Chapter Thirty-Three: Restitution

The Garden: Central Core

Remy LeBeau's favourite animal was in fact a bird, and that bird was the Flamingo. He loved Flamingos; they were a ridiculous impractical pink colour, they had spindly legs, and they lived in the same murky waters of the African plains as the hippopotamus and crocodiles. C'mon mes amis; what was not to like?

He was also more of a cat person than a dog person; he appreciated a cat's independence and basic contempt for the hand that feeds it.

Remy LeBeau knew he was a geek in his head and heart and cherished the fact; his love of sci-fi was something real and something that he was sure no one had engineered for him to like.

He loved the thrill of stealing and the adrenaline rush of planning a really complicated heist, but the allure of money and infamy had long since lost its lustre.

His favourite food was seafood linguini but only when made in one dinky little hole in the wall Italian restaurant down in Queens. He could cook Cajun as only a true Cajun could, but that didn't make it his favourite.

He had a standing arrangement with the Kingpin to represent Mr Fisk in all the underground poker tournaments in New York City; the arrangement had proved nicely lucrative for both of them.

One of his fondest memories was being double-dared by Belle at the age of fifteen to dress up in drag and parade around the French Quarter during Mardi Gras; the best part had been the look of green apple jealousy on Belle's face when almost every man in every bar he tottered into on six inch stiletto heels had offered to buy him a drink.

Belle would always be his wife, even if one day they actually filed for a divorce. He couldn't imagine ever being with her again but the thought of losing his connection to Belle was as incomprehensible to him as the thought of learning to breathe underwater. He knew that Belle wanted to use him to take control of the Guilds and he thought it was cute of her to think she needed to deceive him about it; as if he'd ever refuse her the thing that gave her life meaning.

Rogue was the first, and might well be the only, woman he had ever fallen madly, deeply, blindly, in love with and he still wasn't sure why. Rogue had taught him what mad, bad, and dangerous love was all about and he would always be grateful for that; he was a better man today because of it. He didn't think he would ever stop loving her like a wound in his heart, either, but he no longer dreamed of a future together.

Deep down inside he wondered if his passion for Rogue had ever been the equal of his love for Stormy.

Hidden away under a veneer of polite indifference, Remy really, truly, loathed Warren Worthington; this made him feel ashamed. Not because he was guilty about Warren's wings (although he was guilty about those, it had to be said) but because the one thing he felt he did well in life was turning the other cheek. That he couldn't forgive Warren for being rich, privileged, and secure about his place in the world made Remy feel like he had failed somehow.

Remy had always thought that sending Jubilee away from the mansion was not only a mistake but an insult and Logan was a pussy-whipped fool for letting le Professeur and Jean Grey talk him into it.

Speaking of the Grey-femme, Remy didn't like her all that much but he'd tumble her in a hot second if Scott wasn't in the picture. He secretly sort of wished he'd been around to see the genesis of the whole Dark Phoenix and Black Queen of the Hellfire Club thing. Jean in a black leather corset and riding whip was one of those fantasies that made a man feel bad for being a man but was damn hard to give up.

He would also pay a great deal of money to see Stormy wear her biker leathers; it was a huge disappointment to him that he'd missed out on that whole Australia episode when Stormy was wild and she and Logan ruled the roost. Lord God, if he'd met up with that Stormy he'd have lost his head and his heart in an instance and no mistake.

Remy hated his codename; Gambit had been a ruse to keep him living when he couldn't bear to be himself any longer, but now that tag and the persona that went with it felt like a concrete vest crushing the life and will from his soul.

He'd been celibate for almost two years and he was so very, very sick of it now; he missed meaningless sex with a pain.

Remy had once been to a party held by Sebastian Shaw and the New York Hellfire Club. He'd thoroughly enjoyed every debauched moment of it and left sometime the next morning with a hundred thousand dollars worth of silver plate and jewellery secreted about his person.

He was a card carrying member of Amnesty International and the FoH; the latter because he wanted to see how good their recruitment screening was in case he needed to infiltrate Creed's little hate fest. When he was issued with a card and email updates of all upcoming rallies without any background checks he had decided that the FoH wasn't worth his time to infiltrate.

Remy didn't consider himself suicidal exactly; it just seemed to him that if his future was anything like his past it wasn't worth living. His doctor in the city diagnosed low grade chronic depression – Remy just considered himself to be a realistic nihilist.

He would never call himself a clever man; he knew he was a fool, but his argument was that all men were fools. Still, a fool he might be, but he could be clever with it; other men thought they were smart and were damn foolish about it.

Remy had strongly suspected for years that his Pere knew who his birth parents were; he'd never asked because he didn't want to know just how badly Jean-Luc had screwed him over all these years.

