BLIND LEADING THE BLIND

Part 29

Visitor


Remy LeBeau had slept soundly; he couldn't remember the last time he had slept so soundly through a whole night. When he awakened, he felt slightly disorientated. Ever since his blindness, waking up anywhere he couldn't see had always been disorientating, but in this hotel, it was more so than usual. He checked his braille watch and discovered it was after nine am. There were quiet voices coming from the suite's main living room, and he pulled himself out of bed to investigate, accidentally bumping his thigh into the hard corner of the nightstand as he went to do so.

The voices stopped after the clatter of what sounded like a lamp or an ornament of such and he bent down to retrieve whatever it had been – hard ceramic told him it was an empty vase that thankfully had not broken as far as he could tell. His bedroom door had been opened, he realised, and he had been heard.

"Remy, is everything all right?" asked Professor Xavier from the next room.

Remy felt his cheeks flush a little as he placed the vase back on the nightstand carefully and made his way to the door, feeling his way there. "Sorry. Knocked somethin' over," he answered as he entered into the living room, still vaguely remembering the days when he hadn't been as clumsy.

There was a faint smell of cologne in the room and it was a particular scent that stood out to him, one he'd definitely noted before. Along with that smell come the memory of a man with silvery hair dressed impeccably in a suit with a smart overcoat and a hat – a former employer. He was surprised with himself for remembering this but counted his blessings that scents could stir the memories so easily.

"Magneto," he said under his breath as he hovered at the door.

"Good morning," came the polite but strangely curt reply of Magneto.

Remy rubbed his arm, still hovering, awkward and unsure. It felt strange to be in the presence of his previous employer now that he was so vulnerable. He had never been technically afraid of Magneto; he was one of the few who had worked for the man who hadn't feared him. Regardless, the unease stirred a goosebumped response across his skin. If Magneto did want to react in any way to him that was less than amiable, he'd be helpless.

Remy forced a slightly mumbled "Bon matin" as he leaned into the door frame and feigned being casual and comfortable as best he could. He was sure the Professor could sense the nerves emanating from him.

"Magnus has come to help," said Professor Xavier, sounding calm and unaffected. There was a clink of a tea or coffee cup against a saucer, and the smell of toast was strong in the room. "Come sit down."

"Help with what?" Remy asked, not moving; he still felt somewhat disorientated and tried to remember the night before. Why was it that it felt so distant? What did last night feel as if it were so very long ago?

"You took samples of something that once belonged to me," said Magneto, his voice too calm.

Remy pushed himself away from the door and worked his way over to where they were; there was a small round table not far from the patio doors of the room, as he touched the back of a chair, it felt light and flipped back slightly in his hand telling him it was free. He sat down carefully, feeling like some spectacle he was sure Magneto was probably studying with a sense of amusement.

"I didn' steal it," Remy remarked brusquely. "Is there coffee?" he breathed in the smell of freshly brewed coffee, it was an odd question really although he supposed that he might be smelling the dregs of their cups.

"Of course," said Professor Xavier, a gentle clink and then the sound of water hitting ceramic told him the man was pouring him a cup, he felt it being led to his hand and he accepted it gratefully.

"I didn't accuse you of theft, Gambit," said Magneto after a moment, still ever calm.

Remy sipped from the still reasonably hot liquid then explained, "I found it in Mexico...I don't know what happened to the rest of it."

"Where are the shards?" asked Magneto.

Unsure, Remy was about to say he didn't know anymore; Rogue had had them for a while now. Before he had the chance to open his mouth, the Professor answered for him.

"Logan has taken them to a remote location and will guard them for the moment. We couldn't risk keeping the shards here, close to so many people," explained Professor Xavier.

"A wise decision," said Magneto. "Most of the shards had been destroyed through the explosion of Asteroid M. Some are still floating in space, while I managed to recover most of what fell to Earth. The shards that remained in tact became unstable, with unpredictable complications."

"What y' mean unstable?" Remy queried, he heard the Professor buttering toast; the scraping sound made him feel strangely on edge.

"Do you know what the Gems of Cyttorak can do?" Magneto asked.

