Chapter 9: Simple Livin'
"Hockey one," Remy and Scott said together as their hockey sticks clapped each other on the number. "Hockey two. Hockey three!"
Remy's stick hit the ball first, rolling it swiftly to his nearest teammate. The five Brotherhood banded together and got past the X-Men's defences for a quick first goal of the game. Victor smirked at Logan and chuckled wickedly. Logan ignored him. This was no time for gloating, the game had only begun.
The X-Men were better prepared for the next time but not quite prepared enough to stop Rogue from scoring the Brotherhood's second goal. The third time they finally got control of the ball long enough for Warren to shoot for the goal, only for the ball to be stopped by a very smug Fred.
Throughout the class Logan and Victor switched their teams around so that everyone had a turn to play. During one of their off-side moments, Remy sat down next to Marie. Marie had pretty much expected him to as he had practically become her shadow in gym class. She wouldn't say so out loud but she did enjoy his attention.
"We seem to be doing pretty well," Marie said.
"Yeah, hockey's one of those games where we usually trash the X-Men," Remy replied from where he sat barely an inch away from her.
"Oh, cool."
Logan tried to stay focused on the game but as usual his eyes often drifted over to his beloved baby girl. That Remy, with his undesirable reputation (or not-so-undesirable, which was the problem) was sitting far too close to her. Logan thought he felt a hand grip his heart when he saw Remy take her hand in his and then breathed a sigh of relief without realising it when Marie removed her hand. He mentally told himself not to panic, just because Raven and Remy slept around didn't mean Marie would...right? Momentarily satisfied, Logan turned his attention back to the game.
Marie chewed her bottom lip while she watched Ororo mark her makeup test. It had taken a couple of weeks of after school study but she finally reached a point where they both agreed that she was ready to do the test again—or a variation of it anyway. She finished the test a few minutes ago and Ororo had finally made it to the second page with her red pen.
Her heart pounded as she watched Ororo flip the pages back to the first and then write her grade up in the corner. Marie caught her breath as Ororo turned the test paper around so that she could see.
"92%?" Marie exclaimed, hardly believing her eyes. "What? I? How?"
Ororo chuckled softly.
"Congratulations, Marie. A much better result," she said approvingly as she capped her pen.
"Yes, it is, but... I've never scored that high before. Not on a math test anyway. Not in years," Marie said, unable to get over her amazement.
"I will take that as a compliment then," Ororo replied. "I knew you were capable. Now, next time you are struggling, let me know, preferably long before we get to the exam stage."
"Yes, of course. Absolutely," Marie knew she had a great big grin on her face. "Thank you so much."
"You are quite welcome," Ororo was rather pleased with Marie's reaction. It was for moments like this that she loved being a teacher.
"I can't wait to show..." Marie began and then trailed off when she remembered she couldn't show her mother or tell Irene about it.
"Your dad?" Ororo suggested, noting the way that Marie's face went from joyful to ashen and suspected that wasn't the answer to the question.
"He won't care," Marie said bitterly, "and apparently Mama doesn't either."
"Well, I cannot speak for your mother but I think that your father cares more than you believe," Ororo replied gently.
"No offence Ms Monroe, I know you mean well," Marie said, "but you kind of have to say that. You work with him."
"Which is exactly how I know he does care," Ororo said firmly. "He talks about you all the time."
"Probably to complain," Marie said, glaring at the table.
"He does complain, this is true," Ororo said, looking steadily at Marie. "He complains that you two are not as close as you used to be and that you do not want to talk to him anymore."
"Well, that's his own damn fault," Marie replied stubbornly. "He was in the military when I was younger, fine, I can deal with the fact that he wasn't around much then. But after he left? He didn't have to go around taking jobs as far away from Mississippi as he could get. He could have found a job close to home but he chose not to."
Ororo nodded slowly.
"Perhaps that is something you should talk to him about," she suggested.
Marie bit her tongue, not wanting to be rude to her teacher, especially one that had just gone to a lot of trouble to make sure she didn't fail math.