He loved life but he longed to die; it was a dichotomy that he had grown comfortable with, but he suspected very few people would understand. So he hid the fears that crawled under his skin and the dreams he knew he couldn't make true under a smile and a wink and let the cards fall as they would.

Of course none of that had any real bearing on what was going on now but as eulogies went it provided valuable insight all the same; especially as at this present moment Remy was performing a passable impression of a total psycho.

'Mon dieu, why is not'ing ever easy?'

Remy jumped over Sinister's twitching body, careful to avoid the maggot crawling pieces of Essex's brain that oozed down the walls and suppurated across the floor towards the man's rapidly reforming cranium. Suppressing a shiver of distaste Remy hurried to the edge of the walkway, looking up at granny Mandy.

'Remy, you really gone an' done it dis time boy.' He muttered darkly as he looked over the cords, cables, and tendrils that twinned down the spire from Amanda's pinioned body.

He looked back at Essex's rapidly reforming form; that wouldn't do. He needed to give himself more time. Moving swiftly towards the operating table that Essex had all laid out ready for a Gambit-octomy Remy grabbed a collection of scalpels, surgical saws, and other stainless steel implements whose purpose he did not even want to speculate on.

Returning to stand just beside the half-formed squirming mass of greyish silver wriggling worms of brain matter and whatever it is was that took the place of flesh, muscle, and bone in Sinister's body, Remy watched transfixed. The monster's skull was reforming like stop-motion photography at high speed. He couldn't see it rebuilding with the naked eye but more of it formed every time he blinked.

He stared down at the sharp bladed weapons he held in both hands; he began to charge them even as his conscience kicked up merry hell inside his head. His conscience called him depraved and sick for even contemplating what he was contemplating. The hardened survivalist under Remy's skin pointed out patiently that if he let Sinister reform neither he, nor his conscience, would be alive to feel bad about things later. His conscience shut the hell up and Remy got to work.

'Lord have mercy on my soul,' crossing himself almost absently Remy crouched by Essex's momentarily vulnerable form and slammed one of the foot-long pneumatic syringes, charged to glowing point, straight through Essex's reforming nasal cavity. The body jerked and the ragged, wriggling pieces of flesh rippled like coral reefs disturbed by a change in sea current.

'God forgive me.'

Remy grabbed hold of one twitching hand and opened the hand palm up before embedding a scalpel through it, impaling the limb to the steel grated floor; he repeated the process with the other hand before he could lose his nerve.

When he was finished Essex's hands and feet were pinned to the ground and the homme had so many pointy things sticking up out of his skull he looked like a metallic porcupine. Remy stared at his glowing handiwork and at the writhing, rippling, slurping flesh trying to mould itself around the various foreign bodies piercing that flesh. He felt his stomach revolt violently.

'Shit,' staggering to his feet he lurched over to the railings and threw up over the side, shaking violently and coated with icy sweat. 'Shit, shit, shit.'

His knees wanted to give way and a scream of panicked horror tried to crawl up his throat. Remy could cope with evil in others, more or less, but it was the deep fissure of evil inside his own soul that left him trembling with terror sweat.

Behind his back something went pop; he whipped around to discover that Essex had managed to force one of the scalpels out of his hand and it had exploded against the floor when dislodged from his flesh. Gambit swore savagely; what did he have to do, to take this mother-fucking bastard out?

Leaping over Sinister's struggling body Remy picked up a wheelie metal chair (of all things) carried it over to Essex's body, charged the chair, and forced it through the monster's chest cavity until the wheels squealed against the grated floor right through the centre of Essex's torso.

'For fuck's sake stay dead.' He snarled stumbling back from the horrific sight of Sinister's grey-maggot flesh wriggling up the stem of the chair trying to incorporate the swivel chair into his basic body mass.

'Mary Mother of God…….' A surge of renewed panic helped shake him from his horrified gawking. Swiftly he turned away from Sinister and bounded over to the railings.

He jumped up onto one of the safety railings running along the edge of the walkway and tightrope walked across the narrow beam to the thicket of the larger, stronger, looking cables arcing up towards Amanda.

'Dis is gon end badly, I can tell,' still mumbling to himself, mostly as a distraction from thinking too hard, Remy grabbed a fistful of cable and pulled on it to test how secure it was and whether it could take his weight. A fission of static energy ran from his hand down his arm as he closed his fist around the cable. Bright lights flashed behind his eyes.

Melody Jacobs – July 10th 1982 necro-plasmic absorption……..

'What de hell?' Gambit shook his head clearing the flash of - something - that had seared into his brain from his thoughts. He frowned; it was almost as if he had just absorbed through his skin the data contained within the cable at the same time he had drawn the bio-kinetic energy in through his skin.

'Well I'll be damned.'

He blinked a few times and then more cautiously reached out with both hands to grab hold of the cables; there was another tingle as bio-kinetic energy seeped into his body but thankfully he didn't get anymore odd flashes of names or faces or anything else to go with it.

