I spent solid ten minutes staring at those words:
"Dear Anna,
Wish me luck.
Je t'aime.
Remy."
I breath in, breath out, breath in, breath out.
"No!" I cry out to myself, in the sheer emptiness of my bedroom. No, that's not how it ends, I decided. So, of course, me being me, with all my impulsiveness, I told Mr. Captain America that I had most pressing personal issues to deal with, took my jacket and left.
Half an hour later, I was knocking on his door. Where else was I supposed to go? I had to see him, tell him I was going with him wherever his suicide mission led him. Last night, his skin, his touch, his sex got me intoxicated and lacking better judgement. I touch my own lips and close my eyes. The memories of our kisses still so fresh. Sighing, I push those thoughts away. Now that he's not next to me, tempting me into another round of sex, my head is clear. I'm focused. There's no way in hell I'm letting him die, or who knows what else happen to him, without at least trying to help him out.
The door is swept open and I find myself staring at his current lover. Her piercing icy blue eyes looking back at me. She's got no sympathy or love for me, I can tell.
"He's gone." she puts it bluntly.
"Gone? Gone where?" I ask her indignantly. And before I could stop my stupid self, I'm forcing my way into his apartment, walking briskly, I check each room, looking for him. Joelle doesn't follow behind me or tries to stop me. She closes the door and makes herself comfortable on the sofa, ignoring my behaviour completely.
As I finish roaming the place in search for the man who just hours ago was fucking me senseless, the man I love and could never really let go, I make me way to the living room to find her. She's sitting there, looking as cool as a cucumber. Remy has managed to find a female version of himself. The house is on fire and he always acts like that, not affected in the least. That's why I'm so damn worked up! He was not acting cool yesterday and it's just not like him. What could be so bad that he would actually give a damn, feel nervous and anxious about? God, we're wasting time here. I'm sure he needs my help.
"I told you he was gone, Rogue." I want to lunge at her at this point. I hold it back and rein it in for a second, maybe two. Who the hell I'm kidding? She knows I hate her and want to tear her apart for putting Remy through hell and high water to get her a way to end her life. Silly him, should've let her go through with it when he had the chance.
There's some altercation and soon enough, we are both panting on the floor, my hand is around her throat. In the split of a second I picture Remy towering over us, telling us to quit the silliness. 'There's plenty of Remy for both of you, ma femmes.' Back to reality, I'm gonna fucking kill this bitch.
"Where's Remy? What kind of trouble have you led him into now?"
"It wasn't me this time, Rogue. It was you! Now let go of me." She demands in a cool and collected voice, especially if you consider how I could have strangled her a million times over if I wanted to. I do as she asks, for the first time realizing that maybe, just maybe, I was being too aggressive.
Standing up, I look down at her who preferred to go back to her spot at the sofa. This situation is just ridiculous.
"What did you just say, Joelle? That I did it? Are you out of your mind?"
"He did it for you, chére." She says sarcastically.
"First of, did what for me? Where is Remy? I want to see him, go join him, I can help him in whatever it is that he's doing, probably risking his life to get you a new death potion." She calmly opened her mouth to speak but I didn't let her get a word in edgeways. "You don't understand! You don't know him like I do, he's never been this worked up about any mission. He's gotta be in deep trouble and I have to reach out for him. That's what we do! That's what we've always done for each other. We take care of each other."
Joelle just stared at me in all my desperation with a calm and unperturbed poise. I narrowed my eyes at her as if saying 'Won't you say anything, you bitch?' She sighed, annoyed by my presence and my vivid display of lack of emotional control.
"Are you done with your tantrum?" She asked with an arched brow. I crossed my arms over my chest and nodded. I couldn't afford to waste any more time than I already had, so found it better to play along.
"He time-travelled." She said matter-of-factly.
After my explosion of rage, she explained that he used his own powers which had been somehow subconsciously dormant because he believed he had lost them after that battle with New Son. She said she coached him into developing his time-travelling abilities. I was cursing and calling her names inside my head when she delivered the blow.
"And he did it for you. You and your unborn child. So stop whining, now will you?"
She didn't elaborate it any further, she didn't need to, either. It could see him doing it for our baby, he loves a do-good rescue mission with a passion, I know it. He tries to play the bad guy type, but I know him better than that, I know what's underneath the surface. I would have never thought of that option, I would never try to cheat destiny and undo what's been. But I can't deny, the idea was brilliant. Our baby, Etienne, alive? I smile despite myself. It will change everything. Everything! If it's for better or for worse, I don't know, but saving his life is worth anything that may happen. But I'd never ask Remy to endanger his own life. Never! And that's obviously why he didn't tell me about this plan of his in first place. Then, an idea crossed my mind, there must be something in it for Joelle, or she wouldn't just sit patiently and wait. I voiced my suspicions, and she went ballistic.
