Chapter 7 – All Good Things Must Come to an End
Summary:
Remy comes face to face with an unexpected reality of his forgotten life. A turning point is reached and decisions are made.
All good things must come to an end. Not that Remy considered anything about the last fortnight a good thing, but he'd managed to carve out a space for himself at the Mansion. Separate from the others, yet existing in a parallel manner in which he did not need to interact with the others.
Sure, he saw the Doc on a daily basis and it didn't bother him when Ororo sought him out, but he managed to keep the rest of the populace beyond arm's length. He'd even managed to avoid anymore one on one confrontations with the beguiling Southern belle. Mostly he managed this by staying in whichever part of the Mansion she wasn't. If that wasn't possible, he simply found the nearest exit and escaped. As cowardly as that might seem, it kept him from suffering under those loathsome piteous stares and knowing gazes all the time.
He could make it through half a day without a headache, if he didn't attempt concentrate on precision work or try to delve too deeply into those missing memories. His other injuries had healed enough to allow him to move about with casual ease. In his solitude, he finally crafted his escape plan. Now, all he needed to do was wait for the right moment.
That moment was not now. Hank was expecting him for his daily check up. The daily appointments were bothersome to be sure, though not to the extent the others expected him to find them. Remy wasn't certain why he should avoid the infirmary, the Doc was the one with the requisite medical knowledge needed to help him, and even Remy wanted to know what was wrong with his head. Besides, escapes weren't particularly successful when you were already running late for an appointment.
In concession to his tardiness, Remy strayed through the halls of the school wing. Normally he avoided this area of the Mansion during the day, but classes were in session so the halls were more or less vacant. With a thief's skill, he could slip through the hall without anyone being aware of his presence.
"Papa! Papa! Papa!"
To his eternal shame, Remy flinched as the sudden presence of a child calling for her father took him unawares. Swiftly regaining his composure and donning an extra layer of feigned insouciance, he did his best to ignore the girl as she raced down the hallway behind him. Only a smidgen of guilt pricked his conscience, which he managed to smoosh down into a barely there inkling. After all, he barely knew who he was, how in the world would anyone expect him to help this child find her father. Besides, the longer the girl called, the more of a crowd began to gather in the hallway. The X-men doubling as teachers and curious students drifted into doorways and watched the scene with an incongruous, mute horror. What could be so terrible about a child calling for her father?
When the patter of running feet neared where he meandered, Remy pressed himself against the wall and out of her way. He watched her approach as closely as he watched any mark. The others had mentioned in passing that several of the X-men had children, though most were not old enough to be students yet. Up to this point, he'd seen evidence of these children at the Mansion—child-friendly movies which pre-schoolers watched over and over again were stacked beside the television, crayon drawings created by various hands were stuck to the 'fridge in the staff kitchen, and bins of toys were secreted under tables and on shelves when they weren't spilled out across the floor—but he had yet to meet any of these children. Now that he had the opportunity to see this girl, he couldn't figure out who she belonged to, though that prick of guilt that he was trying very hard to ignore suggested that he should.
The girl was small for her age, which he took to be about seven or eight. What she lacked in height and build, she more than made up for in sheer force of personality and energy. She had a stubborn set to her jaw, which he swore he'd seen before and a focused glint in her pale hazel eyes. Her bright orange hair had been tamed into twin plaits, though even that could not fully contain her curls. Loose curls created a fuzzy, soft halo around her face. A riot of freckles were splashed across practically every inch of exposed skin—her face, the back of her hands, her bare arms. The skin behind the freckles was a warm tan.
In the seconds it took him to take all this in, several things happened at once. The girl slowed, skidding to a halt in her stocking feet. The wood floor was too slippery for such a sudden maneuver and the girl lost her balance, her arms pinwheeling for support. Before she could hit the ground, Remy acted on instinct and caught the girl.
Kneeling at her level, he held her for a moment, as she caught her breath. Her eyes widened and for an instance hope flitted across her face, only to be replaced by a gathering of tears. She reached to touch his face, featherlight fingers across the bristles on his cheek. A gesture of familiarity.
"Shh, it's all right, p'tite." Remy gave into the urge to comfort the child. It didn't mean anything. It was a purely human reaction. Right? "Jus' a tumble. P—…ah, Remy's got you. You're safe."
Remy felt nauseous. Which, in addition to his suddenly pounding head, left him unsteady on his knees. He reached for the wall for support. What in the world possessed him to almost refer to himself as Papa? He didn't have any children. Surely he would know…. Like you know you don't have a wife? the mocking voice in his head taunted.