Remy heard something softly thump down on the table before him, the Professor had given him toast. He felt about and found a triangular slice. "Other than what you can do wit' it? Other than usin' it t' evolve mutants? Other than it bein' what makes Juggernaut the way he is?"

"Yes," Magneto responded quickly.

"It can prevent y' powers...if y' use it in the right way...accordin' t' the guy I was workin' for."

"Who is this man you were working for?"

"He wouldn' give me his name. He said a name would give me too much power over him."

The Professor sighed at this.

"The shards of the original gem could be used to evolve mutants subject to its own unique radiation," Magneto admitted, "however, after being thrown through space, they've been subject to certain changes, changes which have left the shards themselves unstable and dangerous in the wrong hands."

"You experienced something through these shards?" asked Professor Xavier.

"Myself, and whoever came in to the vicinity of the shards over extended periods of time began to experience changes in themselves. Over a rather short period of time..." explained Magneto. "Hostility...emotional distress...a sense of hopelessness. The shards left anyone who had been exposed to their radiation feeling as unstable as the molecules in the shards were. Some would try to harm themselves, others would lash out at anyone in their way."

Remy spoke up, "did you have any...side effects?"

"I kept my own shards near me at all times – too afraid to let them fall into the wrong hands. I barely slept, I barely ate, I became obsessed with things that were trivial, feelings that I may have once had were amplified and inappropriate. My anger was explosive, if I was angry with someone, it was violent anger, and unwarranted. But I did not see this...my thinking was...rational to myself, I was burgeoning on raving lunacy and yet I saw logic in my tantrums, in my reactions and plans..."

"How did you discover the shards were unstable?" Professor Xavier asked curiously; Remy heard the sound of him delicately sipping from his own cup.

Magneto sighed, "My children...my children led me to seeing that something was wrong."

"They became unstable too?"

"Initially, I did not see it. Wanda..."

Remy spoke up, "Wanda is already...unstable."

Magneto seemed offended by the comment, regardless of the truth to it, "Wanda was unstable," his voice was thick. "However...strangely, her mental stability seemed to be improving. Her tantrums, her tendency to be angry...this dissipated. And I had assumed this was to do with the therapy she had been undergoing at the time..." he explained. "Pietro however..."

"What happened to Pietro?"

"Pietro began to suddenly show the signs of serious mental illness..." Magneto despaired, "his confidence began to fail him. He would rant uncontrollably at minor insignificant things. He too, would barely eat or sleep, and he would pick arguments for what would seem to be for no reason other than for the sake of arguing. For a time, he became obsessed with a young woman whom he followed and spied on for days on end. His admissions of love were extreme and uncharacteristic, but at the time, I overlooked these things. My own mindset affected by the shards so much that I was oblivious to them...until the night that Pietro tried to kill himself..."

Remy felt a strange knot in his stomach twisting. Although he had no feelings of friendship for Pietro Maximoff, he couldn't help but ask, "is he alright?"

"He has recovered since."

Uneasily, Remy forced himself to ask, "can...can I ask...how he tried to...to..." he cleared his throat, "do it?"

Magneto paused, it seemed to be a sore point to ask.

"It's relevant," said the Professor quietly.

"He tried to throw himself from the roof of a building. If it had not been for the fact he has metal pins in his shoulder from a surgery, I would have not been able to save him in time."

Remy felt queasy, he put his toast back down and took a long drink from his cup to wash down the rise of vomit that had almost forced its way up.

"Although I managed to prevent him from falling, the yank of my powers catching him from the fall had damaged his shoulder, the pin had almost come out of the skin. While he was in hospital recovering from the surgery to correct the problem, myself and Wanda discovered a suicide note, one that went on for pages. Apologies to everyone he had wronged...there was a page dedicated to Todd Tolanski apologising for the months of systematic bullying...a page dedicated to the X-Men apologising for his causing you trouble..."

Remy would have blinked had he been able to see.

"While Pietro was in hospital, away from myself and the shards, he recovered fully, but it was not until his return home did he begin to exhibit signs of mental strain and depression again. And then, the shards got so hot, they burned my hip, where they had been in a pocket attached to a belt..." Magneto sighed, "and then I understood at once...how unstable these shards were...what they had been doing..."