"Either way," Ororo went on, "I would like to extend my offer to ask me more than just questions about school work. I know from my own experience how hard it can be to have no one you feel you can talk to about... things that require a more mature mind. I lost my own parents when I was quite young, much younger than you, and I never had anyone else to turn to once they were gone."
Marie didn't reply right away and Ororo stood.
"If you are not comfortable talking to me, that is quite all right," she said gently. "I simply wanted to extend the offer. It is for you to decide whether you are comfortable taking me up on it."
Finally Marie nodded.
"Thanks, Ms Monroe," Marie said, standing and finally meeting her eyes again. "I do appreciate it. I don't know if I'll ever take you up on it but I appreciate it all the same."
Remy wandered into the library on Thursday afternoon after school. He had gone back to his dorm room and changed into more comfortable clothing. He knew that the debate club met on Thursdays and Marie was part of the team. At a few minutes before the meeting was due to finish he picked out a couple of random books and made himself at home at a desk near the club door. While he waited he flipped through the books he'd taken... apparently he had taken up a new interest in Beat Poetry, who knew?
Eventually the club door opened and the members began to emerge, chatting away as they did. Remy lifted his head and caught Marie's eyes as she stepped out with Wanda. She was surprised to see him and bit her bottom lip when he gestured for her to come over. Marie glanced at Wanda who grinned wickedly back at her.
"See ya tomorrow," Wanda said.
"See ya," Marie replied, walking around the table as the rest of the group left.
"How'd it go?" Remy asked as he stood and gathered his books, though he was much more focused on Marie than this things.
"Fine," she said. "We have a debate coming up on 'should income tax be abolished'."
"Sounds interesting," Remy said. "Affirmative or negative?"
"Affirmative," Marie replied with a sigh, "Wanda has the negative and turns out she is really good at this debate stuff."
Remy laughed as he kicked his chair back under the desk. "Yep, she's lead us to State every year."
"Yeah," Marie regarded Remy for a moment as he stood there ready to go, "Did you want something?"
"Just a chance to talk to you without a bunch of people hanging around," Remy replied simply.
"Miss Moonstar's still here," Marie pointed out, gesturing with her head towards the librarian who was watching them closely.
"She's one person, not a bunch," Remy replied. "May I walk you home?"
Marie raised an eyebrow but smiled.
"My, aren't you the gentleman?" she said. "Sure."
He grinned at her and lifted up his books. "I should check these out. So, I was wondering, would you like to go see a movie with me this weekend?"
Marie shrugged as they walked to the front desk.
"As friends?" she asked.
"As whatever you want," Remy replied. "I'm easy."
"Yeah, I'd gotten that impression."
Remy chuckled in spite of himself. Danielle Moonstar checked out the books while Marie accepted the invitation and they discussed the movie choices.
"So," Remy said once they'd left the library for the well-lit outside, "how's things with you and the ex? If you don't mind my asking..."
Marie was silent for a moment. Cody hadn't been at all far from her thoughts lately.
"He's seeing someone else," Marie said finally, looking down at the pavement as they walked. "A cheerleader. I've suspected for some time that little tramp had her eye on him and, of course, the moment I'm gone..."
"Ahh."
"They've been harassing him about dating me," Marie went on, bitterness and anger permeating her voice, "ever since he joined the damn football team, like all of a sudden I wasn't good enough for him anymore. He didn't listen to them, not at first, but they were getting to him, I could tell."
Remy opened his mouth to reply in a sympathetic manner but was interrupted by Marie's verbal dam bursting. All the things she had been thinking and feeling and unable to say before were finally released:
"And there wasn't a darn thing I could do about it except tell myself things like 'don't worry, true love will prevail' and all this other tripe that I didn't really believe, I just wanted to. Cody and I have known each other forever. We've known each other so long, I don't even remember when we met. Our parents were friends, that's all I know. We've been so close I thought for sure we were going to get married one day. Hell, I even started making plans, of all things, not that I told him about it. But that's not going to happen now. There's no chance of us getting back together, especially not now that she has her claws in him. We'll finish high school and then end up in different colleges and not see each other again for years. It's over. It's over and there's nothing I can do about it."