He released his hold on the girl now that she was steady. This needed to end now. Since none of the other adults—the ones who actually knew the child and her family—appeared to have any intention of acting, it was left up to him. He would get the girl to her parents.
Mentally searching through what he knew of the Mansion residents, he tried to guess who her parents might be. Jean had red hair—not this wild… But who was her husband again? Scott? Maybe, he was having trouble keeping up with the ever-revolving romantic entanglements of the adults living here. He was pretty certain that even if they weren't together now, Scott and Jean had been a couple once upon a time.
Offering her his hand, Remy attempted a casual smile. "C'mon, petite, let's find your père. Can you help me? My memory's not so good right now." He tapped his temple and gave her his most winsome smile. When her lips started to tremble and she didn't respond, Remy prompted, "Can you tell me who is he?…Maybe, Scott?"
At that, a dam appeared to break in the child. The promise of coming tears released into full blown body wracking sobs.
"Isobel, no!" One of the adults lingering in the doorways came to life and called to the child, but his words had no effect on the girl—on Isobel.
Waves of increasing grief, despair, and fear emanated from the child and cut through Remy to the core of his being. Unable to fight the overwhelming sense of loss and fear of abandonment that he remembered all too well from his own childhood, he doubled over in a physical embodiment of her mental anguish. He couldn't differentiate between her present emotional distress and the recollection of his similar pain. Her grief was feeding off his own and redoubling the effect onto everyone gathered in the hall.
Part of his brain, the part which was a muddle of locked memories, recognized that the girl was an empath. That, no matter how unusual it was for a child to display such abilities at this young of an age, she was a Mutant. He needed to calm her. To do that, he needed to get in control of his own emotions, to fight through the petrifying pain and terror which was making this worse for both of them. Going back to his thief training, to the lessons on focus and shutting off everything which got in the way of the job, Remy fought through the mental chaos until he found the seed of control. Raising his mental shields and shuttering off his emotions, he slowly inched back towards control.
As he settled, the effect on the others also lessened. Though Isobel still sobbed with all the pain of a broken heart, the wild lashing of emotions diminished into a prickly aura which wrapped around her in invisible tendrils he sensed rather than saw and slowly seeped back into her.
Before Remy could reassure the girl that all would be okay—eventually—Wolverine rushed forward and swept Isobel up in his arms. She buried her face in his shoulder and continued to sob.
"C'mon Freckles, let's get ya to your Ma." Wolverine headed back in the direction from where Isobel had come.
Remy stepped forward and reached out towards the girl. Uncertain why, he felt responsible for her. "Wait—Is she—?"
Turning, Wolverine caught Remy's red eyed stare with his own hard blue one. Anger bloomed on Logan's face and he snarled, "Gumbo, get out of here before ya make things worse."
For the first time since he lost his memories, someone had given him permission to do exactly what he wanted—to leave. Though still reeling from the empathetic barrage and the ever present headache, Remy acted on instinct and did exactly what he was told. He ran.
—
Remy wasn't entirely certain how he ended up on the roof of the Mansion. Climbing was on the extremely long list of things he was 'strongly suggested' to avoid. He had a feeling that for anybody else the list would have been things they were forbidden to do, but it was almost as if they knew he had authority issues and would balk at anything which hinted at even the faintest hint of rules. Still, climbing was one of the few suggestions he hadn't tried to bypass until now, and the delay wasn't out of respect for anyone at the Mansion. They hadn't earned that sort of respect—as for the folk who had earned his respect, well, he could count them on less than one hand (with Tante Mattie being first and foremost on his list). No, it had more to do with his general lack of balance and the frequent dizzy spells. While he might be reckless, he wasn't stupid.
But, after his confrontation with his…with Isobel, he wanted to be alone. He liked high places. Even as a boy, they had felt safe, and, in his life, there had been precious few places he felt safe. He had always been quick and agile and possessed the uncanny ability to get into small places others thought impossible. And, thus, he had found refuge on the rooftops.
Refuge. That is what he needed now.
As much as he tried to convince himself that this was all an elaborate prank pulled on him, the more he learned, the less likely it seemed. Still, he wasn't about to give in without a fight. He wasn't going to let this group of strangers dictate his life or his choices. He'd given in once when he agreed to marry Belle. While that wasn't much of a sacrifice, in the end, his choices hadn't mattered in the final decisions. The Guild had become family and if protecting them meant marrying the love of his life, surely that wasn't too much to ask. He couldn't imagine anything which would change that.
