***
Chapter 51
***
May third dawned clear and sunny.
Rogue watched it do so from the driver's seat of Jean's SUV. She'd volunteered to get Sean, Moira, Betsy, and Carol to the airport in time for their 9 a.m. international flight. Warren had also volunteered, but Betsy had laughed at him and told him to buy a plane ticket if he was so eager to have her company. He'd been on the phone with his travel agent four minutes later.
When she got back to the house, Rogue stopped the car for a moment outside the gate. The morning sun was gleaming on the newly-laid lawn. The building looked whole and serene, as though nothing frightening or dangerous had ever happened or dreamed of happening there.
She pulled the car into the garage and hung the keys on their designated peg as she came into the kitchen.
"Good, Rogue. You're back," Professor Xavier said, rolling in from the hallway. "Please go change into your training uniform."
"Are we havin' training?" Rogue asked, taken aback. She thought she'd be spared that particular burden at least until they got school sorted out.
"No," Charles told her, smiling at her distress. "The Associated Press called last night. They'd like a team photo for the story they're running tomorrow. We're taking it out front as soon as everyone's ready."
Rogue put a hand to her hair, still a haphazard curly mess from being slept on. "Aw, come on, Prof! You couldn't give a girl some warning?"
"Go quickly."
Rogue zipped upstairs to her bedroom, which still stank of fresh paint. Kitty was sitting at the vanity, already dressed, fussing at her hair.
Her hair?
"Like it?" she asked, grinning at Rogue's dumbfounded expression. "Looks almost real, huh?"
"You got a wig?" Rogue asked, flying up to inspect it.
Kitty took the hairpiece off, exposing the dark brown fuzz that was beginning to cover her scalp, and fussed with the set of the ponytail. "Present from Gambit," she clarified. "He's still wallowing in guilt from leaving me behind for the feds to kidnap. I might even get a new computer out of him if I play my cards right." Kitty's laptop was on the long list of things that had mysteriously disappeared during the military's residence.
"Yeah, he's a pushover," Rogue agreed, grinning. "Looks pretty good."
"Yeah, huh? It itches like crazy, though." She rubbed her hands over her head to soothe the aforementioned itch.
Rogue stripped to her underwear and pulled on her training uniform. "At least it don't need tuh be straightened. See if you kin stall 'em downstairs, will ya?" She plugged in her straightener and began digging through her makeup collection, trying to find an eyeshadow that hadn't been shattered into powder.
Despite being out of practice, she was downstairs in a presentable state in fifteen minutes, just in time for the argument about who was going to stand where and who was taller than whom.
Rogue stood next to Gambit, in the middle of the mass as everyone sorted themselves out. "You pay for that thing on Kitty's head?" she asked conversationally.
"Yep."
"With stolen money?"
"I don' steal money. What d'I look like, a CPA?"
"You know whut Ah mean."
"I do. An'I know de answer y'want, an'I ain't gonna give it to y'." He grinned and kissed the top of her head. "It makes her happy. Leave it be."
"Just thinkin' it might be kind of embarrassing for her to walk into the White House wearin' stolen goods."
"Mm," said Gambit, neutrally. "About dat—"
"Who's taking this picture, anyway?" Bobby demanded.
"I am," Magneto announced. He pulled a digital camera from the pocket of his slacks.
"Not too keen about havin' y'picture on de front page, huh, boss?" Gambit quipped, grinning.
"Not terribly."
"Should Laura be in it?" Rogue asked, looking worriedly to the smaller, scowling mutant who stood at the edge of the group. "Ain't the feds still lookin' for you?"
"They know better than to find me," Laura informed her, with a defiant jut of her chin.
"It'll be fine, Stripes," Logan insisted.
"Crouch down or something, Evan!" Amara ordered.
"Get taller!" Evan ordered back. Amara huffed and climbed up onto the edge of the fountain.
Magneto took up his position with his back to the fountain and looked through the viewfinder of the camera. "No one is obligated to smile," he announced, "but if you'd like to, now's the time."
Rogue felt Gambit's arm wrap around her back and come to rest at her shoulder. She glanced up at him, just to catch the smug, self-congratulatory smile on his face. "An' dey all lived happily ever after," he murmured in her ear.
"More or less," she agreed, before turning to face the camera.
The flash blazed across a moment in which very nearly everything was right with the world.
Scott was having to resurrect several old habits. Among them was knocking on Jean's bedroom door before walking in. He reached for the doorknob instinctively, then pulled back and rapped on the woodwork.