'Here goes not'ing,' taking a deep breath Gambit swung himself off the railing. For a moment he was dangling over an impossibly deep chasm, gripping the cords for dear life. Then he managed to wrap his legs around the cords as well and began inching his way up the cable; as he shimmied along the data cable turned from golden-white to searing heated blue-white.

'Ah fuck – don do dis to me now,' He was now wriggling along a lit fuse and the taper was burning down fast. He tried to re-absorb the excess energy he'd been unintentionally feeding into the cable. It didn't seem to do any good; he had no capacity to store, or disperse, the energy left in him let alone to take in more. He was maxed out. Stupid uncontrollable powers; stupid Sinister and his lousy genetic engineering; he ought to sue.

When Remy was about halfway between the walkway and the spire Essex's body began to move with actual intent instead of bucking and writhing like a landed fish; the charged swivel chair flew five foot into the air and exploded. The tiny pops and hissing sounds from below Remy were indicative of the fact that Essex was not going to stay down for much longer.

'Mon dieu what you got to do to get dat homme to stay down for five minutes, eh?' despite the very real danger he was now in, Remy couldn't help but be a little relieved that he hadn't come close to truly hurting Sinister. He hated Essex deeply and completely but murder was murder and Remy didn't want to add killing family members to his rap sheet.

He picked up the pace all the same; he did not want to be caught by a tres, tres pissed off Sinister with his ass literally swinging in the wind either.

By the time he reached the base of the spire, near Amanda's tiny, atrophied, feet Remy's teeth were aching from the energy build up in his body and his vision was swimming with waves of light and motion. It hurt to breathe and his brain felt like it was floating in a cocktail of sulphuric acid and vinegar.

He was reminded, in that moment, of one of his Tante Mattie's favourite sayings: reap what you sow. He wondered if he was the reaper or the sower today - or if he was going to do his share of both by the time this mess was done?

Trying not to think too hard about what he was actually planning to do – because the last thing he needed was to piss himself or throw up in revulsion and terror again – he began trying to climb the spire to reach level with Amanda's head.

A flash of movement in his peripheral vision was his only warning to imminent danger. Ungainly due to the surfeit of power percolating in his veins Remy just managed to twist and swing his body around to the back end of the circular bottom plinth of the spire before Essex's energy blast could splat him like a fly and send him plummeting to his death down into the dry ice and blue mist swathed chasm.

'LEBEAU!' Essex didn't sound even remotely human anymore. His voice was the roar of an industrial furnace combined with the scream of an avalanche and the shriek of tearing metal.

Remy groaned and reached out to start hauling himself up the spire towards Amanda's head once more. Another beam of energy lanced across his back and shoulder-blades as he struggled to find cables to pull on and pieces of spire to use as footholds. The blow hurt but it was a dull pain; Gambit was radiating his own energy and the brunt of Sinister's blast was instantly dissipated by contact with the corona of energy that shimmered around his body.

'LEBEAU!'

Remy turned his head, still plastered to the side of the spire like a bad Spiderman impersonator, and looked down upon the walkway platform where a more or less whole again Essex paced like a caged tiger. He smirked at the man and called out, with bravado completely faked, 'Careful where you be flingin' dem beams o' yours, m'sieur; you wouldn' wan' harm your precious jardin, non?'

Essex continued to snarl and pace, but there really wasn't anything he could – or dared - do under the circumstances. For a brief few seconds Remy had him by the short and curlies and they both knew it.

'Oui, now who's de fool?' he smiled even though he could feel the liquid wash of blood covering his back and the acid bite of pain across his shoulders; he suspected that the skin had been paired back almost to the muscle in places. He was more than likely a dead man when he climbed back down from the spire. If he was lucky Sinister would be so angry he'd kill him quick - but Remy kind of doubted it.

He was so close now, though, and he couldn't stop. He'd spent most of his life either deliberately not trying because he was afraid of failing or failing because he hadn't realised he was even being tested. Today he was actually going to win; today failure was not an option.

If death proved to be his only reward for a job well done, well, d'accord; there were plenty of folks that would say he had it coming anyhow.

'Merci dieu,' Gambit's reaching hands gripped something that wasn't hard metal or static charged fibre-optic cable.

He felt bone under dry dust and wrinkled flesh. His fingers closed upon the right shoulder of Amanda Mueller and he thought he heard a guttural moan rise like a revenant from the grave in response to his touch. Gritting his teeth Remy lurched upward and hooked an arm around the woman's collarbone and the long lightning conductor rod-thing that rose up behind her spine keeping her pinned in place.

He had reached the summit of his own decidedly macabre Everest. It was a damn shame he didn't have a flag to plant.

