4.
Someone is touching her shoulder. Someone is shaking her awake. She opens her eyes. Logan's face is a few inches from hers.
"Hey," he whispers hoarsely.
She lifts her head. The room is grainy and dim. It's too early to get up.
"Come on," he whispers, gesturing for her to follow him out of the room.
She rolls over to see Jubilee sprawled beside her. After a moment of disorientation, she remembers everything: the fight at the subway platform, the woman. The hours of conversation she and Jubilee logged afterwards. They'd fallen asleep in bed together, their shoulders touching. Jubilee had drifted off in mid-sentence and Laura had fallen asleep soon after. She doesn't know if Logan looked in on them; in any case, he found somewhere else to sleep.
She slips out of the bed, careful not to wake Jubilee. Then she looks to make sure that the blinds are closed tightly. Then she goes into the hallway to see what Logan wants.
"Here," he whispers, handing over her shoes and jacket.
She takes them in both hands. "Where are we going?"
A smile spreads across his face. "Breakfast, of course."
She almost says something about Jubilee and Gambit, and then she realizes that this time is just for the two of them.
Outside it's still dark, but the sky and cityscape seem like they're poised and waiting for the sun to come up. Laura can see her breath. She wants to ask Logan why she's here with him, why they're out so early, but the streets are so quiet that talking seems indecorous. Occasionally a car passes by. Occasionally someone walks past them, someone who is going to work early or coming home late.
Laura thinks about last night. After she and Jubilee visited the Eiffel Tower, they saw as much of the city center as they could. They watched people. They watched a man sing on a street corner. They stopped to buy food from a street vendor. "I'm not hungry," Laura said, even though she was starving.
"Sure you are," Jubilee said. "Don't starve yourself on my account. I won't think you're rude or anything." She smiled. "To be honest, I don't miss real food. I don't even remember what it tasted like."
Laura couldn't tell whether or not Jubilee was telling the truth. That was the problem with knowing a vampire—her scent shifted quickly. But one thing she did know about Jubilee: she was hungry too.
She looked at Jubilee. Gestured to her own neck. "I can—"
"No, Laura." Jubilee took her by the arm and led her into a nearby alley. "Look, I was willing to keep your secret, to let this entire thing go. But if you keep doing this, I'm going to have to tell Logan." She paused. "I thought you said you didn't want to die."
Laura looked up. "I don't. I just—" She thought for a moment. "I don't mind. I would survive. And you wouldn't be hungry anymore. It is similar to what Logan does for you."
"No it's not, X." Jubilee set one hand on her arm. She no longer seemed angry. "I need to practice self-control. Besides, I don't want us to be like that."
Laura wasn't sure what Jubilee meant. "Okay."
"I don't want us to always be exchanging things. Depending on—I don't want that." She steps closer to X, the red flecks of her eyes glinting in the city lights. "It's bad enough that I'm with Logan because I have to be. But with you? I want to be with you because I want to be."
"Okay," Laura said again, and followed Jubilee back to the street.
In front of a small café, Logan stops and glances back at her. "Guess we're too early," he says, shrugging at the dark windows. Someone is inside the shop getting things ready, but the place won't open for a little while.
"Should we go back to the hotel?"
"Nah." Logan walks over and sits on a brick ledge connected to the café. He pats the space next to him.
She sits down, tucking her hands under her legs. So Logan wants to talk. This surprises her; usually their talks aren't so premeditated. When she was in X-Force, he'd come up to her after a mission and tell her she did a good job and what to work on next time. His tone was sometimes casual, sometimes curt, but he never seemed to put a great deal of thought into what he said to her.
The morning sky slowly turns from twilight to early dawn. The sun is about to come up.
"I hear you, X," Logan says. "I hear what you're saying about Daken."
She squeezes her arms against her sides.
"I know he's bad. I know there's no hope for him. I know all these things. I've struggled to come to terms with this over the past year." He rubs his hands together and cracks his knuckles. "But I love him. He's my son. And that means that all logic is out the window." He sniffs. "I don't expect you to understand that. But someday you will. Someday you'll fall in love with somebody, have kids."