The peace was too important. He and Belle were destined for each other. He missed her. He missed her rich, complicated scent. He missed the feel of her in his arms and the rich roll of her patois in his ears. With a lovelorn sigh, he took a drag from the cigarette smoldering between his fingers. He remembered sitting on the rooftops of the French Quarter with Belle. They'd pass back and forth stolen packs of cigarettes or bottles of beer while they listened to jazz floating up from the street below. Inevitably, the stolen moments would turn into forbidden kisses. The dangerous, illicit nature of their relationship made the kisses, the caresses all the more tempting, all the more exciting. Sometimes, instead of fooling around, they would talk. They would dream of a future where their families were not sworn enemies and they could carry on their romance in public.
Remy frown and stared at the stub of the cigarette glowing red-orange. Isobel. His dreams of the future had always included dreams of family. Of children. His late night conversations with Belle sometimes drifted to that subject. He had admitted to her his desire for family. Belle had talked of a legacy too. The funny thing was, the thought of having a daughter—having children—didn't tie him up in knots the same way the talk of having an unknown wife. Why?
Those few precious moments with Isobel, he felt like he had connected with her. He wanted to protect her. Keep her safe. Provide for her a home like his père had provided for him. But...but...how could it be? As much as he loved Belle, as much as they wanted family and legacy, he knew Belle's view on adoption. It was well enough for him to be adopted into the LeBeaus, but nothing but an heir of the Bordeaux bloodline would satisfy the assassins. They would not accept an outsider into their ranks. And Belle had been clear. They would have one child. Two, maybe. Enough to satisfy their succession of leadership and no more. Maternal instincts were not high on her list of strengths. No, he'd always known he'd be the one in charge of their child's welfare. And, he hadn't minded. Most of his work was done at night anyways.
So, if Isobel was his daughter, what did the mean about Belle? He needed to talk to her. Needed a reassurance that all was well in the world as he knew it.
"I am surprised to find you still here."
Gambit started out of his reverie at the sight of Storm landing on the roof with a gust of wind. A hint of guilt pricked at his conscience at the sight of the heavily pregnant Storm seeking him out. Everything he did today seemed to hurt someone. Falling back on long habit, he hid his emotions behind a mask of nonchalance. "Bit surprised 'm still here too."
Storm sized him up, seeing beyond the masks in a way he thought only Tante Mattie or his père could. Instead of commenting, she landed on the roof beside him. "Mind if I join you?"
He shrugged bonelessly before grinding out the last vestiges of his cigarette and charging the butt into nothing but ash. "It's your home." Not mine, was left unspoken, yet it still hung heavy in the air between them.
Moving awkwardly, she maneuvered herself beside him. Unlike the others she didn't feel the need to fill the silence with ceaseless ramblings or exhortations to remember a non-existent past.
Eventually, it was Remy who could no longer take the prolonged silence. "I wanted to know how the fille"—Fille, oui, that was the right word. It meant both daughter and girl. Whichever she was to him, the word fit. It felt right on his tongue and in his heart, yet it didn't necessitate he lay claim to her. He wasn't a monster who frightened children. He wasn't like his parents who aban…. Remy shook his head. He couldn't travel those dark roads. Not now, not with everything else collapsing in around him.—"the fille…Isobel...know how she's doin' before I went anywhere. Will she be okay?"
"She will be. Izzy knew you lost your memory, but I don't believe she understood what it meant. It was a shock to her when you didn't recognize her." Remy nodded mutely as Storm continued her explanation. "Logan took Izzy to her mother. Rogue will be able to calm her down."
Remy swallowed back the bitter sting of bile clawing up the back of his throat. Some one should have told him. Made him understand before he traumatized the poor girl. His internal dialogue which often whispered dark musings in the back of his brain questioned whether knowing earlier would have actually made him any more likely to accept his present reality. It wouldn't have, but it was easier to blame Rogue for not telling him than accept his share of the blame. "'m sorry. Never meant to hurt de petite."
"Do you remember...?" A spark of hope lit Storm's pale blue eyes.
"Non. Don' really t'ink dere's anyt'ing to be rememberin', but Remy ain't a monster, chère. Remy felt what she was feelin'. Dat sense of loss and fear, dat ain't something a body forgets." Through the layers of cloth and skin and bone, he scrubbed at his chest as though he could excise the old, familiar demons of abandonment, of being unknown and unwanted, which had long ago taken up residence in his heart. Underneath the layers of clothes, a faint scar crossed his heart. From time to time he wondered who had tried to pierce his heart in a less than metaphorical way.
He had fallen back into his childhood habit of speaking in third person. Belle hated when he did that and had managed to mostly train it out of him. She was probably right, it had been a coping mechanism, a way to disassociate himself from the horrors he experienced as a child. But he tended to fall back into it when speaking of the past or overwhelmed by emotions and needed the extra distance to hide what he was truly feeling.
