Disclaimer: Yadda, yadda, not mine, yadda.

Author's Notes: Angst is always fun. This is my motto and it's served me well. Thank you for all the support, and enjoy this final chapter;)

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Manumission

by Kristen Elizabeth

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If you say you never were here,

That you´ve never been seen.

I wonder where we´d stand

If you had stayed in my dreams?

You should have stayed in my dreams.

You should have made me stop.

´Cause you were just a dream,

Since I had given up.

****

They arrived back at Xavier's mansion less than forty-eight hours later. Remy drove from the airport; they'd barely spoken on the plane and on their last night in the city, he'd slept on the floor while she took the bed. That damn bed. Part of him had wanted to destroy it. The other half wanted to take it back to New York with them.

She'd cried that night, too. And as always, he'd been unable to comfort her.

Jubilation Lee greeted them on the main staircase, bubbling over with post-vacation excitement. "You're back!" she exclaimed. "Did you have a good time in the swamp?"

Rogue looked away, so it was up to Remy to reply, "Oui, petit. It were a trip t'remember."

"Ah'm gonna go unpack."

Jubilee watched Rogue listlessly continue up the stairs with her bags. Once she was out of earshot, she threw Remy a frown. "Okay…what happened?"

He patted her head. "Why don' you tell Gambit w'at's cookin' for dinner?"

"Are you two fighting again?!" The teenager's lower lip protruded. "How am I ever gonna get to be a bridesmaid if you two keep on…"

"Petit." Remy cut her off softly, but firmly. "Dinner?"

"Storm's makin' spareribs," she muttered. Heaving a great sigh, Jubilee stomped down the stairs.

She thundered into the kitchen a moment later and found Ororo Munroe stirring a pot of spicy-sweet sauce for the ribs which were almost ready to be tossed onto the fire Logan was stoking on the patio grill. It was a homey scene, but Jubilee was a little thundercloud on legs and much too preoccupied to appreciate it.

"Did I hear Rogue and Remy out there?" Storm asked her as she plopped onto a barstool.

"They're back," the girl scowled. "Fighting, too. Rogue's all depressed and Remy's not much better. I swear!" She pounded her fist onto the cool tiles of the counter. "I don't know what's wrong with them!!"

"Whatever it is, Jubilee…" The Professor glided into the kitchen and stopped his hovering chair just in front of the youngest X-Man. "…it is hardly our business."

Shamed slightly, she fidgeted on the stool. "I know it's not. I just wish they could be happy."

Xavier paused for a long moment, his long fingers touching his smooth temple. "They have been," he finally said. "But happiness…it can't always last."

Storm watched him as he moved out of the kitchen as quietly as he'd entered it. Jubilee looked at her. "What does that mean?"

The older woman shook head. "I couldn't guess, dear."

****

It was raining outside. It suited her mood perfectly. Let the whole world weep with her, Rogue thought, curling up around an oversized teddy bear and staring at the rivulets of water twisting their way down the windows. Remy had won her this bear at a carnival back when they first met. She'd cherished it ever since, sleeping with it when it became clear that she couldn't sleep with him.

She closed her eyes, fresh agony drenching her worse than the rain would if she opened her window. They hadn't really spoken more than a few words to each other since dawn broke that morning as if they'd forged an unspoken agreement to never discuss it. Rogue hadn't even sat next to him at dinner, and he'd barely looked at her when he passed her the platter of ribs.

When she'd passed them on without taking any, Bobby Drake had commented that she'd eaten too much gumbo in Louisiana to be hungry. Remy had choked on a mouthful of rice, and Rogue excused herself, leaving a very confused Iceman to wonder just what he'd said wrong. She made a mental note to apologize to him later.

So, this was how it was going to be from then on, she decided. Avoiding, hiding, forgetting…when those were the very things they'd sworn not to do. Rogue tossed the bear aside and stood up from the bay window. When weighed down by too much thought, the best thing to do was not think for awhile. And there was no better place to do that than in Xavier's Danger Room.

She pulled on her green and gold uniform; it hugged her body like a second skin, but not nearly as comfortably as he'd held her. Rogue tugged her gloves on with angry motions. When was she going to stop doing that?? Comparing everything to having sex with Remy…was it going to take months? Years? How long until her life could get back to normal? How long until it stopped hurting?

After securing her hair in a high ponytail, she yanked her bedroom door open, and if she hadn't taken a second to look where she was going, she would have run straight into Remy's chest.

"Whoa, chere." He caught her by her shoulders and held her at arm's length. "W'ere you goin' all done up t'fight?"

"Danger Room." She jerked out of his grip. "Ah got some energy to burn off."

"You know dat's de firs' t'ing you say t'Gambit since…"

Rogue cut him off, "Ah know. Believe me…Ah know." Turning on her heel, she marched back into her room.

He followed, and there was a pause until he closed the door. "Why we makin' dis so hard, chere?" Remy asked. "Dere be no cause for it."

"Do ya wanna pretend we're all happy-go-lucky?" She glared up at him. "Maybe that's okay when we're 'round everyone else, but when it's jus' us, Ah can't make believe."

His gloved fingers glanced across her chin, feeling the slight wobble of too much emotion there. "Make believe w'at?"

"Make believe…" Rogue sniffed, looking away. "…that Ah don' want ya."