She won't, though. Of this she's certain. She wonders if Logan is just telling her this to keep her pacified.
"I'm sorry," he says.
"I know."
"No, I'm sorry," Logan says. "I failed to protect you from Daken. I failed to contain him, and he hurt you. Oh, kid. There's nothing I can say. It's just . . . so shitty."
Laura doesn't say I understand. She doesn't think that Logan wants to be understood. She counts the long seconds that tick by. "Daken's mother. You loved her."
He nods. "I did."
"And she was the love of your life?"
He peers at her—the question amuses him—and then nods.
"She was your soul mate?"
"In a sense."
"What does that mean?" Laura says. "Yes or no?"
He stares at her, understanding that she's not letting him off so easily. "Yes," he says. "But it's complicated. I—I've loved a lot of women and I wouldn't say that any of them wasn't a soul mate." He pauses uncomfortably. "But she was special. We were together for such a short period of time and she was very young. But yet, she was—she was my soul mate."
If Laura tries hard enough, she can picture this woman. She always imagines her in rustic, untamed scenery, inaccurate as that may be. Daken's mother. The love of Wolverine's life. Laura is obsessed with "soul mates," with the love of one's life. She wonders if Daken's mother believed, when she met Logan, that everything would be alright, and that she would never have to worry about anything again.
"Then it's not enough," Laura says.
Logan looks at her.
"You can love somebody and it doesn't really matter," Laura explains. "You can meet the love of your life and things can still turn out bad."
"Hey." He turns and grabs her arm, but not roughly. Holds on. "Things didn't out turn bad. Look at me, kid. Things didn't turn out bad."
She doesn't believe him.
He shifts toward her but doesn't take his hand away. "Maybe there was a way things coulda gone differently. Maybe if Daken's mom hadn't died I'd have lived this nice life in Japan. And maybe Daken would've turned out good. Or maybe not. But you know what?" He waits a beat. "Instead, things went a different way, and I did what I did, and the things that happened to me happened, and that was how you came along. And I wouldn't wanna live in a reality where you don't exist."
She can't bring herself to make eye contact anymore. He's never said anything like that to her. She's so flattered that she's nervous. Worried he's not serious—even though she knows he is—worried she'll say or do something to wreck the moment.
"All of that is to say that I wish you wouldn't hurt yourself. Forget about Daken. He's not your responsibility—he's mine. I don't want you to get back into that old mentality again. You're a good kid, better than that. And besides, I didn't come here to talk about him but to find out how you were doing. I want you to think about good things."
Her leg twitches. "Is that why you and Gambit always talk about good memories?" She says this to distract Logan—and maybe herself—from the cutting. She's not sure that she can promise to stop hurting herself. All she can do is try to get a little better.
"Gumbo's sentimental," Logan says. "A big old sap. I guess I am too. It's an old-person thing." He clears his throat and right away his mood shifts. "Poor Gumbo. He asked me yesterday if he thought we'd ever have good times again. Y'know, I think you should stay with him."
"You're leaving again?" And you're taking Jubilee with you?
"You can come with us if you want," he says. But she realizes that his offer is ceremonial.
Right away she pictures traveling with them. They'll have to keep their journey confined to dark, cloudy countries. She and Logan will fight again. They can't not fight—all their good moments are just temporary truces. And then Jubilee will be caught in the middle. She'll have to choose sides.
The shopkeeper comes outside and begins sweeping the sidewalk.
"Logan?" she says. She has one more question. "So what you're saying is that you can have more than one soul mate?"
"Of course. What's all this talk about soul mates?"
She looks at the café. The windows blink on. "It's opening."
"Wait," he says. He sets his hand on her arm and nods at the street. "Look." Suddenly it's light. The world has turned just enough to bring them back to day. The streets have color again.
She looks at Logan, and he looks at their surroundings. She understands he hasn't shared a sunrise with anyone in a long time.
This is the last day they will all spend together in Paris, and Laura tries to pay attention so that she can remember. It's really not a special day—they stay inside because it's sunny and because Gambit is recovering from his injuries—but Laura doesn't want it to end.