"You, Rogue, you! How dare you accuse me! You don't even know me, while I have heard a lot about you to form my own opinions about you. You did it, didn't you? You may fool him, but you don't fool me. I saw you that night at the gala, the way you looked at us, the envious eyes glinting. You wanted to destroy our relationship and you found your way, by exposing your little baby secret. You knew that had to shake him, if you flaunting your body in that skimpy dress of yours didn't. That, my dear, failed miserably. We made love passionately that night."
"Hey! That was a Gucci dress! And, it wouldn't surprise me that he had sex with you thinking of me, sugar."
That did it, we went on full bitching mode. In the heat of our arguing, she said I deliberately led him to the cemetery the night he found out about Etienne, stating that it was impossible for such a skilled and trained fighter like me not have noticed that I was being followed. She forgets that Remy is a master thief. I don't know anyone who can do a quiet entrance or an imperceptible follow like him. It wasn't just anyone, it was him. He beats me at that, I'm a sitting duck when he pulls those stunts, but in turn, I can beat him at a fist to fist combat. I smirked at that thought.
"Don't you worry, Rogue. If it all works, we won't ever have this conversation again. By now, I'll be dead and you'll probably have a toddler to care for and I bet all my money that you and Remy won't be together anyway. You always played him. How he can't see it will always remain a mystery to me. Time and again you showed you didn't really want to be with him like he wants you to. You can't compromise, you're afraid to deal with your own feelings and when you're scared, you run away, leaving him behind. He may change the timeline, but he can't change you."
I wanted to scream back at her, call her names, but silenced and immersed myself in memories of him, sighing I realized that perhaps Joelle's right.
She was in Philadelphia. The trip there got me more tired than it would normally. The house was long and narrow, perhaps only twelve feet wide at the front, but it stretched some thirty feet back like a giant shoe box. It was two stories high and had a one story extension at the rear for the kitchen. The wooden framed sash windows were propped open and the brick work, perhaps once a jaunty yellow, looked dirty now. A small rose garden had been planted in front, and although it had obviously once been carefully planned and loved, it was now riddled with weeds.
I remembered Joelle saying that age was a cruel mistress, or was that time, I couldn't quite recall. And now, this present I'm visiting, that's when the cruelty was beginning to make itself apparent to her daughter. All that was on the horizon for her now was the ravages of age steeling into her skin and bones bit by bit, until eventually even her mind wouldn't escape it. She'd watched her mother's decline many decades before, she'd been spry and mentally alert right up to her eighty-one, then the downhill slide was as rapid as a toboggan on a slippery winter hill. So she knew what was in store for her daughter, the very baby she once cuddled in her arms. Thinking about it as I look on, I realize for the first time why she so desperately wants to end her life. It must be dreadful watching everyone you love most turn frail, decrepit and then, gone. Their once alert and agile mind beginning to blur at the edges. Memories once sharp and crystal clear disappearing into a fog, being erased, as if they had never happened at all. Time is a thief. It takes one to know one. And it was stealing everything her daughter ever was or hopped she would be and there was nothing Joelle could do about it. It makes sense that she preferred to die once her daughter was no more. Living with those memories and going on and on and on must be the worst torture.
I ring the bell and Joelle opens it looking like someone else. She looked tired as hell, weary with the burden of long-closed eyes. She could have easily pulled off being a walking zombie, dead on the inside but subconsciously awake.
"What do you want, Mister?"
"Mrs. Campbell, I'm Candice's son, your friend from Newark. Do you remember her?" I handed her a Photoshop treated picture of said friend and me. The service was excellent, no one could tell the photo was a fraud.
"Candice? My goodness! Candice! You're Candice's son? How is she?"
"She passed away recently." There was an awkward moment of silence.
"I remember when she told me you were a mutant. Poor thing, didn't know what to do or think. She never mentioned it was that apparent, though." Oh great, she was referring to my eyes. Back when we met, she acted cool about them. Our eyes met briefly and it was the strangest thing. There was no warmth and recognition coming from them. I'm a complete stranger.
We made some small talk about my fictitious mother, all the while I was laying down facts about her old friend every once in a while as Joelle had instructed me. I had to gain this Joelle's trust.
"So, my mother told me about your powers. That's why I came to you for advice."
"Powers? You mean my immortality? Those are not powers, dear, that is a curse! I'm no mutant like you."
There, the trap was laid. It made sense that me being a mutant would try to reach out for another one, a family friend, who might understand my afflictions. She was warm and friendly, a far cry from the ice cool lady I met at that event held by Borya Cich.
She introduced me to her daughter. She was a bit weary of my presence, but was cordial and polite all the while. Mon Dieu, the weirdness of this situation! My lover's daughter looked as if she were her great-grandmother, her face as withered as a flower left to waste, clothed in wisps of white hair. She seems nothing more than commonplace, but you could see the sparkle in Joelle's eyes whenever their eyes met. But when she looked at me in return, just nothing. I'm nothing to her in here.
