The cab of the black SUV Remy had borrowed was silent as the grave and the hours of nothing but the hum of the engine and the occasional radio static was driving him insane. Their tank was three quarters full and they had had a bathroom break only half an hour ago, but Remy pulled the car to the nearest rest stop none the less. Marie showed emotion for the first time since they had left the school as she looked around confused. Even at their stops she had sat frozen in her seat until he was stopped then gotten out, done what needed doing without a word, and gotten back in the car still as a statue once more. Marie didn't say anything, but she watched closely as Remy pulled into a parking spot at the back of the nearly deserted rest lot.
"Mon Amor, I can't stand this anymore." Remy said turning to her and taking her hands in his, "This silence, it kills me. Tell me what is wrong, I will help, whatever it is, just let me help you." She gasped a little and flinched away from him when he brushed his bare fingers against her soft cheek, but softened as his feelings of love, worry, and desire to help settled into her.
She reached up and recaptured his hand in her own drawing them towards her in an acceptance of his comfort and support. "Ah haven't seen them in years." She said her accent thick and voice weak from lack of use.
"Amor, you knew that when we started this. That's why you need to go. You have to know if you have family in Mississippi worrying about you while you're off at war or if it's just going to be your family in New York. No matter what you find out you know you always have a family with the Professor; a bigger family then anyone could ever dream of. We will always love you and be proud of you no matter what your parents feel."
Marie smiled a little tearily up at Remy before shoving the center console up and scooting over to hug herself against him. What a southern blessing bench front seats were she thought as Remy held her kissing her hair and whispering to her softly in French.
"What will you tell them about me?" Remy wondered as she calmed against his firm frame.
"The truth I s'pose. That's the whole point isn't it? Show them who I really am, the real me they never got to meet. You're a part of that."
"And I couldn't be happier to be, you know that, but are you sure you want to start this conversation off with 'hey mom and dad, remember how I'm a mutant, well this is my mutant professor boyfriend with glowing red eyes and we just came for a nice social visit'? I'm just worried it might be too much for them."
"Trust me Sugar, this is Mississippi we're talkin' about; the professor boyfriend part of that is the least of their worries." Marie laughed lightly. "No, this war is going to be hard enough without worrying about them as well, if I'm going to go through that, they had better be able to accept all of me, the real me."
"It almost sounds like you don't want them to Mon Amor." Remy said carefully, running his fingers through her hair brushing her scalp lightly as he went.
Marie was quiet for a minute before she said, "That's what bothers me the most, I'm not sure which I want more. In some ways it would be easier to just cut the ties and let them drift away, but the other part of me is afraid what it will do to me to have to let go of that little piece of hope I've carried all these years. I've always hoped that if I could understand my powers, start to control them, that I could explain it to them, show them I won't hurt them and they might take me back. That's the only thing that kept me alive all those frozen winter nights up in Canada before Logan found me; the hope that maybe someday they'd take me back."
"What will you do if they don't? Are you ready to be wholly without even the concept of parents? You'll have protection and instruction at the school, but I mean that little warm fuzzy part of having parents that doesn't ever really go away unless they are dead to you in one way or another." Remy asked rubbing the cold place in his heart where that little ball of comfort used to lie.
"Honestly," Rogue said looking up at him through thick eyelashes, "I'd probably just end up transferring that to someone else. The Professor and Storm maybe, or Logan and Chris... I don't know."
"Non Amor, my girlfriend can not look up to my baby sister as a mother figure, that makes me way too damn old. The animal is ancient, he is fine, but I beg you Amor not my baby sister." Remy pleaded.
Marie laughed outright at that making Remy smile relief filling in his worry as she brightened back to her old self, "Ok, ok just Logan then." Sobering she said, "She's old enough to be a parent though, you both are."
Remy sighed and tucked Marie back under his chin stroking her hair, "She should be. If not with the child she lost then with Logan's all it makes me squirm to think of. She found her mate, she's been through enough already, let her settle down and have her family, have her peace." his voice traveled the air like a mourning ghost and Marie had to suppress a shiver.
"What about you?" She asked not wanting to push him, but curious as to why he wasn't settled down at his age.
Remy shrugged, "It was never a personal goal of mine, not like Chris who probably would have wanted kids even if her instinct didn't drive her to it. I was on my own so young, I abandoned everyone who mattered, Chris, my mother, my father was dead. I was barley your age when I left it all; I know now leaving Chris was the biggest mistake of my life, and one I will never repay."
"You don't know that." Marie said trying to chase the haunted tenor from his voice, "I saw the memories you did, but what if she had never ended up here, never met Logan if she hadn't gone down that path. Wouldn't you go through anything, even the horrors she went through, to find what they have?" She asked not looking at him.
Remy pulled back a bit to look down at her startled in part by the realization of the truth in what she said, but more by the realization that he did have what Chris and Logan had if not in so instinctually binding a form, and yes he would go through all of that and more to end up right here with her in his arms. "Yes Mon Amor. I would." He said kissing the top of her head and inhaling her slightly sweet scent.
