Okay, so it's coming to an end now… *snifs the air around* Can you feel the fluff coming?
The Name Changer : Thanks again for the hint… Now I can check chapters up when they don't work! Yay!
ladychopsticks : Well thanks for reading… And I knew about chapter 9, I always test read my chapters once their on the net, to check for mistakes I didn't see on word (I always do, halas). It's available now, though.
MzJenna : Well, this one is a little bit longer, and the story is coming to an end (a happy end. I promise the summum of fluff and sap)…
Kaitland : Thanks… And I am working hard on reuniting the two, but hey, if Jade doesn't do her part, it's going to be hard on Remy trying to hunt her down. But well… Let's all cross our fingers!
TheWalrusWasPaul : Oh darn, I surely hope all of those who want to hunt me down don't reunite and organize a beat to find me, or I'm cooked. *sigh* or I can reunite the two of them. If it can save my life…
LiLRogue : I'll sure go and read your fics, once I have the time… I'm trying to finish this first, though!
Pookie Sanchez : Oh no! Not review!!! Anything but review!!! Lol. Noooooo!
Yumiko : Ah yay, another hunter! *sigh* I'm getting nervous! Why do you think I pop up two chapters a day? I've gone to bed at 1:30 last night, and was up at 7, only to please you! And I'm on VACATION! Yay!
nessie : *frowns at the review* Whoa. You need help! LOL I dream about Gambit too, but mostly about my own stories. That's where the plot attacks, you know… In my dreams *shiver*. Must… not… fall… asleep…
Enjoy!
Chapitre onze
A lump was stuck in his throat, but it would lodge, even with the three glasses of water he drank. Sitting on the other side of the table was his brother Henri, a brother he had thought dead for two weeks now, and who litteraly came back from the dead the very morning. His left leg was in a cast, and bandages covered his hands and wrists. Several cuts covered the left side of his face, but they looked like they were healing well. Remy was listening to his brother's tale as he explained to him and Émile what really happened, how he jumped through the window, how he lost consciousness and woke up in the house of strangers that took care of him instead of bringing him to the hospital. But his mind was elsewhere.
Henri's return meant a lot, meant that things would change. Remy wasn't the oldest living LeBeau anymore, and chances are that the Guild would claim Henri as leader of the Thieves, especially with the attitude Remy had shown in the last weeks. Remy smiled. That was exactly what he wanted.
~~
"Qu'est-ce qui ne va pas, Remy?" What's wrong?
Remy snapped his head up at the question, and met his brother's blue eyes. They were alone at the table now, everyone had left to their previous occupation, and Henri was waiting for Mercy to show up. And Remy didn't want to miss that. But he had drifted away in his reverie again, and Henri smiled.
"Émile told me y'haven't been yerself lately, Rem. Care t'tell me what's wrong?" Remy gave him a small smile, and streched in his chair.
"Well, you comin' back solves a lot." Henri stayed silent for a moment, then looked at him, narrowing his eyes.
"You don' like leadin' de Thieves, Rem? I would'ave thought you'd always wanted to." Remy sighed.
"I would'ave liked to, mon frère, if it didn't mean I had to loose m'brother and father in de process." Henri stared at him, reading his eyes, and then chuckled, shaking his head.
"Nah, Rem. Dere's somethin' else ye're not tellin' me." Remy looked up at his brother's eyes and stared, hard. But Henri smiled, staring back, and Remy looked down at his hands, locked together on the table.
"It be a woman, Henri." There. He said it. He ran his fingers through his hair, expecting his brother's laugh. But it didn't come, and Remy looked up to find Henri frowning.
"A woman? And since when do women drive'y upside down like dat?" Ah, there it was, the smile creeping slowly on Henri's face. "She must be a witch or somethin'. In any way, a very powerful woman…" Remy sighed, and put his face back in his hands.
"I don' know" he mumbled, his voice muffled in his hands. "I barely known her fo'five days, and she's been gone fo'two weeks now." Henri sighed with relief.
"Y'scared me. For a moment dere, I thought y'were after Bella Donna again." Remy snorted.
"Non, never since she last tried t'kill me." Henri laughed softly.
"And almost succeeded." They both stopped talking for a few moments, enjoying the silence. Then Henri talked, softly. "What happened?"
"She and her friend got attacked by de Assassins" he sighed, his voice as low as Henri's. "We brought dem here for protection, 'til de day her friend's wound healed, and dey got home."