'Bonjour Grandmere; enchante,' He gritted out between his teeth as he struggled to find purchase to crouch just level with the shrivelled woman's shoulder; he ended up straddling one of the body width cables snaking around the spire instead. Essex was staring at him far below, just beginning to figure out what Remy had planned. Remy ignored him however fixing his intentions completely on what was left of the woman before him.

'Tsk, Mandy, you not lookin' so good, chere,' Remy regretted the irreverent words that popped out of his mouth as soon as he spoke them, but it was too late to take them back and he was too revolted by what was before him to be ashamed.

It was impossible to tell what age the woman had been when she had been trussed up here; she looked like one of those South American Inca mummies. Her skin was brown and flaky in places and smooth as glass in others. Her lips had shrunk back from her yellowed teeth leaving the woman with a permanent sneer. Her eyes should have been shrunken like dried grapes in the back of their sockets but instead from those wide, lidless, sockets twin flares of phosphor bright light blazed forth. Gummy runnels of some strange ichors had dried into a tacky mess from the corners of her eyes to run down the concave cheeks; almost like tears. Her body was naked and resembled a twisted strip of beef jerky more than it did a human. Data cords as wide as Gambit's forearm sprouted from her shoulders and thinner cables the width of his fingers extended from each vertebrae of her spine. Strands of hair fine tendrils tangled from her fingertips and a nest of the arm width cords erupted from her stomach and lower abdomen.

'Ah oui,' Remy sighed, 'I'm gon have nightmares about dis for years.'

He closed his eyes and prepared himself for what he had to do even as his stomach tried to crawl up his throat in protest. Knowing that it was now or never Remy swung himself around so that he was clinging like a monkey to the cables that acted as supports for the spire and facing what was left of Amanda Mueller directly. In so doing he also presented Sinister with a prime target but there was nothing to be done about that.

'Lord God forgive me,' he whispered once more squeezing his eyes closed even as he could all but feel the energy blast zinging through the air aimed for his back. He ducked his head forward, like a striking snake, and pressed his lips to the savage snarled mouth of Amanda Mueller.

The whole world exploded into light and noise and pain.

Worthington One: en-route to New Mexico

Archangel's premier private plane was not a thing like the Blackbird Jean Grey found herself musing absently, as she settled back into the plushly upholstered passenger seat and stretched her legs out in the amble leg space. It was a helluva lot nicer for one thing. The Blackbird didn't have carpeted flooring, or TV screens in the back of the seats. Jean wondered when a flight attendant would be by with the complimentary peanuts and a copy of the in-flight magazine. Her lips twisted in self-deprecating amusement and she demurely looked down at her lap to keep it from showing.

Across the other side of the passenger cabin Scott, Ororo, and Bishop had gathered around the large board room style table bolted to the middle of the floor and were all seated in large black leather armchair style seats sharing information with Hank and Threnody via satellite link-up about what they might expect to find in Almogordo when they got there.

To Jean's left Rogue sat curled up in one of the large plush seats staring sightlessly out of the window and chewing on one of the fingers of her glove. The truth about what Rogue had done to Psylocke and Threnody and the strange side-effects of her kiss with Gambit in Israel had been revealed to the team finally - however in light of everything else going on any disciplinary action would be shelved until the crisis was over.

Jean frowned a little; when all this was finally sorted out she and Rogue would have to have a talk. They needed to talk about what the other woman really wanted to do about her powers. It wasn't fair for Rogue to stay in this limbo state she'd been since the professor let her join the team aged seventeen.

Rogue – how are you holding up?

Jean sent the gentle probe without speaking; she didn't think the other woman would appreciate the attention speaking aloud would draw her way. A pair of too bright and slightly wet, green eyes snapped to her and for a moment Jean felt the tidal push of rejection against her mind. She thought Rogue might refuse to answer or try to push her out of her mind.

Instead the other woman dropped her eyes for a moment then looked up again, a wry smile quirking her lips. I been better, Jean, but I'm dealin'. Rogue's mental voice was faintly tinged with the southern cadence of her speech, but minus the accent.

'We'll get him back Rogue. Jean sent the reassurance she thought Rogue needed to hear and was therefore surprised when a wave of sardonic cynicism floated through the psi-channel towards her. Rogue snorted a sharp laugh and shook her head, brown and white curls bobbing against her shoulders.

No we won't, Jean. We can save his damn fool life but he's done with us, hon.

A thread of deep sorrow tainted Rogue's thoughts, but also a strange bitter-sweet understanding. Remy ain't really like the rest of us Jean. This isn't some psychic possession or something and he'll come back to the team once it's over and we'll all pretend like none of this ever happened. He's burned his bridges – he's done with me, with the team, with the whole nine yards. Even if we bring him out of this mess alive – he's gone.

Jean pursed her lips, I'm sorry Rogue.

