...sorry that Miss. Pryde made you take me out."

Remy gave a pained look at her, he seemed even guiltier, "She didn't make me. I wanted to," he said, and he was a terrible liar. That was strange to think of Remy LeBeau as a bad liar because she'd heard Mr. Drake refer to him as the king of lies and deceit. She wasn't sure what was meant by that, but from the way Mr. LeBeau spoke now it didn't seem as if he were very practiced in lying.

Maybe he can lie real good. Just not to kids, she thought, she took a large mouthful of ice cream from her sundae. "Are you sad?" she asked, her mouth full and slightly numb from the cold.

He picked up his soda and took a sip, "why would you ask that?" he asked.

"You look sad," she shrugged.

"I'm just very, very tired," Remy answered.

"Does that owie keep you awake?" she asked. She'd seen the bandages peering through the half-zipped front of a hoodie once, and yesterday had seen him wearing a tanktop and could see white tape peeking out from beneath the dark grey cotton.

He smirked a little, "sometimes."

"What did it?" she asked, she licked the chocolate sauce off her spoon.

"I...got hurt by a bad man," he answered.

"Does it hurt a lot?"

"Yes," he answered.

"Do you get hurt a lot?"

"Every now and then," he answered, he picked up his fork and tried to attempt to eat a little of the cheesecake, she felt he might be doing so just to make her feel more at ease.

She took another mouthful of the ice cream, managing to smear some of it across her cheek somehow, "what do you do?"

He raised a dark eyebrow, "what'd you mean?" he asked.

"Your power...you're a mutant like me, right?" she asked.

"Oh. I can charge items with energy and make them blow up like bombs," he answered.

Jessie paused, "I blow things up too..." she frowned a little, "sometimes by mistake."

"Me too..." Remy said, and his expression became very sad.

For the first time since coming to the mansion, she felt as if there was someone who possibly understood how she felt sometimes. "Don't be sad, Mr. LeBeau," Jessie said softly.

"I'm sorry. I'm spoiling your birthday," Remy apologised.

"No, you're not," Jessie assured.

"I think you'd have had more fun with Kitty," Remy admitted.

"Miss. Pryde is very busy lately," Jessie said, "she getting ready for the baby..."

There was a short silence, Jessie stopped eating, she put her spoon down.

"When the baby is born...she not gonna have time for me anymore," she admitted, and her eyes welled with tears.

Remy frowned, "No, don't say that. Kitty will always make time for you. She wouldn't just abandon you."

"But she will. When she has her own kid, she won't wanna be with me anymore. And then I'll be alone again."

He shook his head, "no. That's not going to happen..." he picked up his unused napkin and reached over to dab at the tears trickling down her face and at the chocolate and ice cream smeared across her cheeks. "At Xaviers, you'll never be alone."

After the ice cream was melted, and the soda all gone, Remy took Jessie to a movie. The movie theatre was a wonderful place to take kids, he felt. The novelty for Jessie was outstanding, strange how buttered popcorn could make anyone so happy. And for him, a movie was perfect too, he got to sit and quietly reflect while she giggled at Disney characters dancing and singing across the huge wide screen. He didn't have to try to make awkward conversation with a child he didn't know or truly understand.

What he'd heard in the ice cream shop had saddened him immensely. He wasn't a sap for big sad eyes and tears, but one look at that little girl and to hear her fears over being abandoned by Kitty – probably the only mother-figure the girl had had in her life since being orphaned – had made him feel like every emotion he'd had had been under attack.

Remy knew that feeling of being abandoned, he knew the fears that one day everything good in life would crumble and turn to dust and filter away in the wind like it had never existed at all. He'd grown used to it though, and the adult logic that it could be gotten over eventually lingered with him.

But a child's logic was all Jessie had. If everything good in life went away, it probably wasn't going to come back, and she would be alone and abandoned. And never have anything good to look forward to ever again.

He glanced towards her in the dark theatre, her face lit up only vaguely by the big screen, big eyes shiny as they watched with glee. Her momentary happiness would quickly be forgotten soon enough, he realised, when she got back to the mansion and saw Kitty and her large belly, when she started to wonder again if she'd be abandoned once that baby was born.

Somehow, some of Jessie's childish logic seemed to penetrate his, and melt away his adult logic. What if she DOES get too busy for Jessie when the baby arrives? What then? How is Jessie supposed to cope?

He turned back to the movie and tried to focus on clearing his mind with cartoons and laughter, but the thoughts were still there no matter how much he tried. And new thoughts came into play, thoughts of the parentage he'd been robbed of when his daughter had died before her eyes could even open. The dull pain of it came back with a furious vengeance and even though he'd seen her in the afterlife only briefly, he still felt immensely sad whenever he thought of her, especially now.

If Gabrielle had survived, I'd be sitting here with her now instead of this kid I hardly know, Remy thought, he glanced back to Jessie. He wondered if Jessie and Gabrielle would have been friends. It seemed they would be around the same age – Jessie would be slightly younger by at least six months – only three perhaps if Gabrielle had never been born premature.

He swallowed back the emotion building within him; he tried not to think of it for it brought too many painful memories of her funeral, of being the one to carry her tiny coffin to the mansion gardens where the funeral had been held, and then to the cemetery where she'd been buried. He remembered how weightless that tiny casket had been in his arms, how weightless she herself had seemed when he'd been allowed to hold her, bundled in a pink blanket that was far too big for one so small as she.

Thinking of it all brought back the anger when Bella Donna had vanished without word, through the agony she must have been through somehow she'd pulled herself out of the bed and climbed through an open window – she'd never been heard of since.

He'd even gone looking for Bella Donna after running away from the mansion. He'd spent two months in Louisiana trying to find her, but even her family hadn't seen her again and thought her dead. Remy had begun to think the same thing.

Remy closed his eyes tightly and tried to force the memories out, it just hurt too much and being sad on Jessie's birthday seemed unfair to Jessie. When he was alone, he could mourn all he wanted again, but for now, he needed to pretend to be somewhat happy, so that Jessie wouldn't worry that the world was as sad a place as it was.

Jessie turned to look at him, an in the dark he could see in her expression she could sense his despair. Children were such perceptive little creatures and Jessie was no exception. Both tiny hands around the large bucket of popcorn, she held it out towards him to offer him some, as if it would make him feel better.

He forced a smile and took a handful, stuffing it all into his mouth in one go, trying to be comical, to make her smile. Thankfully, it did.