"Come in."
He slipped inside, leaving the door open behind him for propriety's sake.
Jean was sitting on her bed, with the white silk kimono half out of its box, half laid out on the bedspread. Her hand gently stroked the embroidery.
"You all right?" he asked, sitting down at the foot of the bed. "I didn't see you at lunch."
"I don't know what I want to wear to the White House," she murmured.
"Well, you did just get this mind-blowing kimono, if you wanted to take it out for a spin."
"But I . . . I don't know if I want to wear it. Do I like these colors? Do I like long sleeves? How do I like to do my hair? Do I paint my fingernails? Do I like guacamole? Do I make my bed with the pillow towards the window or towards the door?" She pulled her hand away from the fabric and gripped her knee instead, looking up at Scott with eyes wide with confusion and frustration. "I don't know anything about myself."
Scott reached out and took her hand, lest she bruise the skin of her knee through her jeans. "Hey," he insisted gently. "It's okay. I know it's scary, but it's gonna be okay. I promise."
She heaved a sigh, trying to settle her emotions. "Scott?"
"Yeah?"
"We were friends, weren't we?"
"Best friends. Since we were kids."
"Were we . . . more than friends?"
He hesitated, then nodded. "Yeah."
She flinched a little. "I'm so sorry."
"Hey!" He reached over and grabbed her other hand, pressing both between his own. "You've got nothing to be sorry for, Jean. Not a thing."
"But you've lost your . . . your girlfriend, or whatever I was, and all you've got is me, and I don't remember anything about me, about us, and I'm so afraid I'm going to guess wrong and—"
"Wrong?" Scott echoed. "How could you possibly guess wrong?"
"Please, just . . . tell me. Tell me everything you remember about me."
He shook his head. "No, I won't."
"Why not?"
"Because I'm not going to give you my memories of you so that you can use them as a script, or as something to live up to. I don't want to watch you try to be what you think I want you to be. Maybe you liked peanut butter. And now you try it, and you hate it. Are you going to keep eating peanut butter just to make me happy? So I can pretend you never got hurt?"
Her mouth twitched a little at the absurdity of the image. "I guess not," she allowed. "But what if I do it wrong? Not something silly like peanut butter, but . . . what if I've changed, and you can't love me anymore?"
"Not gonna happen."
"But—"
"I love you, Jean," he insisted. "You. You, yourself. Not Jean-from-two-months-ago. Not Jean-from-ten-years-ago. Whoever you are is who I'm in love with."
Hesitantly, he reached up and combed her hair away from her face, sliding it behind her ear, then let his fingers trail along the line of her jaw. "I love you," he repeated, "and I'm here for you. Always. Even if you hate peanut butter. Even if you love anchovies, and garlic, and canned spinach. Don't be afraid to be who you are. Whoever that person is is the person I can't live without."
Hesitantly, carefully, like the sun nudging its way through clouds, Jean let herself smile. She caught his hand and pressed it against her cheek. "Thank you."
Scott grinned, and dared to let his thumb play, just once, against the familiar shape of her cheekbone. "So do you want to go to the White House tonight?" he asked gently. "Because you don't have to."
"No, I want to go. I've never been to the White House." She said it deliberately, without apology, without qualifiers like that I can remember or as far as I know.
"And what do you want to wear?"
"I want to wear my kimono. It's so beautiful."
"All right. I'll help you get dressed. There's got to be a tutorial on YouTube somewhere."
She laughed, and he grinned.
"Where d'you think you're goin'?" Rogue asked, leaning against the frame of the door from the kitchen to the garage.
"Washington," Gambit informed her, shoving his bike off its stand.
"Too good to ride with the rest of us?" she teased as she flew over and landed lightly beside him, poking him playfully in the ribs.
He grinned and batted her hand away before grabbing her around the waist and pulling her against his chest. "Got some errands to run before de party," he explained, nudging one of her streaks with his nose. "Gotta pick up my clothes, fo' one t'ing."
"You are the vainest person Ah have ever met."
"Well, I'm de sexiest person I've ever met, so—"
She laughed aloud.
"Well, sexiest but one." He pulled her closer and buried his face in her hair, emitting a little groan of pleasure and contentment. "Mon dieu, I missed you."
"Missed you, too," she admitted to the fabric of his collar, which was where her face had ended up. "Let's never fight again."
"M-hm. 'Cause dat's totally plausible."