The other woman managed a faint, dull eyed smile, me too; but thems the breaks I guess. She pulled free of the link then and Jean let her return to her pensive watch out of the window; sometimes the true skill of the telepath was knowing when not to pry.

Speaking of which…….

On the other side of the aircraft to Jean's right Betsy was seated primly in a window seat reading some manner of magazine and looking calm and composed. Warren was upfront in the pilots' cabin with the Worthington Industries flight crew.

Jean shifted once more in her seat, no longer quite so comfortable. She turned to look down the aisle to the seats behind her. Logan was stretched out with his Stetson pulled over his eyes, seemingly asleep, but Jean did not doubt that he was aware of her eyes on him. She smiled and turned to face front again.

Forming a team for this mission had been both an exercise in simplicity and one of the hardest calls Scott had had to make in a while, as Jean well knew. Rogue and Ororo were a given of course; neither woman would remain behind under the circumstances regardless of how volatile a reunion between either one of them and Remy might prove to be.

Making Joseph stay behind at the mansion had been harder, but there was no way that sending him on a mission to rescue Gambit – who might need to be subdued before they actually could rescue him – alongside Rogue, whom he had strong feelings for, was a good idea. The advantages of having his powers on their side did not outweigh the liability Joseph might end up being. The newest and most mysterious X-man on the roster had not been happy with the decision, but he had accepted Cyclops command in the end.

Hank had been in two minds about the mission; on the one hand he wanted to go because he was still reeling from seeing another version of himself brutally murder Gambit's mother. On the other hand he didn't want to go for that very reason. Plus Sabretooth was still in a secure wing of the medbay and the Dark Beast needed to be watched in case he tried to escape. There was also Threnody to think of; therefore it made more sense for Beast to remain at the mansion but in contact with the team via comm. badge.

Bobby had elected to stay behind to help Sam watch over their 'guests' and, Jean suspected, to make sure Hank was okay. Warren was on the mission team because they were using his plane to get there, but more than that, it seemed to be important to him to do this for personal reasons. Jean suspected that it had something to do with the fact that Warren didn't like Gambit and Gambit didn't like Warren; there was pride and principle and a certain amount of saving face involved - but she also believed that Warren genuinely wanted to save another man's life.

Logan was going because Wolverine was an asset on any mission and Jean herself would be there as the team's strongest telepath. Psylocke was on the team, despite Rogue's objections, because if Jean did have to enter Gambit's mind for any reason, either to help him or subdue him, she would need Betsy's experience to help her navigate any traps and pitfalls in his mindscape.

Cyclops was going because he was the leader and it was his duty to rescue, or corral, renegade team members. Bishop had inserted himself on the team without much fuss but with the implacable insistence that, as the only member of the team to have ever set foot in the Garden in any time period, he would be needed. Jean suspected his true motives were more personal than that, but even if they were, Bishop always conducted himself in a controlled manner during missions. His energy absorption powers would probably come in handy anyway.

It was a solid team line-up, put together in Scott's usual eminently rational, practical, manner. Jean couldn't help but wonder, however, if it would be enough. They truly had no idea what would face them when they breached the defences of Almogordo. Heck, Jean conceded wryly, they weren't even sure how to get into the place in the first instance.

'Rogue?'

Jean was not the only one was startled by Betsy's disinterested words. The group at the table turned to face Psylocke at the same time that Rogue looked suspiciously over at the other woman.

'What?'

Betsy smiled and Jean just knew the other woman was up to some sort of mischief. 'You're a Leo aren't you? Your star sign, I mean.'

Rogue's suspicion was now shaded with confusion, 'Uh…yeah, Ah'm a Leo.' She frowned, 'Why are ya askin' about mah horoscope at a time like this?' Jean couldn't help but silently second that question as well.

Betsy clucked her tongue, her violet eyes shimmering with wicked black humour, 'Oh dear, fire and water, such a bad combination.' She smiled sharply at Rogue but her gaze also encapsulated the rest of the X-men in the cabin too, before fixing back on the Mississippian intently.

'What are ya on about; fire and water, what fire and water?' Rogue was beginning to get angry.

Betsy pretended to buff her nails as she widened her eyes at Rogue, 'You don't study your horoscope Rogue?' she asked with faux innocence, 'A pity, it might have saved you some pain – of course there was no way of knowing Gambit's sign until now, so maybe it wouldn't have helped.'

Rogue's anger vanished, 'Remy's sign? But ah thought ya needed a birthday ta…..' she stopped short, eyes widening, 'Ya know his date o' birth don't ya?'

Betsy's smile was sharp as a crescent moon and just as bright, 'November 5th 1983. He's a Scorpio, Rogue.' Betsy chuckled, 'Oh my, he is such a Scorpio – and you are a Leo and Leo is fire and Scorpio is water and frankly it explains so very much about the pair of you.'