The Professor sighed too, "this seems to have happened in this case too, Magnus," he admitted. "Remy's mental state...attempted suicide...uncharacteristic behaviour..." he reeled off.

Remy turned to the Professor's direction, "y' mean...I'm gon' get better? I'm gon' feel better?"

"Possibly...if that is what has happened here," admitted the Professor.

"So...what now?" asked Remy.

"I had planned in sending you to Dr. Sinatra again today," Professor Xavier said after a moment, "but if this new information is indeed correct – and I have no doubts that it is – then waiting to see if your mental health improves without treatment may be the next course of action. As long as you understand...you will be under observation by myself and Magnus until we are convinced of your improvement."

Oddly, Remy found himself wishing that he could run to Rogue to tell her of this news, that he may not be crazy, that they had been wrong. That what he'd tried to do the other night hadn't been his fault. But then, another thought began to pester him almost immediately.

Had his feelings for Rogue been real? Had this been what he'd called love? Or...had it been the influence of radiation from unstable molecules in the shards of mystical gems? He wasn't sure he would know now. If Rogue had left to go back to Bayville, how would he be able to go to her and wait in her presence to see if he felt anything at all?

No...don' think that. You've always cared about her. You wouldn't have gone through all this t' help her if y' hadn't cared, he told himself sternly.

"Is...something wrong?" asked the Professor concernedly. Remy realised the expression of his face might have been one of extreme realisation.

Remy pushed himself to ask. He didn't want to, especially not in front of Magneto. But if Magneto could admit all that he had just admitted in front of him, Remy realised he had very little to lose himself right now. "All the feelin's I've had lately...is it possible I didn' feel any of them at all? I mean...really feel them...that they weren' jus'...made up by what the shards were doin' t' my mind?"

The Professor gave a resounding sigh, "Honestly, Remy. I'm unsure at this point...which is why you should be under observation..."

Remy wasn't sure the Professor understood the question. He'd been trying to ask 'do I really love Rogue', but the point had been missed entirely. He thought of how to reword it but before he could arrange the words in his head before speaking, a cell phone began to ring.

"Excuse me," said the Professor politely, Remy heard him moving away from the table and disappearing into his bedroom in the suite to answer the phone privately.

Remy sat in silence for a moment; the voice of the Professor was too muffled by the door for Remy to know exactly what was being said.

"Are you relieved?"

"Hmm?" Remy asked, he had been trying to listen for anything in the Professor's conversation in the next room and had almost forgotten Magneto was still there. "Oh...I uhm..." he felt oddly flustered.

"You do not seem relieved to know that your condition may improve."

Remy chewed the inside of his cheek, "I'm relieved. 'Course I'm relieved."

Magneto contemplated for a moment, he sipped from his coffee and then spoke again. "When Pietro was in recovery...he began to question things too."

"He did?"

"He remembered most of what he had done. He even remembered the logical thinking behind his attempted suicide," said Magneto; Remy couldn't help but hear the hurt in the man's voice as he spoke of his son this way. "But he questioned whether these thoughts had been there to begin with. Had he really been sorry to Todd for bullying him? Had he ever been attracted to the young woman he stalked?"

"What'd he come up with as an answer?" Remy asked, trying to hide his despair.

"That the feelings he experienced came from a seed of truth. He may have felt a tiny part of guilt over the things he'd done. He may have felt a passing attraction..." Magneto explained. "These feelings were amplified by the exposure to the shards. And after all I have been told...I believe you suffered the same."

"Oh."

"Your feelings...for Rogue..." Magneto began, "do you question them?"

Remy wasn't sure he wanted to have a heart to heart with Magneto; after all, the man had never shown much interest in his thoughts before. He had been the ringer in Magneto's band of Acolytes, the knuckles for hire. He hadn't been asked ever before about his thoughts, and he hadn't ever felt the need to share them. He felt ever so slightly betrayed right now that the Professor must have told him about his reactions to Rogue's presence.