She sighed and snuggled against him, luxuriating in his warmth and his scent and his undivided attention. Yeah, they were going to fight again. They were too different, and too combative, to avoid it for long. But they'd fight and they'd apologize and they'd figure things out and they'd start the whole cycle over. They'd tried parting ways, and they'd hated it. It wouldn't happen again.
"Cherie?"
"Yeah?" Rogue released her hold and eased out of his embrace, figuring this was her cue to let him go so he could start the four-hour drive to D.C.
"I got one more loose end to tie up, an' I need y'help."
She eyed him askance. "This ain't a wind-up to a marriage proposal, is it?"
He grinned and chuckled. "Sorry, non. Even dough last time I asked somebody t'marry me, it was even less suave den dat."
"Not one of your many skills, huh?"
"Mebbe I just need practice."
"Don't you dare."
He grinned and pulled her close again, as though he couldn't stand not being close to her when she was pretending to be mad at him. "I keep t'inkin' about dat stuck-up prick of an assistant guild master in New York."
"The one who said you only got your master's mark 'cuz of your daddy?"
"C'est lui. An' if he was anybody else, I'd let him be. But his guild hit my house. An' I bet you anyt'in' dat Frost woman sent 'em in t'get Cerebro or its specs. An' if we'd'a knowed dat, it'd'a saved us a lotta trouble."
"Only a telepath would go after Cerebro," Rogue agreed, following his logic. "We would'a known what we was lookin' for."
"We'd've been able to warn 'em on Muir, too. Kept her from gettin' deir Cerebro an' usin' it to chase you all over de midwest wid F-14s. I can' be livin' under a guild master who don't respect my rank. So I gotta prove I earned it, an' I need y'help."
Rogue leaned away from him to look up into his face. "Do Ah gotta break intuh anythin'?"
"Nope."
"Do Ah gotta zap anybody?"
"Not a soul."
She scowled, searching his expression for some hint of what the catch was. When she couldn't decipher his cryptic smile, she leaned in to kiss him. He leaned away, pushing her back. "Ah, non. None'a'dat."
"What do Ah gotta do? Just tell me."
"Nah. I like makin' y'mad." He gave her a sudden, brief kiss on the top of her head, shielded from her powers by her hair. "See y'at de party. Look amazin'."
Rogue scowled and stuck her tongue out at him as he swung onto his bike and started the engine. "Ah hate you!" she called after him.
"Back at ya!"
"You done with your makeup?"
Rogue surveyed herself critically in the vanity. "Mostly, Ah think." Giving lie to the statement, she grabbed an applicator sponge and worked at blending her eyeshadow.
"Good." Kitty reached across her to plug a curling iron into the outlet under the mirror.
"Hey! What're ya doin'?"
"Your hair."
"Ah was just gonna leave it lahk this."
Kitty met Rogue's eyes in the mirror and glared. Somehow, the glare was more effective when framed by a royal blue headscarf. "Rogue."
"What?"
"We're going to the White House."
"Yeah."
"And I am going to do somebody's hair."
"Do Amara's!"
The glare took on a kicked-puppy edge that evoked memories of Kitty's fuzz-covered scalp.
Rogue sighed. "Fahne."
The glare disappeared, replaced by a delighted grin. "Thank you! Pass your hairbrush."
"Nothin' nuts, okay? Just . . . simple."
"Don't worry. You're going to look fabulous."
Rogue sighed and resigned herself to forty-five minutes of Kitty holding a hot curling iron next to her scalp.
Five minutes into the process, Jamie popped into their room with the new phone handset. "Kitty, it's for you. It's Gambit."
Kitty reached behind herself with her free hand, not taking her eyes off the steaming curl wrapped around her iron. "Give it here."
"What's he callin' you for?" Rogue demanded. She tried to twist around, earning herself a yank on her hair and an uncomfortable burn on her scalp.
Kitty cradled the phone between her ear and her shoulder and drew the iron out of the curl, letting the ringlet bounce. "Hey."
Rogue could hear Gambit's voice through the phone. "Minou, y'plannin' on doin' Rogue's hair tonight?"
"Yeah, I'm doing it right now. Why?"
"Up or down?"
"Um . . . down."
"Non. Up. Up up up. Off her neck."
"Okay."
"You de best. Bisoux. See ya t'night."
"Bye." She switched the curling iron to the other hand so she could hang up the phone and toss it back to Jamie.
"How come he gets duh decide what may hair's gonna look like?" Rogue demanded.
"He asked nicely."
"No he didn't!"
