So, from your comments (particularly Heartbreak Lane's-you were so right!) I realized this next "chapter" really should have been added to the last one instead of acting as the beginning of a new chapter. Instead of updating the last chapter and risk some of you missing it, I'm adding this mini chapter here and will get you a full length chapter as soon as I am able.

Thanks for the wishes for Chaucer, my dog. He is a mutt, part terrier and part cocker spaniel. He's all white. I call him my Luck Dragon.

Chapter 13: Midnight Calling

It took a week for Jean to compile a list of answers. Another three days after that for Rogue to call Remy. It was ten o'clock on a Friday, which meant it was somewhere around three in the morning at Castle Cassidy. She turned on her computer and called, knowing he might not even have the service up. But after only two rings his sleepy face was in view, the red in his eyes burning in all the darkness around him.

"I woke you up."

"Well, ain't dat the truth. What's wrong, chere? Is everythin' alright?"

"Nothing urgent. Go back to bed."

"Non. You done woke dis Cajun up, may as well tell me why you call." He yawned, stretched in the dim light cast mostly from the computer screen. She noted that he wore his gloves, though not a shirt, as he scratched his chest. "Well?"

"I wanted to apologize." Even with such little light, she noted that he arched a brow. "For callin' you a dirty Swamp Rat with no sense of boundaries or compassion." He was silent. "And for accusin' your mother of having loose morals." Rogue was pretty certain he snorted just then. "Not knowing her, I shouldn't have brought her into the argument. That was petty. And further more, you were right."

"Pardon moi?"

"You were right, Cajun, don't be ungracious about it," Mississippi snapped back at him, bringing the warmth and the south in a sentence.

"God, won't she ever shut up, Gambit?" A female's voice came through, from somewhere behind the man taking up most of the screen with his smug face and his sculpted chest. The voice was heavily Irish and heavy with sleep. "I was asleep."

"Ah, you sure were, petite." He looked a touch uncomfortable before a gloved hand came up and obscured the screen entirely. He did not, however, turn off the sound so Rogue could hear his whisper, "Look, Brigit,-"

"Belinda."

"Right. Belinda. This here's a good friend and she needs t'talk—"

"So have her call back in the daylight. Is it so much to ask when you've a hot woman in your bed that your wee friend has her tantrums when the grown folk are awake and care?"

"I'm awake, chere, and I care. Now, you go on to your own room. You got early duties tomorrow, non?"

There was shuffling, feet hitting the floor, muffled curses in an accent so thick Rogue couldn't make out the individual words, though she got the gist. Eventually, Remy came back, still shirtless, now sprawled in his tangled blankets and with a low lamp adding a golden glow over him.

"She lives in the castle—"

"It's called a Keep, ange."

"She lives and works in the castle and you just threw her out of bed?"

His broad shoulders rolled. "She'll get over it, petite. She got what she wanted. I got what I wanted. Now, I get to talk to you. You been avoidin' me for too long."

"I didn't want to apologize to your womanizing ass and encourage you."

"You wound me, Anna Marie. Them other women know what they getting' into. I ain't tellin' 'em we gon' be together forever, petite, just that they gonna wish it was." His smile, combined with his sleepy eyes, the rumpled sheets, and his bare chest were a sight to make a woman catch her breath and dare him to prove it.

Even Rogue. Though she just managed not to bite her tongue in two while holding back the words. "And now that we're done with Sexy Gambit is Sexy can we move on to the more important matter of me?"

Gambit laughed and Rogue grinned back instinctively before snuggling into her own comforter. "You are right, petite, you are what's important. You gonna apologize some more?"

"Nope, your cherie amie ruined that for you. I am going to tell you the options Jean presented me with."

"We gonna have t'work on dat accent before I take you home. Tante Mattie'd skin me for not teachin' you better, chere."

Rogue yawned, sleepy for the first time in a week, and dismissively flicked gloved fingers at him.

"Bêbê, you need t'take those off. No need to sleep in 'em."

"I know, but we're talkin'-"

"Through a computer. Take 'em off then tell me Jean's options."

It was practically visible, the weight of her exhaustion as she peeled the gloves off then laid them aside before snuggling back into her comforter. The comforter didn't cover her; it was plumped up for extra cushioning effect.

"So, she says controlling it could depend on what triggers it. If it's tied to my autonomic functions—the stuff like breathin' and my heartbeat-control is gonna be real hard to come by, if it's even possible. If it's part of my sympathetic nervous system, my uh—" she flapped her hands, face scrunched while the word eluded her.

"Fight or flight," supplies with an affectionate smile curving masculine lips.

"Right. That. Then biofeedback might work. 'Course, she also said I should try more intense yoga and maybe think about anti-anxiety pills."

"Biofeedback?"

"Yeah, it's this thing where they hook me up to a heart monitor and I use my brain to slow my heart. People use it to beat lie detectors, manage pain, even those crazy Polar Swim things where you jump into a frozen over lake-which is just ridiculous, by the way. And marmosets even do it for marshmallows."

"You sayin' if a monkey can do it, you can too?"

An amused, "Mhmm," came with a downward flutter of lashes she couldn't keep up. "What do you think, Remy? Any of these sound like gold?"

"I think you got your choice to make, but me, I'd take a pass on de pills for now. Try the biofeedback. I'll even send you some marshmallows, chere."

"No good, Cajun. I want you to feed 'em to me while fannin' me."

"I think they usually use grapes for dat."

"Don't care. I want marshmallows."

"An' who said you always get what you want?"

"I never get what I want, sugar, that's the point."

There was a long silence after the quick exchange. Well, as quick as a half-asleep mutant girl from Mississippi could manage, anyway. In that silence, Rogue slipped fully to sleep.

"Anna Marie? You awake?" Gambit's voice was kept purposefully low, soft. If she was asleep-and he was hoping she was-he didn't want to wake her. "Me, I'm'a make sure you get what you want." He left their computers linked and fell asleep again to the soft sounds coming from Xavier's in the dark.