Marie's rant got them to the turn off to the teacher's quarters and a short silence followed before Remy replied, "You're probably right."
"Thank you for your words of comfort," Marie retorted sarcastically and started storming off.
"Aww, chère, don't be like that," Remy said, trotting to catch up with her. "I'm not trying to be mean."
"Could've fooled me!" Marie snapped.
"It's just a fact," Remy grabbed her free hand with his own. "People grow up and grow apart. I know for my own part that since being at boarding school I'm not quite as close to my friends and family back home as I was. The off-set to that is that I've made friends here. Sure, I probably won't see most of them again after I graduate, but that's not the point."
"And just what is the point?" Marie asked in a voice of steel as she stood and glared at him.
"The point is that the important people stay in your life," Remy said firmly, looking her right in the eyes. "If you and Cody are really that close he's not going to lightly leave your life. Maybe you will get married, maybe you won't, but I doubt things are really over just because you moved interstate and he hooked up with a cheerleader."
Marie stared at him for a long moment.
"That was... surprisingly mature and insightful," she said slowly.
Remy grinned at her. "I've been known to shock people on occasion. Sometimes literally."
Marie smiled and they started walking again.
"Besides, I think I've got some firsthand experience with what you're dealing with," Remy went on, feeling a little nervous about sharing what he was about to say. "I got adopted when I was ten. I was pulled out of a bad situation, I guess. I didn't think it was all that bad at the time, it was just life. I don't really talk to any of the people I knew back then any more. I could look 'em up if I wanted to but..." he shrugged. "There's just one person I still talk to from that time. Actually, she and I grew closer after I was adopted, although it was harder to hook up. All of a sudden I had parental supervision to deal with, wasn't that a shock to the system?"
He chuckled and Marie wondered what exactly this 'bad situation' was.
"We've been growing apart a little since I've been here but we're still close and I think we always will be," Remy said as they approached the door to Marie and Logan's house. "Ain't no reason for you to be threatened by this cheerleader. If you and Cody are really that close then you've got something with Cody that she's never going to have, regardless of whether you get married or not."
"I never thought about it like that," Marie said, frowning slightly as she considered his words.
Remy shrugged and cleared his throat.
"Yeah, well, I think I've met my 'deep and meaningful' quota for the year," he said, grinning at her. "I'm going to have to do something completely juvenile and immature to make up for it. Maybe I'll throw popcorn at you during the movie."
Marie giggled as Remy lifted her hand—which he was still holding—and kissed the back of it gently.
"What? Pulling pranks isn't immature enough?" she asked.
"Definitely not," he replied. "Good night, ma chère. I'll see you at rollcall."
"Good night," she said, started to open the door, and then looked back at him. "Remy?"
"Oui?" Remy asked already backing down the path towards the dorms.
"How come you checked out books on Beat Poetry?"
Marie walked into rollcall the next day looking as happy as she felt. She sat down in the spare seat next to Remy with a pleased smile on her face. He smiled back at her. John, on his other side, rolled his eyes.
"I spoke to Cody last night," Marie said. "It's been the first decent chat we've had since I moved. And you were completely right, I really don't think Georgia is gonna change things between us."
"Georgia?"
"Oh, the cheerleader."
"Ahh," Remy replied with a nod. "Well, I'm happy for you, chère."
"Thanks," Marie said, her tone turning absolutely gleeful. "In fact, going on some of the things Cody said, I think Georgia knows very well I'm always going to be part of Cody's life and is very much threatened by it."
Remy chuckled. "There you go. Things weren't nearly as bad as you thought. Unless you're still caught up on the whole marriage thing?"
Marie shrugged. "Not really and I'm even surprising myself by saying that. I guess I had a lot of time to consider the possibility that it might not happen while I was still in Mississippi, and as I said, we had a really good, long chat last night. I think it might be easier to adapt to being just friends than I thought."
