Note : *wink* that was supposed to be a ten chapters story. Now that's the 14th, and I'm not finished yet. I don't own anything, Marvel does. Thanks to Tammy, who's the only one who had time to review the two last chapters at the time I'm writing this. Thanks for loving it! If you don't, well… don't read! Oh, and sorry for the four letters word. I think it fits the circumstances, though.
Chapter 14
Death of a father
Smoke entered my nose, and I coughed, hard, to get rid of the dust in my lungs. Then I opened my eyes. Remy had leaped on me to protect me from the explosion, and his body was still on mine. He was a slim man, but tall, and 180 pounds were beginning to be heavy on my rib cage, and I could hardly breathe. I poked him in the ribs.
"Remy, get off! Ah can't breathe!" I said with what I had left of air in my lungs. He moaned and rolled off onto his back, before sitting up. I got on my feet and looked over to the other side of the room. Nathan was lying on his back, not moving, his face badly burned. I walked to him and kneeled beside the body. I took his wrist. No pulse. No breathing. He was dead.
I stood upright once again, and turned to Remy. He was looking at me, and I could see he was still quite mad at me. He lifted a brow and spread his arms, showing me that he was there alright, his lips silently mouthing the words "See?". I looked down at Nathaniel again. I was so sure… Now what could I say?
"Oh my God! Nathan! O dear, Nathan!" The girl was running down the stairs, tears on her face, the baby crying in her arms. Remy looked at the baby, then switched his glare to me.
"Come on" he said. "We have to leave dis place."
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We had left the town at once, before anyone could hear the news we had killed Nathaniel Essex with supernatural powers. We were now in a forest in the south of England, waiting for the Professor to give a sign, so we could go back before we were hunted down like the outlaws we were.
Remy sat on a log, staring into the fire, not moving a hair. He was so still, it sent shivers down my spine. He hadn't spoken a word to me since we had left the house. I could easily understand, of course. I had hurt him. Had told him horrible things, reminded him of this childhood he never really had… The worse of it was that I had no reason of doing all this. I was wrong. I balled my hands into fists as a tear ran down my cheek. How could I have been so stupid? All the arguments I had used to try to convince Remy looked useless and ridiculous now. Convince Remy? Why did I ever thought he would react fine? That he would believe such a thing. I was wrong. If Essex was dead and Remy was his son, he wouldn't be in front of me now. He would have disapeared, part of the past, unknown to me and the other X-Men, and died a peacefull death somewhere in the 19th century. If Gambit would have been Sinister's creation, Gambit would have never been. Sinister was never to exist.
I had lost his trust, and I didn't know how to gain it back. The silence he kept was unbearable. I decided I'd rather hear him yell than keep silence.
"Remy…" Nothing. "Remy, Ah'm sorry." Still nothing. "I know you're angry…" A snort. At least he had a reaction to this. "… and yah have good reasons to be. Ah just wanna say I didn't mean the things Ah said, and Ah hope yah can forgive me." Not a sound from him. He just closed his eyes. "Yah were raht, and Ah was wrong. Ah… Ah just panicked, is all. Ah don't have any reasons for having said the things Ah said." Silence fell again, and I sighted. That didn't work well.
He said something under his breath that I didn't catch. "What did yah say?"
"I said, I forgive ye." He didn't even look at me, just stared at the flames.
"The hell yah do. Yah're still angry, Ah can see it" I murmured. He turned his head to me.
"I'm not angry, Rogue. I'm sad, and hurt. By you. Dat's why I won't talk. I'm not angry with you. I'm angry with me. Because all y'said was true, and truth hurts."
I didn't know what to say to that, so I stood up and walked to him. I sat on the ground between him and the fire so we were facing each other, though he didn't look at me. His look went through me and into the flames, and I could see he was somewhere else, in the streets of New Orleans. I slowly raised my hand and put it on his bare arm. It was like touching a high voltage wire. He was tensed and his muscle were hard as rock. He did look at me then, eyes full of tears.
"Am I so bad?" he said, his voice slowly breaking. "Am I dat bullshit you called my life yesterday? Am I dat fucker's son, Rogue?" I did break, then. He went slowly to pieces in my arms while I craddled him and rubbed his back. I let him cry all these hard years, that esteem he never really had for himself since the trial in Antartica, hiding that lack behind a charming smile and a attitude that pissed off Scott oh so often. I had hurt him in more than one way. I had made him think that what he thought of himself, I thought it too.
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Janet sobbed. She heard the door slam as the two strangers ran out the house. They had killed him, she knew it. She ran to the body of her brother, the baby in her arms. She fell on her knees and touched his face. He was still hot, but was beginning to stiff. His burned face was white and no breath came out of his lips. She felt a tear run down her cheek, and she squeezed the orphan she had in her arms. Suddently she heard a noise, and she turned round to see a tall dark shape at the foot of the stairs. She gasped.
"Who are you?" she said with a sob. "If you want to kill Nathan, you're too late. He's already dead." She stood up, ready to defend the baby against the monster coming towards her. The dark shape kneeled beside the unmoving body and touched his face.
Nathan's eyes popped open, and he took a sharp breath. His face still was white and it took a marble like texture as his eyes turned slowly red. Janet felt her jaw drop, and she almost dropped the baby when he sat up, clutching his head with both hands. The dark shape turned to her.
"Oh, I do not wish to kill him, dear. I am here to make him live again. Forever."
To be continued…