Rogue looked like she had any number of sharp retorts ready but bit them back and decided to take the higher road. She turned her head away and went back to glaring out of the window.

'Remy has a birthday?' Ororo moved away from the table and took a seat in the row just in front of Jean. 'You are sure that is the correct date?'

'Quite sure,' Betsy nodded then she laughed, 'He's actually getting younger. He's still only twenty-five; won't be twenty-six for a good many months yet.'

Jean had moment of abstract envy to realise that she was almost a year older than Gambit. Then she decided not to worry about it. Something else had occurred to her.

'He doesn't know his own date of birth, does he?' she asked softly. She met Ororo's eyes through the gap between the seats in front of her. 'That must be difficult,' she thought aloud, 'I mean it's one thing to be adopted, or orphaned, but to not even know when you were born – it must be a very strange feeling; almost like you don't have any roots anywhere.'

'He used ta hate it,' Rogue spoke up without looking away from the window, 'Him and Belle got married on her birthday, and before that he used ta share her birthdays with her; but after a while he just stopped letting anyone try and give him a birthday. He didn't want their pity, that's what he used ta say.'

Scott and Bishop were listening now too. The discussion with Hank had ended some time ago and there was nothing more to do but wait and see what happened. Scott came and took his seat next to Jean while Bishop remained at the table.

'I'm guessing there's a good reason for you to mention this now, Psylocke?' Jean could hear the slight bite of reproach in Scott's tone and knew he hadn't appreciated Betsy's jibe at Rogue's expense. Scott despised bullying or backbiting of any sort.

Psylocke smiled faintly and Jean suspected the other woman had also detected the note of disapproval. She nodded, 'I think it likely that Gambit, if he's even still alive, won't be thrilled to see us. Considering that a lot of what we now know about Gambit he doesn't know about himself I think we should tread carefully.'

Jean nipped her lip as she realised what Betsy meant, 'You're right. If we tell Gambit what we know it could have the opposite effect than we want. He could get very angry.'

Scott frowned, eyebrows dipping low on his brow, 'Why?'

Logan snorted derisively from the back of the plane, 'Gumbo's gonna be more than angry, Redd. Cajun don't trust us; ain't sure he even likes most o' us all that much.' He flexed an ironic eyebrow Betsy's way. 'And some o' us have given him reason not t'.'

Logan spoke again before Betsy could comment, if that had been her desire.

'Gambit's worked damn hard t'keep his secrets from us all these years. Now it turns out we got the truth to some o' the biggest secrets in his life – stuff that he don't know but wants t'know.'

Logan snorted shaking his head darkly. 'Yeah, Gumbo's gonna be pissed as hell t'learn that we got more knowledge o' him then he has.' The shrewd blue eyes flashed, 'I've had that trick played on me before; didn't take t'kindly t'it neither.'

Scott's frown grew pensive, 'Then we don't mention it until we're all back safely at the mansion.'

Jean shook her head. 'That's not going to work,' she said looking up into the red quartz of Scott's visor.

'Think about it Scott; Gambit's not going to know why we're coming for him. He absolutely and completely believes that no one who knows the truth about the Morlock Massacre could ever accept or forgive him his part in it. He's going to assume we're there to take him down like we would any other threat to the team.'

Scott nodded, 'I understand that Jean,' he sounded like Cyclops but he smiled at her as her husband, but then he became thoughtful. 'Considering we're fairly sure that Gambit's not planning to walk away from any of this, do you really think he'll be hostile?' his expression thinned out into a frown.

'After all it seems to me that Gambit's been setting us up from the very beginning to be his executioners; maybe he's just waiting for us to arrive and carry out the sentence?'

The Garden: Central Core

Remy LeBeau screamed as a raw, pulsing channel of unadulterated, unfiltered knowledge crashed into his mind.

Scott Thomas Summers May 27th 1981……Ororo Munroe September 19th 1981 …….Jean Grey December 17th 1982…..Alexander Eugene Summers January 9th 1984…………Lorna Dane April 21st 1984…….Anna-Marie Culver August 6th 1985…….

Some basic instinct of survival kept him from flailing backwards as a welter of data flowed from Amanda Mueller to Remy through the medium of simple touch. Still, despite managing to keep himself physically orientated, Remy was left mentally spinning in a rip-tide of alien facts and facets of information.

He could feel knew information, new knowledge filling his mind like wet concrete; his thoughts were clogged with it. There was nowhere he could hide from the invasion. Somehow he knew that if he let this new knowledge settle in his mind he would be forever altered - he might even stop being Remy altogether. A little knowledge could be a dangerous thing, but a whole lot of information was potentially lethal.

One stray thought crossed his mind as he fought to keep his sense of self being washed away in the deluge: Is this what Rogue feels when she touches people?