"A good long chat huh?"
"Yeah," Marie said smugly. "Father-dearest is just going to loooove the phone bill."
Remy laughed.
The X-Men and the Brotherhood played another game of hockey against each other in Friday's gym class. As before, Logan and Victor rotated their players, although Logan noticed Fred spent a lot more time in the game than on the sidelines. This frustrated Logan because he knew Victor was only keeping Fred there for his goalkeeping skills, making it very difficult for his X-Men to score anything. On the other hand, Logan had been previously irritated with Victor for keeping Fred on the sidelines for the bulk of their 'football season'. He supposed from Fred's point of view it evened out.
Despite his annoyance at the X-Men's lack of goal scoring, Logan was secretly pleased with how well Marie was performing. Marie, Remy, and Callisto were the high scorers on the Brotherhood team, although Wanda occasionally got in a lucky shot from an unlikely position. There were a few times he wanted to congratulate Marie on how she was doing, but he couldn't, mostly because he was not her coach. He couldn't interfere with the Brotherhood. Logan very much hated that Marie chose Victor's team over his.
Remy sat on the sidelines with Marie and held her hand. He was feeling very pleased with how things were working out. It had been a gamble telling her about Bella Donna, which was something he wasn't all that comfortable discussing with any of his boarding school friends, but it seemed to have paid off. She wasn't quite as hung up over that ex-boyfriend of hers and, between that and the fact that she hadn't actually rejected him, he was pretty hopeful about making his move at the cinema tomorrow.
Except that he was seriously toying with the idea of making his move now.
He couldn't help it. He found her very attractive, and not just physically either. His brain was telling him he should wait until tomorrow, when they were afforded the privacy of the theatre, but the rest of him was saying to do it now. The risk of public rejection just made the whole situation all the sweeter.
Marie was well aware that Remy's eyes were on her and she wasn't entirely certain what she thought of it. She turned her head slightly to look at him in return and realised that his eyes were quite focused on her lips. She swallowed and licked her bottom lip subconsciously. His eyes seemed to glow with desire and they slowly, without really noticing what they were doing, leaned in towards each other. Their lips met.
"Get the hell away from my daughter!"
Marie and Remy jolted back, startled by Logan's furious outburst. The gym silenced and the game froze, except for the ball which rolled past Jason and bounced off the back wall. Everyone looked at Marie and Remy, or at Logan himself, who looked like a mad bull preparing to charge and gore Remy. Before anything else could be said, Victor stood in between them, facing off Logan.
"Mind your own business, runt," Victor said, his voice sounding both territorial and smug. "Those are my students."
"That's my daughter," Logan insisted his eyes locking with Victor's.
"Not here, she's not," Victor replied. "Here, I'm her coach and she's one of my players. Here, she's just another rival player to you and you have no authority over her or LeBeau. Back off."
"Fine," Logan said tersely. "You put a stop to their kissing then. Even you have to admit that's not appropriate behaviour."
"Kissing?" Victor said. "What kissing? I didn't see any kissing."
Logan growled.
"I only have your word for it," Victor added, not even bothering to hide his smirk.
The two coaches stared each other down. Victor at six and a half feet tall towered over Logan by at least a foot. Victor's long blond hair almost looked like a lion's mane, and Logan's shorter, hairier but muscular build made him look like a wolverine facing off against a big cat. No one dare to speak, or move, or even breathe too loudly lest they attract the attention of the two predators.
The face off was finally broken by the sound of the school bell ringing, signalling the end of class. Only then did Logan and Victor look away from each other to bark a brief command to their respective students to put the equipment away and hit the showers. It was probably the quietest pack up all year as none of the students dared to say a word or even put down their hockey sticks too loudly.
Victor caught Remy's eye as he headed to the showers and gave his student a discreet thumbs up. Remy gave Victor a two-fingered salute in return but inwardly he felt sick. He was so caught up in the moment he had completely forgotten about Victor and Logan's rivalry. He hoped that Marie wouldn't get the wrong impression.