Gambit lies on the sofa and throws ripe observations in Logan's direction. Sometimes he talks about Logan in third person. "He's awfully impatient today," he says to no one in particular. "He's like a border collie. Needs to be challenged."
And Logan, who doesn't seem any more impatient than usual, just looks up from the newspaper. "What the fuck are you talkin' about? You're hungover."
"You saw to that," Gambit says, leaning back on the sofa and closing his eyes with a great groan. "Petite," he says, his eyes flapping open when Laura stands over him. He focuses on her and his pupils are dilated. She understands that he took something for the pain—maybe Logan gave him something—and she worries that he'll blurt out something he doesn't want the others to know. But no, that's not him. If anything, Gambit will just talk about happier times, better memories. When he's inebriated or woozy he gets chummy, not sad, not brutally honest.
"Can't wait to show you Brussels," he says to her. "You ever been?"
"Hey Remy," Jubilee says. "Tell Laura about the time you tried to go skiing."
Gambit smiles slowly. "That's not nice. Not a nice thing to bring up when a man's hurtin'."
Upstairs in the bedroom, she and Jubilee talk for a while. Jubilee takes a magazine quiz and then asks Laura the same questions. Then she reads the results in the end. "'You're funny and sometimes neurotic. You always put your best foot forward and like to make others feel at ease.'"
"You must have added wrong," Laura says.
Jubilee looks down at the magazine again. Laughs and then gently thumps Laura on the shoulder. "Just go with it, X."
The things she talks about with Jubilee are no different from the things she sometimes discussed with other girls she's known—her friends from New York, from her time with the X-Men. But Jubilee is different. She focuses. She doesn't bring up things you haven't lived through, or people you don't know. She makes you feel like you're the only person, not simply a way to pass time before the next big event.
"You think you'll keep traveling with Remy?" she asks.
Laura wants to find the circled names on her kill list. She wishes she could be the sort of person who doesn't crave so much structure, or who doesn't have to know what's going to happen next. "I suppose."
Jubilee tucks her knees to her chest and looks thoughtful. "With Remy, you'll really see a lot."
And Laura knows what Jubilee is really saying: that despite everything, she's very lucky.
When darkness falls, they change their clothes and get ready to go out.
"Oh look, here they come," Gambit says when they descend the stairs. "All dressed up and ready to go. All ready to prowl for men."
"Are you jealous?" Jubilee says.
"Of you or the men?"
"Don't be creepy."
Logan looks up from a book. "Lotta poor unsuspecting bastards out there."
Gambit's looking better. Not as pale. He gets to his feet and reaches for Laura, taking her by the hands. He twirls her around. "You need your cards read. Here, sit down." He leads her to the sofa. On the coffee table he's got a deck of tarot cards. Usually he uses ordinary playing cards, but every once in a while he uses these special ones, the names of things printed in French.
"She doesn't need her cards read," Jubilee says. "Besides, those things don't tell you anything. It's like reading a horoscope, and X and I already did that today. Apparently we're both going to meet new people this month. And then we might or might not visit an old friend. And romance could happen."
"Romance can always happen," Gambit says. He sits down and hands Laura the deck. But he knows he's already shuffled it his way. "Maybe tonight you'll meet the man of your dreams."
Laura sits down next to him and shuffles. Their shoulders touch. He's warm and breathing and alive. Tomorrow they'll be alone again; that's the closest thing to normal she knows. Being with Gambit is like going back to normal after a long vacation—even if that normalcy means chasing pirates or counting cards in Vegas. Gumbo asked me if we'd ever have good times again. She remembers the night he told her about Daken, how afterwards he'd climbed to the deck and lay outside under the sky. She brought him a blanket and sat next to him. He reached for her hand.
That past is hidden now—something just for them. He smiles. "You're next, Jubilee. Mon Dieu, you don't need a boyfriend. You need a paramour."
"Jesus Christ," Logan says, not amused, but no one's listening.
Gambit takes the top three cards from the deck and places them face down. But Laura already knows how this is going to end. This is what Gambit does: he shuffles the cards so that only the good ones end up in your spread. He'll keep the fool for himself and make sure the devil doesn't cross your path. He'll give you the sun. And the lovers. And then the world.