All characters owned by Marvel Comics

Author's notes: This is our last chapter folks! It's been sort of a roller-coaster for our favorite Southerners, but I felt like it just needed to come to an end in as good a place as I can leave them. This was another one of those chapters I just couldn't stop messing with, which seems to be a sign to just post the blasted thing and be done with it, but let me know what you think. Did I pull them too far apart to bring them back together? That was definitely a challenge while writing this one, but for me, the love between the characters will always connect them and lead them home.

Thanks again to SDiablo for the awesome idea and for pushing me out of my comfort zone, and thanks to everybody else for reading and reviewing, you all keep me on my toes!

See you next time!

Chapter Ten

After a few uneasy hours, Remy found me as I was getting out of the shower. I was turned towards the mirror, towel wrapped around me, when I heard the click of the bathroom door, and I caught his eyes in the mirror's reflection. He looked tired, worn, and there were heavy lines etched across his handsome face, but he looked resigned. There had been more shouting downstairs after he had left my room, and I didn't want to think of what that meant for us, but his eyes told me he had come to say his peace.

He sighed and opened his mouth to speak, but his red on black eyes bulged wide in shock. "Merde!" He stared at my backside in horror.

Confused and a little offended, I tried to face him, but he came up behind me and gripped my shoulders to keep me turned away from him, while his gaze swept back and forth across my skin.

"Chere, why didn't you tell me you were this hurt?" he breathed, the conversation he had been prepared to have forgotten for the moment.

Again, I tried to twist from his grasp. "I'm fine, Remy." He was the one who had been hurt, inside and out.

"No, you're not. Tombstone threw you across that hangar. You not invulnerable anymore, you know. Your back is nothing but bruises."

Tugging the towel further down, his fingers danced a stilted dance over my shoulder blades and hips, and he turned me partially so I could see what he was talking about. I choked on a gasp. Two even rows of deep indigo contusions marched across my back and hips in sickeningly uniform lines.

"Mon dieu! It looks like somebody hit you with a baseball bat!" He snaked an arm around my waist and pulled me against his chest, my damp towel between us. "I'm not sorry I killed that chalky son of a bitch!" he spat.

My hand darted to the gash near my temple, my souvenir from our fight with Tombstone. "It wasn't…" I froze. My side had crashed into that damned toolbox last night, not my back. Those bruises could only have come from my staircase tango with Jean-Luc, the marks yet another reminder of one of the worst nights of my life. Had Remy been so out of it before that he hadn't noticed, or had the purple horrors bloomed overnight?

"Wasn't what?" he asked quietly, but I felt his breath catch.

I chanced another look at him in the mirror and saw that he was fixated on my shoulder, where there was another collection of guilty bruises and the perfect violet impression of teeth. With outstretched fingers, he lined up his broken digits over the marks in a near perfect match.

"He…he did this?" he croaked and backed away from me.

I was shaking, still wet from my shower, rivulets of the now cold water threading their way under my towel and down my skin, but I couldn't bear to move.

He shut his eyes and pressed his palms into the sides of his head. "What am I supposed to do here, Anna?" he groaned in angry frustration. "What!?"

Tears stung my eyes and I had to look away from him. "I don't know, Remy." Hugging myself to stop the shivers, I dropped my head and let the shame, the guilt, roll over me. This was all my fault, I told myself, I deserved this. Whatever his judgement, I had earned it.

Like always between us, he made the first move and stepped back to me, lifting my chin with a taped finger. "I thought I knew." Those ruby orbs were an ocean of regret and I bit back a sob. "I thought I had it all figured out, 'specially after last night. Meant it, even now, when I said nothin' was gonna change my love for you." He wiped a tear from my cheek. "I think that part of me even…understands. This isn't your fault, I know that. This isn't your fault. You thought I was dead. Believe me when I say that I understand what that feels like, the anger, the emptiness, you look for anything to fill that void. Drink, drugs, the touch of someone else…when I thought Belle had died, you and I weren't quite…let's just say, if it was the other way 'round, if I had lost you…" he couldn't finish the thought and leaned his forehead closer to rest against mine. "Part of me is glad neither of you was alone." With his hand on either side, he raised my face to his again, those eyes suddenly fierce. "But, the other part of me? Every time I close my eyes, I imagine his hands on you…touching you, hurting you…I can hear your sighs, see you together…" His expression twisted in tortured revulsion. "Knowing it happened is bad enough, but trying not to imagine it, to put it out of my head…I can't…"

I covered his hands with mine. "I'm so sorry that I hurt you, Remy," I simply said, but his laugh was harsh.

