Disclaimer: Don't own them!

Note: Hey! Sorry for the wait, I've just been a little busy with college. Right now, I'm just gonna sit and study, but as sad as that is, I hope receiving reviews will make my afternoon happier. So please! My grades and mental health depend on you ;-)

Chapter 4: Or forever hold your peace.

7:10 pm.

"I'm gonna kill him. No: I'm gonna gut him out, and kill him. No… I'm gonna gut him out, slice him, and kill him later on" Logan stated, in a very dangerous low voice.

"He'll come" Rogue murmured, staring impassively into empty space.

"Goddamn it, Stripes, don't you see it? I knew this would happen! That's why I didn't want to come in the first place! I knew that bastard would do something like this, sooner or later".

"He WILL come" she repeated, and this time he could see tears glittering in her eyes. "Did anyone call him?" Her voice was almost broken.

"Yeah; he won't answer the phone".

"An' his brother's? They were…"

"He won't answer the phone either, Rogue" the Canadian said. Then, they both stayed in silence. With the small amount of clarity she still had on her mind, she thought it was the most painful, definitive silence ever. Could this be actually happening to her?

7:14 pm.

Being at only a few feet from the church's door, with everybody out there, saying God knows how many awful and mocking things?

7:18 pm.

Would she have to go back home, take off her dress, throw the bouquet to the garbage and undo her hair, like in some pathetic soap opera? Why on earth was Remy possibly doing this to her? It was unexplainable, it was…

7:21 pm.

Then, and even before she could comprehend why, her heart jumped inside her chest. And it was because she heard it: the engine of his bike, approaching.

Were her ears deceiving her?

7:22 pm.

With her stomach turned, she decided to look out the window.

Everyone was staring at a certain spot.

She did the same…

"He better have an extraordinarily great explanation for this" she heard Logan's voice.

There was Remy arriving, parking his bike, getting off it, being received by a bunch of people, fixing his neck tie kind of thing, and running inside the church. It was such a strange scene in front of her eyes, she almost exploded in laughter.

"So, are we ready now?" Logan stared at her.

"Yeah… this is so crazy…" she said, still looking sort of confused, but then put herself together. "Thanks, Logan. Thanks for… everythin', not only this…"

"Hey" he interrupted her. "Don't say that again. You know I'll always be here, ok? Even from now on".

"Ah know" she smiled.

"Let's get this done, then. This suit's starting to itch".

He got off the car right away, and once he was outside, he offered her his arm to help her out. Taking a deep breath and trying to relax both her shoulders and her burning brain, she got off the car.

(...)

"Oh my stars and garters!" Hank McCoy exclaimed, when down the middle of the street and riding his bike, appeared no other than the much requested groom.

After that, it all was like a chain reaction: faces turned one by one, sighs of relieve and chuckles were heard, and some people even ran towards him, not really sure if they wanted to ask him for an explanation, to punch him, or to thank him for arriving and prove them wrong about him being such a prick.

Stepping repeatedly on her long dress, Kitty was the fist one to reach the Cajun.

"Oh my God! If you wanted to make, like, a totally dramatic entrance: you got it!" she shrieked. "Where were you?!"

"It's a long story, petite" he puffed, getting off his bike. "My brother's in jail now… I was in jail! An'…"

"Why doesn't that surprise me?" said Jean sarcastically, her arms crossed over her chest.

"It wasn't Remy's fault dis time!" he defended himself, and then, Storm intervened: she had been very worried about all this, but the only way someone could have told, was by seeing the way she tapped one of her fingers against another one, her hands entwined by the front of her body.

"I am sure it is a very interesting story, Gambit, but you can tell it later".

"Oui, oui, I'm…" he started to talk, but was suddenly interrupted by the short, skinny, bony and very old priest, whose presence nobody had noticed.

"Excuse me… I have another wedding to officiate at 8 o'clock, so if nobody's getting married right now, could you all, please, clear the way? Thank you…"

"Non, non! We ARE getting married" clarified Remy, stepping forward.

"Well, in that case…" The old man grabbed Jean's wrist and tried to drag her inside the church. "…the bride should be walking down the aisle already; I don't have time for…"

"I'm not the bride!" the telepath yelled, horrified.

"No? So, she hasn't arrived either?" he questioned, his confused face showing hundreds and hundreds of tiny wrinkles. "Are you sure you want to get married? This is a big step…"

"SHE'S… in de car, father" Remy explained, biting his tongue not to sound rude. "We be ready now".

"Oh…" he said, with a meditative expression. "So, you made your future wife wait? Uh, uh, bad start…" and saying this, he went walking inside the church.

"Dieu…" Remy sighed, rubbing his whole face with both of his hands. He couldn't believe things could get more difficult than they already had.

"Whatever! Just go in and I'll go get Rogue" Kitty said, and right away ran towards the car.

"Oui, let's just go…"

"Wait: if your brother… couldn't come" Jean politely mentioned "who will be your best man?" With all the things that had happened, that was for sure the least of Remy's worries. So he, as well as everybody, turned to stare at Scott, who just shrugged and said:

"Sure, man".

Next, the procession of mutants and other people Jean had invited (most of them not known either by Rogue or Remy), moved inside the church. The last people to do it were Jubilee and Jamie:

"Oh, snap!" he cried, handing the girl the 10 bucks he had bet Remy wouldn't show up.