"And y'fell in love with her?" Henri looked more amazed by his own question than by the situation itself. His young brother? In love? Remy chuckled.
"I be dammed if I know, Henri. S'not like I've been in love before." Henri narrowed his eyes at him, and smiled. He leaned back in his chair.
"Do y'know where she lives, petit frère?" Remy gave out a long sigh.
"New York." Henri grimaced. That was a hell of a big city to look for someone. "I know it's big Henri. And I don't t'ink de Guild's contacts can help us with dis."
"Well, we can always use de traditionnal way, she must have a phone number. What's her last name?" Remy looked at him with a blank stare, and Henri's mouth slowly opened. "Don' tell me you…"
"I don' know." Henri sighed.
"So much for de traditionnal way."
"Henri?" Both men looked up to see a beautiful brunette standing in the doorframe, holding the hand of a very proud looking Marguerite.
"Allo, Mercy." Henri got up, and she ran in his arms. Remy looked down at his own hands and arms, and suddently smiled with the image of a young woman in it.
Okay, so he didn't know her last name, and finding a young woman in her mid-twenties in the city of New York would be a hell of a challenge.
But he loved challenges.
~~
Jade sighed, and looked at the sky through her window. Working at the 50th floor of a building had it's advantages, and she always felt like she was flying whenever she looked down. She loved her office. She loved her job. But she didn't feel like working with numbers today, the report would have to wait. She let herself drop in a small couch by the window, and sighed, closing her eyes.
Almost a month ago now, she left New Orleans and a fantastic man behind, because she was stupidly afraid of the world he was living in. Two weeks since she had that talk with Raven, two weeks since she had begun thinking about going back.
Could she? And what if she did? Nothing in the short relation she had with Remy told her he would be waiting for her. It's not like they had fallen in love or anything, they'd only known each other for a few days… She sighed, laughing at her own denial. Would she take the chance of going back, only to be thrown away? Only to have her heart broken into pieces? She looked down at her hands, imagining them on his skin, feeling the softness of the dark auburn hair, light locks brushing against her face. She closed her eyes, tasting his kisses again, and her chest tightned. It already hurt so much to think about him, would she take the chance of seeing hatred in the georgous red eyes, and be hurt even more? Was the chance of him being happy to see her worth it?
She started when she heard the knock on the door. "Yes?" Her assistant popped her head in the office, a large grin on her face, as always.
"Telephone on line one, Miss Fraser." Her heart leaped, like it always did.
"Who is it?"
"It's Miss Darkholme… I tried to tell you on the interphone, but it's broken." Jade sighed, and took the phone, nodding to Julia. The girl gave her a final smile, and her head dissapeared behind the door.
"Hi, Raven."
"Hey, girl!" She seemed out of breath, and Jade could hear kitchen sounds and an entire mob talking along with her friend's voice.
"God, Raven, where are yah? In the middle of a Stones show?"
"I'm at the restaurant, Jade! Look, it's crazy here, I have to stay longer! I'm sorry I won't make it for dinner, I might be home late." Jade smiled.
"It's okay, Rav. Ah had nothin' planned, anyways." She heard the sound of a plate crashing on the floor, a hand on the receiver, and the distant sound of Raven yelling something to a probably incompetent busboy. Then her voice came back, sounding mildly annoyed.
"Darn, I have to leave… See you tonight, girl!"
"Bye, Rav." The communication was cut, and she hook back the receiver.
Raven was dating Bobby for two weeks now, which was a personnal record for the man's woman. It looked serious enough, and Jade knew that, one day, she would be alone in an appartment. She loved her friend dearly, but she would have to move on with her life one day. She turned her chair to face the window, got up and walked to the glass, putting her hands on it. She looked down to the street and the feeling of flying came back. She smiled at the sight of people running on the large sidewalks, and the yellows cabs stuck in the traffic, shaking fists popping out of a driver's window once and awhile. Rush hour. But since Raven wasn't coming home for diner, she might as well do a little overtime herself.
But the look Bobby gave Raven each time he came at the appartment to pick her up, and the way Raven gave it back to him haunted her, and after an hour, she hadn't touched her calculator once. She turned to the window again, watching the sun go down and the lights come up in the skyscrapers. And the same thought came to her again. Was the chance of him being happy to see her worth the try?
She decided it was.
To be continued!
Hey, will you look at that! The plot dissapeared! YAY!