She invited me for lunch and I accepted the kind offer. It was a pain to have to small talk with them. Once lunch was finally over, I asked Joelle if I could speak to her in private and that's when I delivered the letter.
"This is why I came to you, chére. I bring you this letter, to you."
She took the envelope from my hand without allowing as much as the slightest brush of fingers. A heavy silence settled over us as her eyes quickly started scanning the paper in her hands. The disturbing silence was thicker than the already uneasy tension in the atmosphere. My unsettled eyes glanced unceremoniously around as I tried desperately to avoid catching the weary glances she sent my way from time to time.
I hadn't read the letter but she told me what was in there. She said she had put down all the key facts of her life so the message she was going to convey in the letter would be credible to her past self. Then, she described her present, tell her the inevitable happened and about her pursuit for closure, for an end. The letter was pages long and I was getting extremely uncomfortable at having to wait, so I pulled out a cigarette and lit it up. I never asked her if she would mind. She looked over the sheet of paper she was reading for a second, narrowed her eyes and frowned, I simply shrugged. She rolled her eyes at me. That's so like her, so I smirked.
And her reading went on and on. 'Thanks Joelle for writing a new version of the Bible.' I say mentally. Her deep blue eyes focused on me many times, followed by a frown or a smirk or what I know to be one of her genuine smiles.
"Well," she said, putting down the papers at last. "So, we are lovers, then. I can see that happening." She added with a smirk. "You're a bad boy type. And I've always had a thing for bad boys, ever since my dear husband passed away. I guess it's my self-destruction instinct that kicked in after I became immortal."
"So, now we are speaking the same language, comes the part where I give you all the instructions for when the time comes, non? Pour toi, you know, get that chemical and end your misery."
"So you stopped me killing myself last time, huh? Guess it didn't work out that well for you."
"For me? This is not about me, chére. You asked me to do this as a favour. It's what you wanted! I butted in and ruined it."
"I know, Mr. LeBeau. No need to fret. Now, let's get to work, shall we?"
Waking up is no pleasure. There is a fleetingmoment when I am whole again but it evaporates faster than summer rain off the burnt earth. Then my lids that were drooping and leaden with sleep snap open as violently as if I'd been woken by the raid sirens wailing. By the time my eyes are open, my brain has become overwhelmed all over again as if it were all new, fresh, raw.
I take in my surroundings, I'm in the X-Mansion. I have no idea what time of the day it is. The bedroom I'm in looks generic, no personal touches, I don't know if it's mine. I'm on a single bed, though. A single bed! How come?
Within seconds of realizing I was conscious I am on my feet, eyes wide, dreams not just forgotten but erased. I am drinking in the feedback of all my senses. Aside from my own noisy breath there is nothing to be heard. I walk out the bedroom. The hall is strangely deserted.
Examining myself I notice I'm wearing a gold ring on my left ring finger. I brush my thumb over it and smile. I take it off and inspect it carefully, inside the band there are my name and Anna's engraved. It worked!
Determined to find someone who'll shed some light as to what exactly happened to us after I played God and messed up with time I walk until I find someone, that someone happens to be Bobby, Anna's best friend. It seems I got lucky.
"Bobby! Mon ami! Where's my wife?" I ask him excitedly.
"You must mean your ex-wife," he spats back at me.
"What!? Qu'est-ce que tu dis, homme?"
"What are you doing here, anyway, Remy? And, for the love of God, stop wearing the ring. It's ridiculous." I feel like each of his words were a punch in my face. My brain is desperately calculating, trying to find an explanation for the little information I got. I married her but we are separated? Divorced, maybe? What about my son? Is he at least alive? Did I earn that with my interference?
"Where's Etienne? I need to see him." I ask him hurriedly.
"Who's Etienne? Have you been doing drugs, Cajun? Well, that won't help you win her back, I can tell." He says full of disgust and sarcasm in his voice.
The frustration builds inside of me and I think I might explode. I want to vent, let it out, but I don't want to say the words. I am not even sure of what's gone wrong. So, as I always do, I kept it all in. I gotta find Anna. I want to hear from her what happened.
-O-
Author's Notes:
Hello everyone! Sorry this one took so long. Life getting in the way of things. If you're a writer and I haven't review you lately, well, that's also why.
I wanted to thank all of you who reviewed last chapter: Warrior-princess1980, kataract52, LEGNA, Jehilew, tx peppa, Alawavine, Guest and S.J. Martin. Thanks a lot for your support and insight on the story. And sorry for making y'all wait. The ones who have been with me for long know I never abandon my stories
So this is it, Remy did everything he set out to do, but it seems things haven't turned out the way he expected. Any guesses as to what happened? Sorry to leave you with a cliff hanger, I just couldn't resist.