The thought of Rogue, conjuring her face from memory and bringing it forth to the forefront of his consciousness, allowed Remy to find his footing inside his own mind. Summoning every scrap of tattered shielding he still had, and dredging from his memories every little tip about psychic protection he'd ever filched from Xavier's private files, Remy diverted the useless, incomprehensible tidal flood of knowledge into the back reaches of his mind.

He opened his eyes and stared into the eerie glow of Amanda Mueller's empty eye sockets. Essex had said this woman had pieces of his brain grafted to her own and she obviously had his powers - she was glowing as brightly as he was - so that should mean that she'd think like he did, oui?

'Where are they?' Remy wasn't sure if he asked the question aloud or mind to mind; not that it mattered. Already the tiny fibrous tendrils of pure knowledge that crawled under her dried skin and broke free of closed off pores had begun to dig into his flesh and embed themselves under his fingernails as Remy clutched tight to his grandmother.

The Garden recognised her own, obviously, and sought to claim him once and for all.

'Where are they?' he repeated pushing his will against another wave of unwanted and confusing facts and data as it tried to steam roller into his consciousness. Ignorance was bliss; Remy had been born poor and stupid and he'd damn well die that way – thank you, kindly!

'Show me how to find them.' He gritted out through his teeth as finger-like twisting cords knotted into his hair, trying to seamlessly bind him to the spire as tightly as they had Amanda. It felt like he was being eaten alive. He squeezed his eyes tightly closed as the filament fine threads crept over his cheeks and tried to push under his eyelids.

'Show me!' A burst of pain, small but furnace bright, erupted in his left hand as one of the slithering tendrils pushed under his thumbnail and began digging into the sensitive nerves under the skin.

Other tendrils found the raw, oozing cuts across his upper back. It felt like the antennas of tiny insects were poking at the wounds. He could feel it when the tendrils began to weave together under his torn skin. It took everything in him not to start fighting back right then. He could feel the tendrils, like sinuous steel, begin to wind around his neck and slither under his clothes. Fire-fly bright sparks danced behind his eyes; flashes of alien insight and knowledge not his own gouging into his mind – changing him one secret at a time.

'Where are they?' he screamed, 'Show me how to find the Marauders!'

For one blindingly terrifying moment Remy thought he had made a horrible mistake. He thought that he would be swallowed alive by Sinister's Garden and become a living mummy just like Amanda.

Then there was a another swirl of information crashing through his mind - but this time it was not genetic markers and formulae that washed through his brain in a wave of liquid heat. No, this time he got the answer he craved. And a whole lot more besides.

'Merci, Grandmere, merci beaucoup.'

Remy smiled, even though doing so allowed some of the tendrils to snake between his lips. Gagging Remy jerked his head away; thin trails of crimson fire scorched over his cheeks as the tendrils left shallow cuts all across his face as they lost their grip.

Remy didn't care however, for in that moment, in a dozen different spots around the Central Core, numerous tesseracts opened up all at once. A number of men and women stepped through into Sinister's most secret playground. As one their eyes looked up to the tower – and to Remy.

The Marauders had arrived for the party - just as Remy had hoped.

Worthington One: En-route to New Mexico

Jean blinked in surprise at her husband's last words, while across the aisle Rogue grew ashen faced.

'You think Remy's setting us up to kill him?' Jean asked genuinely shocked.

Betsy was calm and unaffected but it was Logan who laughed gruffly moving forward to flop down in the seat next to Rogue so he could face the rest of the group. 'Finally figured that one out, did ya Cyke?'

Jean frowned, 'I don't understand that,' she raised her hand before anyone else could speak, 'I mean I understand that he thinks dying is the only way to make amends, but I can't believe that he'd ever be so cold as to make any of the team kill him.' She glanced from Rogue across the aisle to look into Ororo's eyes. 'I can't believe he'd put either Rogue or Ororo in that position.'

Betsy narrowed her eyes, 'That's what has been troubling me; if Gambit just wanted to die he could have manipulated Creed into it without any effort. He could have thrown himself off the mansion roof – bloody hell he could have done like any other self-respecting suicide would do and jumped into the Hudson.'

'We are missing something,' Ororo spoke pensively a strong pulse of frustration in her tone. 'Remy's actions make no sense. He has been baiting us all along – but at the same time he does not want our involvement; it smacks of misdirection, but I am not sure it is the X-men Remy is trying to deceive – or at least not us alone.'

'Explain Storm,' Scott was all Cyclops now as he frowned and sat forward in his seat. Warren appeared at that moment from the curtained off cabin crew area. His eagle eyed gaze took in the tense atmosphere without a word and he moved to slip into his seat beside Betsy. In a moment his lover had filled him in psychically on what he had missed.

