Chapter 12
Everybody dreamed that night.
Logan dreamed of when he'd first come to the Institute, with a spinal injury that had taken almost a week to heal properly. The big house on Greymalkin had been sunny and quiet then, green and gold with springtime. Most of the rooms were locked up to gather dust—the mansion only held four people. There was some bald guy in a wheelchair, a queenly young woman with white hair and milk-chocolate skin, and two little eleven-year-old kids who were so well-behaved that Logan felt sure there must be something seriously wrong with them. He didn't remember being anywhere near that good when he was a kid. Then again, he didn't remember being a kid at all. His memory was a jumble of barked military orders, barroom brawls, the smells of disinfectants and hot metal and gunpowder, falling cherry blossoms, the names Logan, Wolverine, Weapon X. He didn't remember who'd given him any of them.
"Smoking's bad for you."
He'd been on the back porch, leaning on the railing in a position that was decidedly not good for his damaged spine, smoking the last of the cigars he'd had with him when Xavier found him. He shot a contemptuous glance at the little girl who'd spoken. She was glaring at him with the sort of fearless sass that nobody used with him anymore. She was a redhead, too. It figured.
"Beat it, kid."
"Why should I? It's my house. And you're going to get lung cancer."
"Nope."
"Well, I'm going to get lung cancer."
"So go away."
She studied him for a long moment, her hands on her hips. "So where are you from?"
"None-a-Your-Business, Nebraska. Why do you care?"
"The professor said we should try to be nice to you, so I'm being polite. You're not making it very easy, though."
"Not my job."
"Well, it's not mine, either. Skittles?"
She pulled half a package of candies out of her pocket, unrolled it, and offered it, shaking the bag so the little pieces rattled against each other.
Logan looked at the bag, then at the girl, in disbelief. "You're offering me Skittles."
"Yeah. Want some?"
"Why?"
"Because I don't have any M&Ms. And because you sound like you had a really, really bad day, and because the best thing for bad days is Skittles. Hold out your hand."
Logan held out one hand, the palm roughened with work but unmarked by the scars that he knew should be there. She poured a dozen brightly colored candies into it, then took some for herself.
"You don't have to be scared of us," she told him, picking out the purple ones and tossing them in her mouth. "Just because we're mutants, I mean. We're just like you."
"It ain't the mutants I'm worried about. It's everybody else."
"Everybody else is okay, too. Most of my friends are normal, and they're all nice. They just have to get to know us. But there aren't any normal humans here. Just us."
He glanced down at her hand as she picked out the green candies. "What, you don't like the red ones?"
"No, they're my favorites, so I save them for last."
He chuckled. He couldn't help it. All the things he'd seen and done and suffered over these last few years, and here he was, sharing Skittles with an eleven-year-old kid on a sunny porch in rural New York. Just when he'd thought there was nothing left that could surprise him. She grinned at him, her green eyes lighting up with all the sparkle of being young, safe, and happy. She was going to be a heartbreaker in ten years or so.
He sorted the red candies out of the pile in his palm and poured them into her hand. "There you go, Little Red."
"My name's Jean."
"Uh-huh."
Rogue dreamed that she woke up in bed at the Institute in the middle of the night. Kitty was wrapped in blankets and shadows, breathing deeply. But Rogue heard the halting, gasping breaths of someone having a nightmare.
It was coming from the heater vent. She and Gambit had discovered long ago that the vent connected their rooms; she could hear everything that went on in there, if she listened. So when he had nightmares, she knew about them.
She kicked off her blankets and headed for the window, letting cold air come pouring in. Behind her, Kitty moaned and wrapped the blankets more tightly around her. Rogue closed the window behind her and went skimming along the side of the house to Gambit's room. She eased the window open and slipped inside.
She could hear him more clearly now. The quick, startled, trembling gasps of breath seemed to echo in the room. She flew to his bed to shake him awake . . . but the bed was empty. The room was empty. The mattress was stripped bare, the dresser unused. There were no coats, uniforms, or shoes in the closet. It was as deserted as the day Evan left.
But she could still hear him.
She shot out into the hallway, calling for him, begging him to wake up so he could tell her where he was. No one seemed to hear her. All the bedrooms stayed dark, and the horrible, twitching breathing still resonated against the walls.