"Should you be? We ain't together, chere, and haven't been for months. I understand how it could have happened, just don't know if I can ever forget it."

"Is this it then?" I asked, unable to control my shaking voice or body. "Is that what you came in here to tell me, that it's over?"

He opened his mouth to answer, his face strained, clearly at war with himself, but instead of responding with words, he crashed his lips possessively into mine. He inhaled sharply and parted my lips with his tongue, the palms of his hands traveling over my back and down to press my hips against his.

"Non!" He pulled away from me, his eyes tightly closed, his breath ragged, the battle for his heart etched across the features of his beautiful face. "Non. It can't be over between us…I don't want it to be, not when I just found you again. This isn't okay, and I can't say it's finished, or that it's not gonna take time to work through this, but I always said the past wouldn't stop us. I have loved you since the moment I laid eyes on you, and I will love you forever. No smooth talk, no lies, no regrets, nothing will stop me from loving you, as plain and simple as that. I won't punish you for a moment of weakness, but…I want to understand how…why…help me understand, chere…please…"

His mouth met mine again, but this kiss was different, soft and fragile, an unspoken question. Answering without words, I wound my fingers through his hair and deepened the kiss. I didn't want it to be over either. I loved him with all my heart and soul, it had taken almost losing him to show me just how much. I would spend the rest of our lives proving it to him if that was what it took, but I knew he meant it when he said he wouldn't punish me for my past. I was the one who had never let him forget every indiscretion, every wrong step, something else for me to feel guilty about. I didn't deserve him or his forgiveness, but I would sure as hell try if he'd let me.

Backing us against the vanity's counter, Remy tossed away my towel, and his hands began roaming my body, exploring, his fiery touch sliding smoothly along my skin while I rolled my curves against him. His mouth moved down my throat to graze my collarbone, then to the valley between my breasts, trailing his kisses to each peak. The swirling of his tongue sent a pleasurable tingle low and tight, but it was the motions of his hips that had me seeing stars. He was thick and stiff and so close, I just wanted him inside of me, needed to feel him again to know he and his love were real, that this wasn't just some dream and I would wake up and find him gone again...Raising his head from my chest, he gripped me under my bare behind with his poor broken fingers and hoisted me onto the edge of the vanity counter, settling himself between my legs and shaking his pajama pants to the floor. True to form, he wasn't wearing any boxers underneath. He sprang into my hands and I watched his scorching eyes while I stroked him, his palms sliding along my thighs, his uninjured thumb finding the warm wetness that waited between them. I rocked my hips, but he stilled them and kept his touch moving in slow circles.

"I'm yours." He pushed himself to my entrance. "And you're mine. That's how it's always been, how it always will be. There is nothing and no one in this world that will take you away from me again." I nodded and held his gaze as he entered me, filling me, our bodies moving together in a slow, delicious rhythm. He was real, he was alive…I wrapped my arms around his neck and my legs around his slim waist, and he lifted my hips, driving himself further inside me, reclaiming every inch of me. I leaned back and ran my fingers along his chest, down the rippling and tensed muscles of his stomach, committing every bare inch to memory, watching the length of him slide in and out of me. The only sounds were our ragged breathing and the liquid slick of my mounting arousal.

It started slow, sweet, but soon enough our breath quickened, and he pumped harder to match, grinding against me in a relentless frenzy. I wanted to hold on, to make the moment last forever, but he was unraveling me inside, making me lose control. The pleasure rolled over me in waves, with each thrust he crashed against my walls, breaking me down, the pressure building inside me until it burst wide open. I screamed his name and shuddered around him in total surrender.

"Mon Dieu, you so beautiful when you come," he whispered savagely and dug his palms into my hips. He groaned and closed his eyes, and his expression become one of absolute ecstasy as he pounded like a man possessed. I was still coming down from my own orgasm when he roared, and I felt him explode inside of me.

I woke to find his smiling eyes watching over me. We had moved to the bed last night and fallen asleep in each other's arms.

With a soft touch, he brushed the tousled hair from my forehead. "Bonjour, Anna."

I kissed that gorgeous smile lightly, part of me still scared silly he'd up and disappear, that this was some wonderful dream and that I'd wake to the nightmare of a world without him. "Morning, sugar." At least I thought it was morning. I had no idea what time it was, and the soft light filling the room could just as easily have been from the sunset. The thick stubble on his cheek was rough beneath my hand, the reality of him better than any dream could ever have been. He had survived. We had survived, but everything we were avoiding lay between us in the bed.