"She's here." Logan growled sniffing the air from where he and the teams had been training in the yard. Everyone stopped their hand to hand combat sparring and looked over at him.
"I will go escort her in, please excuse me." Storm said automatically knowing who Logan meant.
"Scott's handling it." Logan said turning his back on the direction Storm was heading.
"I'll hurry then." Was her only response.
"Rampage want to know who comes." Rampage said a little confused.
"Some Psychic bint." Deadpool said earning a glare from Chris and Piotr who found it their personal responsibilities to keep him in line.
"Emma Frost." Logan explained.
Chris nodded her understanding, but was thrown for a loop suddenly when what felt like sharp taloned fingers started shuffling through her brain like a deck of playing cards. "Where is she exactly?" Chris gritted out through clenched teeth.
"She's walking up the drive from the far car park, she's about a third of the way now, just passing that big yellow rose bush Storm loves so much." Logan explained confused.
"Perfect." Chris said envisioning the woman from her memories doing exactly that, except as her foot comes down the gravel shifts and she falls landing on one of the thorny offshoots of the bush.
"Interesting." Resounded the voice in Chris' head before finally Emma was out of her mind.
"Excuse me guys, I have a bone to pick with our new friend." Chris said and stormed off pretending not to notice that Logan followed her at a distance staying in the shadow of the school building as she approached the blond woman who was dusting herself off.
"Get the fuck out of my head and stay the fuck out of it." Chris growled when she was close enough to do so without the children hearing her.
"Not quite the welcoming party I was looking for although it seems my actual good will party is waiting for me behind the doors. Oh and look here comes my knight in shining armor now." She said gesturing to Scott who was walking their way a bristling Storm and fiery Jean on his heals .
"You heard me." Chris said under her breath only a foot away from the woman.
"Why? What do you have to hide?" She asked her frosty blue lips giving Chris a cocky grin.
Taking a deep breath Chris focused all of her energy on projecting onto the psychic, it wasn't a tactic that would be effective for long on a psychic as strong as Emma, but the overwhelming stench of rotting human flesh, the excruciating pain of torture, and the even worse pain of loosing a child was enough to knock Emma back a step her mouth gaping for air as Chris' memories overwhelmed her. Emma shut Chris out quickly glaring at the shorter woman knowing that the attack wouldn't have been so powerful if she hadn't been reaching for Chris' mind already.
"Stay out of my head." Chris warned turning to leave before the welcoming party fully arrived.
"What did you show her?" Deadpool asked appearing suddenly and silently at her shoulder and falling into stride.
"Hikaru's death and getting my arm ripped off." She lied.
"So the loss of your baby, North Korean prison torture, and the genocide in Africa then." He stated no question about his tone.
Logan, watching and listening from the hiding spot Chris knew him to be in expected her to flip him the bird or tell him he was wrong and raised an eyebrow when all she did was stop and glare at him sidelong.
Deadpool sighed and placed his hand on the back of her head in comfort using it to turn her into him so that he held her forehead against his chest, "Ahh little Tigress..." he said a little sadly petting her hair.
Chris sighed and shook her head into his chest trying to pull the memories from the forefront of her own mind. It would be worth it if Emma left her mind alone from now on, but it wasn't the ideal way to dissuade a psychic because it affected her much more then it affected them, she just coped better in the short term and sometimes that was the advantage she needed.
"Let me take it away, just for a little while." Deadpool whispered in her ear bringing index and middle finger of the hand that wasn't stroking her hair to her temple in offering. Chris was the only person alive that knew that Deadpool could silence active thoughts. He could literally take something someone was thinking and erase if form their short term memory. If it was something they had already known before, they would still know it, but any new idea was gone and old ones left to be rediscovered at a later time. The fact that he had let her live with that knowledge made her one of a kind and she suspected was part of the reason he had kept her around for so long.
Chris shook her head, "I'm learning to deal with it."
Sighing Deadpool caressed her temple with his thumb instead saying, "You really are having a go at this whole grown up thing aren't you Firecracker?" He asked shaking his head, "Do you think we're making him mad right now, me holding you, you so willing in my arms?" Deadpool taunted. "He's watching you know."
"I know. He's listening too." She informed him. "I wouldn't piss him off if I were you Hot Rod. Comforting a friend is one thing, but you are suggesting something entirely different."
"What you're at his beck and call then are you?" Deadpool sneered still holding Chris against him where she stood willingly.
"No Wade. I want to be with him, I want to make him happy." Chris said taking a step back to look at him seriously her voice soft but firm.
Deadpool flinched at hearing his name for the first time in a long time. "You're the only one who gets to call me that and live you know that don't Christina."
"I know." Was all she said a small sad smile playing on her lips as she walked over to the shadows of the school where her mate waited patiently.