There was no motorcycle in the garage. The chart on the kitchen wall for who did dishes on what day didn't have his name on it. Rogue scanned it frantically, thinking maybe she had an old chart . . . and then saw that her name wasn't on it either. The rotation switched straight from Amara to Kurt, with no Rogue in between.
She left the chart behind and flew out onto the lawn, rising high above the grounds so she could see everything for miles. Even up here, she could still hear him, though he couldn't hear her.
Someone was standing just outside the gate.
Rogue dropped like a stone, landing on the other side of the black iron bars. Gambit smiled at her through them. She reached through the gate for him, and as he grasped her hand she suddenly realized that she had no gloves on, and the sound of his nightmare breathing still pounded against her ears.
He seized her hand, his smile becoming predatory, and without really changing he was suddenly Mystique, and Rogue could feel her body melting into slime and bitterness, reforming with a face that wasn't her own. Two blue hands clasped together through the gate.
She shot awake with the force of a bullet, reeling with disorientation. The plane was dark and quiet. Her sleeping bag was twisted around her.
As soon as she could move, she untangled herself. Gambit was asleep next to her, his breathing deep and even. She lay awake for a long time, looking at him, before finding the courage to fall asleep again.
Gambit dreamed about Bella.
He couldn't quite see her; she was hazy in the way that people in dreams sometimes are. But Blood Moon Bayou was crystal-clear. The sunlight came filtering through the trees in streaks. They sat in Jean-Luc's motorboat, drifting across the quiet water, far away from anyone who could overhear.
"It's crazy," Gambit told her. He couldn't tell if he was speaking French or English. "What d'they t'ink we are? Party favors? Like we get married on dey say-so. Remy, get de mail. Remy, put y'shirt in de wash. Remy, marry Bella."
"You sure know how t'flatter a girl," Bella commented. He could see her mouth clearly as she spoke, full and soft and red, curved up in a sardonic smile.
Remy stopped himself and rolled his eyes. "Sorry. But y'know what I mean."
"I do. It's none'a their business."
"Exactly."
She laughed. It was a bright, clear laugh, as always, but there was an undercurrent of something else behind it. "Well, I guess I'll never get t'marry you now. You'd freeze in hell before you let Jean-Luc be right."
Remy raised his eyebrows at her. "Wait . . . what? You sayin' you do wanna marry me?"
"Told yeh yes when y'asked me."
"I never asked you."
"Mais si. You were eight, I was six. You stole me a ring pop and said I couldn't have it unless I married you. So I said yes."
"It don't count if you eat the ring."
"I kept the plastic part."
Remy laughed, then sobered up. "Serious, Belle. No jokes. Do you wanna marry me? I'm not askin' y'to . . . not yet. I just wanna know."
She smiled again, and the smile was sad. "Y'ain't no handsome prince, Remy LeBeau, dat's fo'sure certain. But you're good-lookin' enough, an'you're a good kisser."
Remy grinned.
"I would't mind bein' married to you. Not much. Dey's worse fates."
"Y'sure know how t'flatter a guy."
She smiled, but stayed silent for a few long seconds. Then she said, "Dey's other things t'consider, too. We may not like it, but our dads are right. Unitin' de guilds would help a lot. If Marius an' Jean-Luc had to learn to share gran'babies, dey might learn how t'share other things, too. And when Bobby an' Julian become guildmasters, dey'd be brothers. It's not a reason t'get married, but it'd be a good thing."
Remy nodded. She was right, as far as it went.
She was silent for a few more long minutes. The boat rocked lazily underneath them. She watched the water.
"I got six months left on my trainin'," she announced, her voice casual but shaking ever so slightly.
"Congratulations."
She snorted. "When I finish, I'll be initiated into de guild. Full-fledged assassin. You know what my rite of passage is?"
"I can guess."