Hesitating only a moment, Storm placed a hand over his and gave it a squeeze. "I know you are not a monster, my friend."
Snorting, Remy shook his head in disbelief, but didn't try to escape her touch. He missed physical contact. The only person who'd tried to touch him since waking was Rogue and he felt vaguely uncomfortable with the intimacy of her touch. Storm was different. She offered nothing but friendship and comfort. "You don' know me Chère.
"That's where you are wrong, my friend. I know you don't remember it now—and have no reason to believe me—but this is not the first time we met." A fond smile graced her face. "The first time we met, I was a child. My powers were just starting to manifest and I was being pursued by some true evil. You could have left me to my own devices, yet you did not. I'll never forget it, you told me, 'Us thieves, we have to stick together' and that's what we did. You protected me. You were patient with my youthful follies. You cared for me, trained me. For that I will always be grateful."
"No offense Stormy, but I don't see how that can be." He eyed her warily. Over the years, none of the mutants he met seemed to carry their age the same way non-mutants did. Though since waking, when he shaved in the morning he had found a spattering of grey in his scruff, the face in the mirror appeared older than the eighteen or so years he remembered, but far less than the thirty-eight they all claimed him to be. The same could be said for Storm. And he didn't remember meeting her when he was a child.
"Some things will never change. I will never escape that nickname." She chuckled ruefully. "I will tell you the story, then you may decide if you wish to believe me or not. Although first, you must accept that strange things tend to happen to to the X-Men."
He closed his eyes and nodded. "Go on."
"All right. I had been de-aged…"
—
"I should have told him." Rogue punched the Sentinel in its stupid face. Sweat matted hair clung to her forehead and the back of her neck. A still damp, tear stained patch caused her shirt to cling about her shoulder in an uncomfortable manner and reminded her with every movement of her foolishness. Her cowardliness. "I meant to tell him…"
'Should of's, 'would of's, 'could of's, meant nothing now.
The Sentinel wouldn't remain down. Calling up the memory of Remy's power, she sent a charge into the Sentinel along with her next punch. A fuchsia glow sizzled and crackled across the concaved plating of the robot's face.
"How could I tell him. He was avoidin' me…" Her protest sounded weak even to her own ears. Though the Sentinel's head exploded in an effusion of sparks and ash, the body remained standing. It charged its arm laser and aimed it in her direction.
"I hate these things," Rogue moaned as she attempted to catch her breath, while she prepared for the next round. Usually a session knocking the stuffing out of a squadron of Sentinels was enough to take her mind off whatever was bothering her until she cooled down enough to face it with the possibility of not losing her temper and doing something stupid. But, today's incident—well, not even the Danger Room could distract her from her colossal mistakes. She was angry at herself. Izzy's distress was no one's fault but her own.
With the fuel added by her anger and self-recriminations, Rogue grasped the Sentinel's arm, ripped it off at the shoulder, and tossed it across the room. Izzy had cried for over an hour. Her pain ran through her mutation and filled Rogue with everything she felt—all the pain and terror and confusion felt by a seven year old not understanding why her beloved Papa no longer knew her. He tried to pawn her off on Scot, of all people! What was he thinking? He wasn't thinking, or at least he wasn't thinking like the Remy she knew.
While Izzy projected her emotions, Rogue did her best to work through the exercises Remy had developed to help Izzy work through her uncontrolled mutation. Normally this was Remy's job, but Remy didn't know. Didn't know that he was a dad. That this precious little girl needed him. That they all needed him. Rogue choked back a sob. The way this situation played out, was the final nail in the coffin. The final proof that things wouldn't simply go back to normal.
Izzy was an empath who not only felt everything others felt, she also projected her own feelings back out to those around her. The more intense and poignant those feelings, the more Izzy intensified them in her projections. Not long after Izzy had entered their lives, Rogue had learned to moderate her emotions around her daughter. And, yet, those emotions still needed to be released somehow. Thus, the Danger Room sessions.
Once Izzy had calmed enough to not fall into another cascade of emotional turmoil, Jubilee had arrived. She cajoled Izzy from Rogue's arms with promises of pizza and a movie night with Aimée and Shogo. The unexpected indulgences on a school night was enough to temporarily pull the girl from her downward spiral. Jubilee led Izzy through the corridors, leaving Rogue alone to work through this fresh wave of grief. Grief that was all her own.
Two more Sentinels lumbered towards where Rogue hovered fifty feet above the ground. The ground shook with the robots movement and for a moment Rogue wondered if she should simply allow the monstrous constructs to pound her into a bloody pulp. Physical pain was easier to deal with than all this emotional crap.