Remy excused himself to the adjoining bathroom and I stood and stretched my arms over my head, my body pleasantly sore. Sunrise, judging by the direction of the light through the windows, we had been asleep for hours. I found my robe hanging on the back of the closed bathroom door and wrapped it around myself, stepping towards the brightly illuminated panes of glass.

The enormity of the last few days crashed back, knocking the wind out of me. Remy was mine, and I was his. After all the pain we had inflicted on one another, the love we had for each other, strong and true and deep, still made it worth it to him, just like it always had to me. I wasn't naïve. I knew the road ahead was gonna be hard, but, good or bad, we had always challenged each other. That was what I loved about him, his fire, his passion for life. He didn't complete me, he complemented me, and he felt the same. I would die before I ever hurt him again. He loved me, but I knew forgiveness would be a long time coming, from him, but also from myself. How had a teasing flirtation exploded in a tangle of arms and legs on a staircase? I couldn't blame it all on grief, though it had certainly pushed me there. We had so much to deal with, so many wrong steps between us over the years, but neither of us was walking away this time. We would face it all head on, it would just take time.

Sighing, I slid my hands into the pockets of my robe. My fingers froze when they brushed a folded sheet of paper hidden in the depths. Pulling it free, I recognized my name written in the elegant scrawl of Jean-Luc's handwriting.

I hadn't seen him since yesterday, hadn't wanted to ask what had happened or where he was, too afraid any mention of him would shatter the fragile peace Remy and I had found, but I had been desperately trying not to think of the look in Jean-Luc's eyes the last time he had held me in his arms. When had he put a note in my pocket? It hadn't been there last night. Had he come into my room while Remy and I slept, saw us together? Trembling, I sat on the edge of the sheet tangled bed and opened the note with shaking fingers.

"Anna," it read,

"Forgive a foolish old man his fantasies. I treated you disgracefully, and had no right to expect more than you were willing to give.

Your heart, stubborn, beautiful, so full of life, has always belonged to someone else. I thought that I could pull off the greatest heist of my life and steal it for myself, but I was wrong, and I'm truly sorry that my selfishness nearly cost you everything you hold dear. That was not my intention, but then I never expected to fall in love.

I am headed home to New Orleans, but know that I've left a piece of my heart with you if you ever wish to retrieve it.

Always,

Jean-Luc"

The hand holding the letter dropped listlessly into my lap, the other covered the great, heaving groan that escaped my lips. Oh, sweet merciful Jesus…how had I ever let it go so far? He loved me? Was that what he called it? I had no idea, but it was a love I didn't return, and I felt a renewed pang of guilt for the near ruin our behavior had brought to us all.

Remy came out of the bathroom. "Was thinking we could make some breakfast if there's fixings downstairs. What you think, chere?"

I didn't answer, but lifted tear-filled eyes to meet his.

He started in surprise and knelt in front of me, his freshly taped fingers caressing my knees. "Anna, chere, what is it?"

No secrets, Remy LeBeau had once said to me in an abandoned Seattle theatre. No secrets, and no shame. Swallowing hard, I handed him Jean-Luc's letter. He frowned and stood to read it, turning his handsome face in profile, reminding me of the morning after his supposed death, and Jean-Luc sitting at that same windowsill while he contemplated the sunrise.

Leaning his forearm on the glass, Remy kept his back turned to me, but hung his head, crumpling the letter in his fist. "You and me, Anna. You sure this is what you want?"

My mouth went dry and I jumped to my feet, wrapping my arms fiercely around his waist from behind. "Yes!" I cried. "I've never been surer of anything in my life! I love you, Remy! We belong together!"

He twisted around, his fingers resting gently on my already bruised shoulders, and pulled me to his lips. "I think I just needed to hear you say it," he sighed when we parted, leaning his forehead against mine.

"Remy, I never wanted to come between you and your father…"

Tracing my jaw with his thumb, he exhaled in a shudder. "I know that, chere, but truly, there hasn't been much between him and me for a long time, and that wasn't because of you. I'll have to deal with him, one way or another, but not today." He tucked my head under his chin and rocked me slowly in his warm embrace. "All that matters, mon amour, is you and me, here and now, and forever."

"I like the sound of that, Swamp Rat," I smiled through tears and kissed him soundly on his sweet, warm lips, so full of life and love.

Forever. Never had one simple word filled me with so much hope.

The End