"You'd guess right. It's all right for you boys, doin' pinches—it's dangerous and all, but everything's got insurance and it's not like it really matters anyway. It's just silliness. But my guild . . . I been trained to it all my life, I know how, I know I'm supposed to be detached, but . . ." She stopped and took a deep breath. "As it comes up, I'm just really not lookin' forward to killin' somebody. It's not 'cause I'm scared. I just . . . don't wanna do it. And if I married you, I wouldn't have to. I'd be helpin' de guild another way. Wouldn't even have t'finish de trainin' at all. Safe in de T'ieves Guild. I know it's no reason t'get married—"
"It's as good a reason as any," Remy interrupted. "Maybe not traditional, but it works."
Bella raised her head and laughed. "Traditional? You kiddin'? Arranged marriage is de tradition. My parents had one. Your parents had one. I don'know about mine, but yours seemed t'do all right."
Remy nodded. His mother's face appeared in his mind, clever and canny and reasonably content. He knew for a fact that his father had worshiped the ground she walked on, but he'd never stopped to think if she'd loved him the same. But she'd been a good wife, and a good mother to his boys. And she'd been happy, as far as Remy knew.
"I been out on my own a long time," he told her. "Been livin' without a home, without a name. It ain't much of a life. When I left, de idea of settlin' down wid one woman an' one home didn'much appeal t'me. But now . . . well, dey's worse fates. And you're a fine-lookin' woman, Belladonna Boudreaux. An' you been my friend a long time. I always thought one day I might marry you, if I felt like it, an' I guess today's as good as any. Ain't good reasons, but if you're willin' t'put up wid reasons like dat . . ."
He trailed off, shaking his head. He'd come here to rant and rave and complain about their parents, and he'd ended up doing exactly what Jean-Luc wanted him to do.
But this wasn't about Jean-Luc, or Marius. This was about Remy having a home, and Bella having an escape. This was about friends helping one another out. There were worse fates.
"Belladonna, will you marry me?"
She cast a glance at him, sizing him up, her eyes sparkling and her smile devil-wicked. "You ever gonna cheat on me?"
"Depends. You gonna let y'self go?"
"No jokes, Remy. I don'wanna end up like my mother. Just tell me straight out. You gonna cheat on me, ever?"
Remy reached across the boat and took her hand. It was warm and soft; assassins didn't get calluses like thieves did. His mind strayed back to girls he'd known, some he'd even loved, and lingered for a long moment on that attitude-rich mutant girl from New York . . . the one he'd watched fly away back to her own family. Then he pushed the memories away. "I promise you. Here on out, you de only woman for me. I will never cheat on you."
She smiled at him, the warm smile of one friend to another. "Well, as long as y'promise, I guess I could marry you. Got nothin' else t'do this week."
"Sounds like a plan, den."
"Sounds like."
"One problem, though."
"What's dat?"
"If y'go through wid dis, yo'name's gonna be Belle LeBeau. You sure you kin live wid dat?"
Bella's golden, joyous laughter startled him awake.
The jet was dark and quiet. Remy took a few deep breaths, remembering where he was and what he was doing there. Then he turned his head and looked at the girl lying next to him.
One white streak lay across her face. There were soft purple shadows on her eyelids where the blood vessels showed through her translucent ivory skin. Beautiful Rogue, that he'd thought about even when he shouldn't have.
No promises.
Jean had a dream in which she was at school, but had forgotten her books and had to chase down someone who could give her a ride home to get them. It was not a particularly memorable dream, and when she woke from it she had the presence of mind to realize that it had been rather a waste of time.
She raised her head and looked around. All three of her friends were quietly, peacefully sleeping. But something was moving in the dark.
Jean reached out a hand and ordered the emergency gear stowage to pop open. A flashlight flew into her hand. She flipped the switch and sent a beam of light slicing across the cabin.
There was a bird sitting on the console. It glared at her with one bright, black eye, frozen in the beam of light.
Well, that's what they got for leaving the hatch open in the middle of a swamp. Jean rolled her eyes and switched off the light. "Get out of here, you."
There was a rustle of wings. Jean rolled over onto her side, mashed her backpack into a better pillow shape, curled up into a ball, and went back to sleep. She dreamed of fire.
Mais si: Yes, you did.
And an explanation of the joke: Belladonna's nickname, Belle, means 'Beautiful' in French. (Her full name is actually 'beautiful lady' in Italian.) Remy's last name, LeBeau, means 'The Handsome.' No, really. So she would be 'Beautiful the Handsome' if she married him.