"Want some help, darlin'?" Logan called from ground, his voice drawing her from her darkening thoughts.
Rogue nodded, before remembering that even with his enhanced senses, he was unlikely to catch the nuance of her movements. "Sure, sug."
Working in well practiced tandem, Rogue and Wolverine took down the remaining Sentinels in record time. The metal bodies crashed to the ground with a resounding thud. Rogue surveyed the wreckage around her as Logan removed the head of the nearest Sentinel with his claws. She hadn't programmed a landscape or scenario into the Danger Room, just the squad of Sentinels, so the otherwise barren room was littered with an assortment of metallic limbs and decapitated heads. When none of the scattered pieces moved with independent menace, Rogue dropped to the ground and took a seat on the nearest Sentinel's leg.
As Logan moved to her side and took a seat, Rogue slipped the inhibitor bracelet back around her wrist. The headache instantly pinched at her temples, but she wished to be safe rather than risk absorbing Logan at a distance. His psyche was prickly at the best of times and these were a far cry from the best of times. She didn't need to add his temper and frustration on top of the lingering affects of Izzy's roiling emotional turmoil and her own heartbreak.
They sat in silence while Rogue controlled her breathing and wrangled her disparate thoughts. Logan wrapped his arm around her shoulders in one arm embrace. His metal encased bones within his arm rested heavily on her shoulders. "What are you going to do, darling?"
Rogue sniffed as she sank into the comfort he offered. She appreciated he didn't dance around the subject. In their way, the fighting served in lieu of the small talk which neither of them enjoyed. "I think…I think I need to take the girls away from here. Remy needs to be here. He's getting the help he needs from Hank. I can't have the girls here. Not when he's like this. This will cause Izzy to relapse. She needs to be in a safe environment…"
"Where will you take them?"
"To their Grand-père's house. Jean Luc offered to let them stay with them while Remy's recuperating. It will allow me to help Remy without upsetting Izzy. 'Sides, Tante Mattie and Merci keep asking to spend more time with Izzy and Aimée. It will be like a vacation for the girls."
"Are you sure that's a good idea?"
Rogue stiffened, pulling away from the embrace. "You think I don't know what's best for my girls?"
"No. 'Course you do darling. But, what if Remy decides to head home?" Everything about Logan was all so reasonable as he posed the question.
Bristling, Rogue shook her head, vehemently denying the possibility. "Home is here."
Logan grunted in a way that signified he had more to say on the subject, but he didn't give voice to his concerns. Rogue couldn't make herself challenge him about his silence. Besides, she already knew what he would say and she didn't want to hear it.
She was just so tired. Her heart was frayed and rubbed raw. She needed comfort, she needed someone else to help bear this load. Someone to take the decisions out of her hands. Just for a little while. She needed family. And family she would find in New Orleans.
—
Before dawn broke on the eastern horizon, Remy slipped unnoticed beyond the property line of Xavier's estate. He didn't look back as walked away from the X-Men, the Southern belle, and all the false memories they wanted him to accept. This wasn't his life. It didn't fit him. The constraints they tried to wrap him in pulled and chaffed and sat heavy on his shoulders like it was a made for somebody else. He couldn't be who they wanted him to be. He didn't want to be that man.
"Good riddance to bad rubbish," he muttered with a stinging vehemence into the early morning silence. His words stuck a discordant in the otherwise peaceful surroundings. As the distance increased between him and the Mansion, the hold its occupants had on his aching heart lessened. He wasn't free, not yet, but he would be.
With renewed determination, he picked up his pace. For the first time in a long time, his head didn't ache. He wasn't going to play by their rules. Not anymore. All they had for him was lies, and he was tired of lies. If he wanted the truth, then he was going to need to find it on his own. Apparently some things never changed. Since his earliest days on the streets of New Orleans, he learned there was only ever one person he could trust—himself.
~End of Part One: Fallout~
Author's note:
The quote Storm remembers Remy saying—'Us thieves, we have to stick together.'-comes from Uncanny X-Men, issue #266.
Thanks for reading! We've come to the end of the first part. Rogue and the girls are off to New Orleans, Remy is off to who knows where. (Well, I know where. Where do you think he's headed?)
I've been looking forward to sharing this chapter for quite a while. The section with Izzy and Remy was one of the earliest pieces I wrote for this story. This scene just played out so vividly in my head and I couldn't wait to share. Hopefully I've done it justice.
And now on to part two. There will be more angst, fights, and a few answers along the way.
Thanks again for reading. I hope you enjoy. I'd love to know what you think. ~rose