"If...what y' said is right..." he began, "and...all these...feelin's were amplified jus' like y' said...then that means...I really do have it in me t' be...so unstable..." Remy's stomach flipped like a pancake six feet above a frying pan. "I have it in me t' be so...obsessed with Rogue. I have it in me t' be so...willin' t' throw my life away for her..."

"In amplification," Magneto theorised.

"That's jus' it," Remy leaned forward and placed his elbows upon the table – rude or not – and put his head in them. "I could feel this...I could feel it again..."

"Unwarranted or not, those feelings will always be there. Ready to grow and expand...or to shrink and dissipate completely. Right now...it is too early to ask yourself if what you have felt is genuine or not. It is time to work on recovering. When your mind has healed...the answers will be easy to obtain."

Remy turned, hearing the sound of the Professor's room door opening, the electric wheelchair buzzing the Professor moved across the room.

"The call was from Dr. Lain, Remy," said Professor Xavier as he took his place back at the table. "He's requested whether or not we can stop in this afternoon for a talk before his office closes for the New Year."

Remy had forgotten about New Year. He had forgotten the day, and the time of morning. "Does that mean that I'm eligible for treatment? That I might get my sight back?"

"The appointment would suggest a positive outlook," suggested the Professor.

"Don't go," Magneto said quietly, he sipped his coffee again.

"Huh?" Remy turned to Magneto's direction and frowned.

Professor Xavier seemed to sit forward, "pardon?"

Magneto gave a soft grunt, "our phone call last night. You mentioned having recently spoken to Giles Radcliffe and him having referred to you to Dr. Ethan Lain."

"Who's that?" Remy spoke up.

"A former colleague of ours," the Professor answered. "Giles was the doctor who got me the contact information for Dr. Lain through a colleague of his."

"When you mentioned Giles name, I realised something was wrong," Magneto explained, "being that I attended the funeral for Giles Radcliffe in the September of 2009."

Professor Xavier gave a quiet gasp.

"Giles is dead. And when you mentioned him, I understood that somewhere, somehow, someone had gotten wind of your looking for a doctor to repair the damage Cyclops had done to Gambit's eyes," Magneto stated. "So I went through my resources. I can find nothing in medical journals about him, and I could find no references to which colleges he had attended. His website domain was only recently purchased through an untraceable credit card; references to which schools he attended are on his online resume but when I called at eight this morning, they had never heard of him. All other online articles about him were recent, the webmasters of these webpages I discovered had reported being recently hacked..."

"So y' tellin' us...this guy...is a fraud?" Remy swallowed.

"Did you not check up on this so-called Doctor?" asked Magneto.

"Giles had assured me that he was the best in his field. I even spoke to his colleague Jason Graham who had given me the information to contact him."

"I am unsure of who you spoke to, but I am sure it was not Giles. Do not go back to that office to meet with Lain. Instead, take my advice and do some checking," Magneto warned, "and get out of Boston quickly. If this man is not who he says he is, then he could be dangerous."

"I had plans to move on to Washington following our time here," the Professor admitted.

"No. You must not go to Washington. Your movements are public, and you are too much of an easy target in Washington if this Ethan Lain should try to approach. Return to Bayville, increase your security and stay alert."

Remy heard Magneto standing up.

"I must go for now. I will be in Bayville by the second of January," Magneto informed, "if you need any other information, do not hesitate to call me."

Remy listened as the Professor and Magneto moved to the door; he heard them quietly whispering outside in the hall but it was too quiet for him to make out.

Instead he tried to focus on his own feelings rather than listening to what the men outside the door were saying. He still felt sick. His hopes of being able to see were completely dashed now even if he had been giving the whole ordeal second thoughts. And the revelations of what the shards had done still left him positively reeling.

Whatever happened now, it seemed he would be going back to Bayville regardless of choice...and indeed, he would be going back to Rogue after all.

So much for the separation, he thought dully.


End of Part 29


Two updates in one day...shocking, right? Ah, I agree, the previous chapter was a bit short but never mind, this one is a little longer anyway. Hope you all enjoy and thanks to everyone for their reviews. It's nice to hear from you all again! 3