'I know I'm not exactly Mr. Insight or anything,' Warren interjected, 'but could it be that you're all too emotionally invested to see things objectively?' he asked trying to sound as reasonable as he could so he didn't trigger any short tempers.

Surprisingly Ororo nodded her head in agreement, 'Yes; I believe that is exactly the problem. In fact I think it is part of Remy's plan.'

She glanced around the cabin, 'When we were partners together Remy would try and pass on his knowledge to me – mostly things he thought I would need to know to protect myself, rather than attempting to mould me into a better thief.' A slight smile touched her lips, 'Though I am sure that was part of it.'

She met each person's eyes in turn, 'He taught me the diamond ring con.'

Logan scratched at his sideburns with blunt fingers, 'Yer mean the one where yer polish up a glass stone on a cheap fake gold ring and tell some slob that it's yer granny's wedding ring, nine carats and top cut diamond and all, but yer got t'hock it fer a song 'cuz yer kid's sick an' yer ain't got medical insurance? That the one?'

Ororo's smile was sly, 'Precisely.' Her smile faded, 'I was dubious that such a transparent deception could ever work; Remy told me that it never failed.'

'Why?' Scott asked.

Jean blinked, 'Because people want to believe it.' She said with sudden clarity, 'Because people want something for nothing and everyone knows what it feels like to be desperate and desperate to help the ones they love. The con plays on the worst aspects of a person's nature, their greed, and the best, their sense of charity. It works because the fundamentals of human nature don't change.'

Scott was still frowning, 'Alright; I get that Gambit has a smoke and mirrors thing going on – what bearing does that have now? He's already reached his objective, which is Sinister; he doesn't need the subterfuge anymore.'

'Has he really achieved his objective?' Ororo's focus was inward, her mind churning fiercely behind her pensive frown. 'I am not so sure we truly know what Remy has planned.'

'Of course we do, he wants revenge on Sinister.' Scott was confused. Jean squeezed his hand.

'But what does that mean, Scott? Revenge can be almost anything; we're just assuming he wants Sinister dead because it's the most obvious – but that could be the con in this, the fake diamond ring, kind of thing.'

'But he's been trying to get to Sinister all this time.' Scott argued, 'why would he try and get to Sinister and not want to kill him - that's not even suicide, it's practically volunteering to be the man's slave again.' Scott was growing exasperated.

'No he ain't,' Rogue spoke softly, 'Remy don't want nothin' ta do with Essex.' She looked at them all with tired eyes, 'He's been fixin' ta get ta this Garden place – Sinister's just the best way in.'

Ororo hissed suddenly, her elliptical eyes narrowing as a jolt of pure shock and realisation seared through her mind. At the same moment, the otherwise silent, Bishop smashed his fist down on the table top.

'Of course!' They both said at the same time before looking at each other. Bishop deferred to Ororo. Ororo's hands fluttered like caged birds for a moment before she pressed them firmly against her lap and began to explain.

'That is the fake diamond in the con; Remy is not a killer. He never was one.' Her eyes were wide as she stared at Jean and Scott and Jean thought there was something like relief – or maybe hope - in her eyes as well.

'Remy is a thief; that is what he is beyond all else. It is what he was raised from the cradle to be – a thief does not think as an ordinary man.' Ororo spoke rapidly as her certainty coalesced.

'Even if Remy could find a way to kill Sinister himself that would not be revenge enough; Remy wants to hurt Sinister as Sinister has hurt countless others before. Killing the monster does not achieve that aim.'

'Then what would; how do you hurt Sinister?' Scott asked truly dumbfounded. Jean gasped.

'Oh!' She clapped her hand to her mouth as she realised, 'Oh, of course.'

'What?' Scott was beginning to lose his patience as he floundered trying to understand, 'Jean, Storm, can someone please explain?' The slight thread of wry confusion in his voice grew stronger. Warren and even Betsy seconded the question.

'Yes, I think we'd all like a little clarification,' Psylocke suggested coolly.

'Scott think about it – what does Sinister care about?' Jean asked excitedly.

Scott frowned and thought a moment, 'Well, the Summers' line for one.'

Jean nodded, 'Yes but why?'

'Because he's obsessed with mutant evolution and genetics,' Scott answered impatiently, 'Jean can we not do twenty questions right now? Just tell me what I'm missing.'

'Cyke hon,' Rogue sounded almost amused and her green eyes glowed with cynicism, 'Remy's a con-man and a thief. He don't want ta kill Sinister, he wants ta ruin him; there's a big ole difference between the two.'

It was then that the penny finally dropped for Cyclops too. Jean didn't need to be able to see her husband's eyes widening to feel the flare of his shock and sudden understanding.

'Shit – I get it now.' Scott whispered almost shakily. 'He's not planning to kill Sinister – he's planning to rob him.'