There were only Logan and Kitty outside the church now. Oh, yes: and the photographer, who had already taken over forty pictures with people's worried faces before Remy arrived, people's surprised faces when he did, then the big arrival on his bike, and now, Logan's not very happy expression.

"Get that thing out of my face, bub, or I'll make you swallow it".

"Hey, don't be evil!" Kitty protested, and suddenly, a cloud of blue smoke appeared right by their side, and with it, Kurt with the most freaked out face you could ever imagine.

"Rogue! I couldn't find him anyvhere! I vent to the mansion, even to the acolytes' place..."

"Kurt…" Kit tried to speak.

"…I vent to a few bars and clubs and everything…"

"Hey…"

"…To that place vhere they fix bikes, and…"

He could have gone on and on about his twenty minutes' trip all across the city in the search for his perhaps-future-adoptive-half-brother-in-law, but Logan made him shut up:

"The Cajun's here already, so go get your blue ass inside the church now".

Kurt's disorientated face was also immortalized by the photographer.

(…)

Rogue had faced powerful mutants in deadly fights; she had dealt with dozens of psyches inside her mind, trying to drive her crazy and take over her will and her powers; she had gone through a lot of things, all on her own, but this was for sure the time her heart was beating the fastest. She didn't remember having ever even dreamed about this moment, differently from most of girls; and right now, every second that passed, every step she gave towards the entrance door, just let her know it was real, just in case she could still have any doubt.

She knew Remy loved her, but a few months back she would have never thought he would want this. And he didn't want it, until he met her. He had mocked at men who got married and had a family, thinking they'd get enormously bored, until there was nobody else he wanted to spend time with, but her.

It's the greatest thing to realize you can still surprise yourself.

Now, she didn't know where to look at; it was so weird to suddenly go from the silent, cold car, to this huge place where everybody was just staring at her like she was some kind of freak. And Kitty, in her role of bride's maid, wasn't making it any easier: walking slowly and theatrically, giggling and smiling and waving at everyone; Rogue would have liked to push her hurry.

Her stomach… her stomach again, and the butterflies. Known and unknown faces, the flashes of the camera, and that music that made her feel kind of dizzy and completely surreal: a violin, a cello, a clavichord, and it was like those Bach's pieces from 1700's.

She would have puked right away if she wouldn't have suddenly seen Remy's frame, waiting for her, at the end of the aisle.

That's when she thought: why should she be nervous and scared? Because of people around her? Who gave a damn about them? All she needed to be happy was right there, waiting for her, looking ridiculously amazing in that suit. So she didn't hide it anymore: she started to laugh, never losing contact with his anxious eyes. She could tell he was a little nervous too (that was easy to tell because he rarely was), and he did nothing but staring at her, like he was hypnotized, like they were all alone and nobody else existed in the world, but the two of them.

Finally, when they were so close, face to face, only a couple of feet away, the spell was suddenly broken: Logan stopped walking, and even thought she pulled his arm a little, he wouldn't move. Everybody froze, and most of them thought that, if eyes could kill, Remy'd be dead by now, given the murdering narrowed gaze the Canadian was directing to him.

It seemed like he hadn't forgotten the little delay incident.

"Excuse me…" the priest intervened, making his voice heard in the whole church, using a microphone. "This is the part when you let the girl go".

Logan didn't even bother in glimpsing at the old man; almost without moving his lips, he spoke in such a low voice only Remy and Rogue could hear:

"You better treat her right, Gumbo", and finally released her arm.

Remy, of course, wasn't at all surprised by this friendly gesture; so he decided to strike back, in a way Logan didn't expect:

"I will" he said, and offered a handshake.

Like the air wasn't thick enough, the piece the musicians were playing just finished, leaving the place in complete silence and everybody in the room with their breaths held.

Logan still didn't trust him, and he never thought he would; but since he knew Rogue, he had never seen her happier than now that she was with Gambit. Could he be wrong about the Cajun?... No, he was never wrong (or so he thought).

But what did he have to lose, anyway?

So, even though a little bit reluctantly, he shook hands with Remy, and everybody could breathe calmly again.

Right when Logan moved to a side, and Remy turned to look back at Rogue, it wasn't her what he saw, but an imminent white lilies and green leaves bouquet coming directly to punch him on his shoulder:

"Damn it, Swamp Rat! Yah scared the hell outta me!" her voice echoed in the church, since the microphone was really close to her.

And in the middle of the dissimulated chuckles and weirded out gazes (Jean's, more specifically), he just hugged her tight, like asking her to forgive him, like telling her it hadn't been his fault, like saying he loved her. And she understood it all.

"These displays of affection are excellent, but that's what honey moons are made for, isn't it?" the priest stated, and the whole room exploded in laughter. "And no more curses in the house of the Lord, for God's sake!"

(…)

"…If there is anyone who objects to this union, speak now or forever hold your peace".

It's almost an urban myth: has anybody actually said something in this moment of a wedding?

Well, to spice things up a bit more, someone did this time:

"I do" a voice was suddenly heard, and before every soul in the room turned towards the entrance door, the priest raised his arms to the heavens and whined:

"Now what?!"