"Pass me those bobby pins and stop wiggling."
In ones and twos, the X-men trickled into the front foyer in their going-to-the-White-House finery, complementing and teasing one another as they waited for the rest of the team. Logan and Laura watched them from the doorway to the library. They were both in training uniforms and soaked with sweat from an hour and a half of hard sparring in the Danger Room. But Logan, despite all his best intentions to stay in the basement until everyone was gone, had called a halt. Just a few minutes early. To see them all dressed up and happy.
Storm was wearing a beautiful long skirt and jacket in a red and gold print that she'd purchased in Cairo many years ago, her hair tied up in a wrap of the same fabric, and was commenting on Tabitha's bare midriff in tones of restrained disapproval. Amara was tugging nervously at the hem of a black cocktail dress, trying futilely to make it cover her knees. Warren, the only person in the group used to wearing black tie, clearly wasn't used to wearing it with his wings sticking out; they fidgeted and rustled along his back, echoing the snowy white of his shirt front. Bobby and Roberto attempted to imitate Fred Astaire in an impromptu tap number in the middle of the floor before Roberto tripped on the train of Jubilee's sequin-smothered dress and went sprawling. Piotr was leaning against the wall in the corner, watching the chaos with a private smile on his face. Jamie's hair was so slicked down with product it looked as though it would shatter if tapped with a hammer. Kitty was in a blue-gray floor-length number with long sleeves to hide her needle scars, her face neatly framed in a blue headscarf with a faint sparkle woven into the fabric (the wig, she was insisting, was too itchy, and what if it fell off?). Rogue was in peacock green, her arms covered with white opera gloves and a silver scarf wrapped around her bare shoulders, her hair piled in elegant curls at the top of her head. Even Hank, who couldn't find anything to fit him at such short notice, was wearing a bow tie.
His kids and his colleagues. It twisted at Logan's heart.
And then Jean and Scott came down the grand staircase.
The Internet had served them well. The white silk kimono was tied carefully and precisely around Jean's body, fastened with a midnight blue obi that wrapped almost the entire length of her torso. The sleeves draped nearly to her feet, each one weighted down with embroidery depicting flames climbing voraciously up the fabric. On the skirt, the flames formed the outstretched wings of an ascendant firebird.
Logan shook his head. "Mariko," he grumbled, "did you have to give her that one?"
"She can't fight in that," Laura observed impassively.
"She can't fight, period. Ten years of training, just gone in the blink of an eye." He snorted contemptuously. "I hate amnesia."
"I wouldn't mind some."
"It's not all it's cracked up to be. Trust me."
Jean, leaning on Scott's arm so she didn't fall over in the narrow skirt, reached the bottom of the stairs and was swarmed by X-girls exclaiming over the kimono. Scott stayed next to her, one steadying hand under her elbow, smiling the 'It's-going-to-be-fine' smile he'd had on his face since she came home. Jean seemed glad of his support, a little overwhelmed by the loud, hyper team.
Logan closed his eyes and breathed deeply and slowly, bending his wrists so he couldn't pop his claws. There was nothing to hit here. There was nothing here at all.
"Logan?"
His eyes snapped open again as Rogue broke from the group and approached the library door, her eyes flicking between Logan and Laura. "Ain't y'all coming?" she asked hesitantly.
Logan scoffed. "We wouldn't get past the metal detectors."
"Also, the Secret Service would try to kill me," Laura announced impassively.
"Probably shouldn't have been in that photo, then."
"It's fine, Stripes," Logan insisted again. "If Fury's there, give him a couple of choice words for me."
"Which ones?"
"You pick. I got faith in you."
She twitched a half-smile. "Okay, boss."
Across the foyer, Professor Xavier emerged from his office. "You all look wonderful," he informed the gathered students. "Let's be on our way. We wouldn't want to keep the president waiting."
The crowd poured out onto the lawn, where the X-Jet and Velocity were idling. Charles waited for them to leave before speaking to Logan. "Eric is sleeping on Avalon tonight, and Evan is staying the night at his parents', so the house is yours. We should be back before one. If you go to sleep—"
"Nah. I'll wait up for ya." Logan, with a supreme burst of effort, managed an expression that was almost a sincere half-smile. "Have fun, Charles."
"Good night, Logan. Good night, Laura."
Logan and Laura advanced to the front door to watch the team load up and the aircraft take off. When the sound of their engines had faded, Laura asked, "Time to get to work?"
Logan nodded his agreement, and they both retreated deliberately into the house.