"Who said we got t'make believe dat?"

She swiped her hand over her cheeks. "Don't'cha think that'd be the best thing we could do? Maybe if we make like it never happened, we won' be thinkin' 'bout it all day, every day. Maybe we can get on with our lives. Or somethin'."

Remy nodded. "Maybe. Or maybe we jus' make ourselves a million times more mis'rable, actin' like we ain' never had somet'ing so special."

"Ah can't see how not torturin' myself could make me more miserable, swamp rat."

"Rogue." She met his eyes, intending to only glance at him for a brief moment, but he caught her up in his stare, and all she wanted to do was melt into him once again. "Speakin' only for himself, de real torture for Gambit always been not knowin', never havin'. Now dat he know, and now dat he got t'have for one nigh', he don' wanna go back t'dat, chere."

She shook her head, the end of her ponytail sweeping across the nape of her neck. "Ya make it sound so easy. Like if Ah jus' try real hard an' think like that, it'll all be okay. Ah don' think it works that way. Ah want ya, an' Ah can't have ya. Ah've been used to that. But least before all o' this, Ah didn' know what Ah was missin'. Now…Ah do. An' it hurts." Rogue crossed her hands and pressed them against her chest. "It hurts so bad, Remy…"

"Chere…" He reached for her, but she drew back. "Don' you do dat, girl." Anger flashed in his eyes. "Don' you be pullin' away from dis Caj'n. Not again. Dere ain' not'ing in dis world he hate more den when you won' let him in."

"Ah let ya in!!" she shouted. "An' look where it got us!! More fucked up than before!!"

Remy plunged his fingers into his thick hair. "You t'ink dat de only way o' letting someone in be t'rough de body?!" Shaking his head, he grabbed her, putting one gloved hand on each side of her face. "Non, chere. W'at you got t'do…is let me in up here." He released her and covered the center of her chest. "An' in here. You gonna do dat? Or do we keep on runnin' 'round each ot'er, an' never meetin' up?"

"Ah don' know," she whispered. "Sometimes love…jus' ain' enough."

He scowled. "Gambit hate dat twangy, country shit you be listenin' to."

Suddenly, she laughed, and there was nothing bitter about it. Her entire body relaxed; the cloud of doom and gloom over her pretty face lifted. Remy's frown disappeared. "You stop my heart, chere, when you go an' smile like dat."

Rogue covered her mouth with her hand. "Ah don' know what's wrong with me, sugah."

"Maybe we jus' figurin' out w'at everybody else already know," he ventured. "Dat bein' toget'er takes a lot o' work. An' sex…it don' help clear up everyt'ing." Remy reached for her again, and this time she let him pull her against his body. "We got our fair share o' de issues. But dat don' mean we give up. Oui?"

She didn't echo him, but she wrapped her arms around his torso and squeezed, lightly as not to crack his ribs. "Ah was startin' to regret…takin' that damn charm at all."

"Don' do dat," Remy told her. "Don' be sorry for w'at we had, chere. 'Cause you jus' never know. We migh' get it back someday."

"Maybe," Rogue whispered.

"An' until den…" He broke their embrace and reached for a paper bag she hadn't even noticed he'd set down onto the carpet next to her door. "Dere's somet'ing I want t'give you."

Rogue gave him a puzzled look. "What's this, sugah?"

"I did some shoppin' on de day we left. Open it."

She took the bag over to her bed and sat down on the edge. Taking a breath, she stuck her hand inside and pulled out the first thing she touched. It was a gold and white box of Café Du Monde beignet mix. Her eyes watered. "Remy…"

"Keep goin', chere."

Another dig into the bag produced a matching canister of the restaurant's unique chicory coffee blend. "Half o' dat in a cup, an' half warm milk," he told her. "For de days when it jus' be too much trouble t'make de beignets."

Rogue licked her dry lips and reached into the bag again, pulling out a thin book. "Recipes?" she puzzled. Then she read the whole title. "Oh! From the Court o' the Sisters!"

"I cook dem for you, chere. No need t'burn down de kitchen when we be wantin' t'remember."

She threw him her best mock glare as she dug into the bag once more, producing a coffee cup, set of pencils, a pad of paper and a refrigerator magnet that all read, in gaudy script, "Naw'lins." Rogue laughed, looking them over. Scribbled on the pad of paper in Remy's messy handwriting was, "Never forget, I love you."

"Ah won'," she told him, looking back up at him with shining eyes. "Ah couldn't…even for the two seconds Ah tried."

He cleared his throat and blinked several times. "One more t'ing in dere."

Rogue rooted around until her fingers touched something soft. Frowning, she pulled out a small, stuffed little stick person. A string on its wrist attached a price tag as well as a tiny bag of straight pins. "What on earth?"

"Voodoo doll," he told her, taking it from her and opening the little bag. "Gambit figure since we know dis stuff work now…when Cyke start in on de team too hard, we do dis…" He extracted one pin and stuck it into the doll's side. "…an' den take de day off."

Her laughter was medicine itself, healing all the wounds between them for the time being.

And down in the boathouse, Scott Summers glanced up from his training schedule, winced, and put a hand to his ribs.

****

How do you say goodbye?

How do you get free?

I tried to say goodbye.

But you´re still here with me.

-Sophie Zelmani

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Fini