Agent-G: well, you fell for that one, right? French, I mean. How many
languages do they teach in Canada? Here, we have Dutch, English (from when
you're about 8!), German and French. The latter two languages are my mortal
ennemies. And nope, Gambit wasn't added in order to replace Shadow, Shadow
will make is appearance, eventually. Sucks, right? And as for the 'bad
thing': nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.
Damn-my-name-was-taken (review last chapter Just A Girl): you certainly have a thing for rodents combined with death and destruction, ne? A friend of mine has !five! chinchilla's, they're pretty cute and incredibly soft, but I'll look for yours.
Fighting Destiny – Evacuating
Marianne was close to going raving mad, and it was just the next morning! She didn't trust Remy for one second to be alone in the hospital wing, and he was bored. When Remy was bored, he flirted, and if Marianne didn't want one thing, it was him flirting with her. Michael thought that it was amusing, which didn't help her. He knew that it was just flirting for Remy and that Marianne was no where near interested in him. But it gave some great entertainment when she came to bed, ranting about the cocky, no good, idiotic jerk in the hospital wing.
Michael was grateful for the fact that Remy wanted to help out. His powers and control there of were impressive, to say the least, the only problem would be that Sarah would now have two people who would irritate her to no end: Tank and Remy.
"Remy LeBeau! Stop that this instant!" Marianne growled, not even looking up from her microscope.
"What is Remy doin' den, petite?" she heard his voice, she could almost see his 'I'm so innocent' look on his face.
"You are disecting the sheets. That is what you are doing, and you are making the threads explode!" she grumbled.
"How do y' know dat?" she heard his curious voice, "y' psychic or somet'in'?"
"No, I am most certainly not," she refused to look up from her tests.
"So, y'r power would be havin' eyes in de back o' y'r head?" he joked.
"Thank god I don't. Though I know someone with that mutation, well, sort of," Marianne grinned, remembering the young boy who had been with them for two months, before leaving three weeks ago. He could sense everything that happened around him, it almost drove him insane. Luckily, the same meditation she had been taught for her control, helped the boy too, but she still had had half a mind to send him to Xavier for help. Or Logan, with his sharp senses, but they had send him to Sweden, somewhere isolated, at his own request.
"Remy didn't need t' know dat," Remy shuddered, "so, what be y'r powers den, petite?"
"Other then managing to stay sane here and keeping everyone in check?" Marianne was happy he was not flirting, "illusions, I cast illusions. I can have you face your worst fear, knock you out cold or have you go through your most beautiful dream."
"Den Remy rat'er not have you mad wit' him, but you also a good doctor, non?"
"I had a great teacher. Look, can I trust you to stay alone in the lab for a couple of hourse and not blow anything up?" Marianne turned around and looked at him, the way she looked made Remy feel as if she was a mom waiting for her son to say he was sorry and he would never do it again.
'Merde' he thought, "Remy be good, Remy won't blow op anyt'in'," he promised.
"Good boy," Marianne patted him on th ehead before making her way to the grounds around the safehouse. The jet would be touching ground soon, and she still had a lot of goodbyes to say. Ofcourse, she hoped they would all turn out to be 'see you later' and not 'farewell', but her sense of reality told her that it would be farewell. Even if they survived, and that chance was awfully slim, they wouldn't see eachother again. The refugees would be taken to places scattered all throughout the mutant-accepting world. They'd be crazy to come back to this place, well, most of them were crazy, ever so slightly, but not crazy enough.
Marianne grinned: yup, she was crazy. She couldn't even fight properly, was still scared shitless by her powers and here she was, refusing to leave like any, remotely, sane person would when a couple of precogs told you that hell would break lose, while not giving any details, or having any details, either one of the two.
As soon as she set food outside, she was attacked by at least three kids half her size. That left her sprawling on the ground with the three kids screeching around her.
'This is the LAST time I'm caught by surprise,' Marianne promised herself, but already knew that that was one promise she would never be able to keep. When all this was over, she would be in the exact same position, being 'mom' to more refugees then she could count, being tackled by anyone who needed help with whichever problem they had and they would ALWAYS catch her by surprise. A dark thought fluttered through her mind: if she survived.
"Now, what do all you midgets want?" she inwardly cringed: bad question. She should really learn to watch her mouth. Well, at least it gave her the momentum she needed to get back on her feet. Out of the hundreds of demands she heard, she picked up 'butterflies' the most. With an almost casual flick of her right hand, she put her mutation to work and summoned enough butterflies to keep the children occupied. It was a harmless illusion, so small she didn't even have to focus on it to keep it under control.
She looked around: 23 refugees. Of which there were 7 under ten years old, 9 were teenagers and 5 were alduts, sorta. Then there was the team.
"So, you finally found the courage to leave the new guy in the hospital wing on his own?" Tank came up behind her.
"If he blow anything up, and I mean anything, he will get up close and personal with my mutation," Marianne's face tensed at the memory of the delicate equipment in the room in which she hda left Remy.
"Whoa! Forget I asked, he's getting on your nerves?" Tank exclaimed with mock fear.
"He was, he got me to the point I actually wanted to knock him out. Disecting the sheets of his bed and letting the threads explode. After I told him not to do that anymore, he settled down," Marianne huffed.
"BEN! Come back here this instant or I will make sure you won't be able to have another disaster!" Tank's smirk widened as he heard Sarah curse at Ben and Ben run past the two of them while yelling apologies and that he didn't mean to almost blow her up. In Ben's case, that was the honest truth. The man was a mobile minefield and also a walking, talking disaster area.
It had stopped shocking Marianne a long time ago. She herself had somehow ended up in the hospital wing a couple of times when she was on the recieving end of someone's powers. That always was uncomfortable, mostly because anyone in the safehouse who even had some medical experience usuall only had first aid knowledge present. And in some cases, that just didn't cut it, so they had to fly in doctors sometimes. Ofcourse, news of that never made it to her brother, father or the X-Men for that matter.
"I'm going to divert some attention now," Tank excused himself as he went after a raging Sarah with scorch marks. Marianne didn't even bother to surpress the giggle.
"I just got of the phone with the professor," Marianne suddenly felt two arms encircle her waist, "they will be joining us tomorrow. Connor, Ezra, Samantha, Jonathan and Jamie are getting out of the country to a friend of Xavier's in Canada somewhere. Perhaps that will make you feel better."
"What would make me feel better is if this wouldn't be happening, or if it is happenening, that they would be at the other side of the galaxy," she muttered, while relaxing in his hold.
Their safehouse wasn't big, so when they had a full house a couple of months ago, Marianne had (finally) moved in with Michael. According to Tank, it was 'about damned time'. Ben was still muttering about the bet he lost and Sarah had won. When the house had relatively emptied again, Marianne had staid in Michael's room, which was now their room.
"Well, unless wishes come true, that won't be happening," he silently whispered.
"Damnit Michael! Can't you just lie for this once?! Just tell me that it was all some big, god awful, joke! Just tell I'm going to wake up any minute now and that everything will be fine, we'll live on happily ever after, humans will accept us and we can just be a normal couple!" Marianne turned around, eyes blazing with anger.
"Do you want me to paint the sun blue along with that?" Michael made one of his rare jokes.
"I... I guess so. Life just has no happy ending, does it? It's just, in one year, I have seen so much pain, more then in the rest of my life. I've grown up from a party-girl from Boston to a doctor for refugees. Hell, I grew up from a shy, harmless girl into a woman who can kill all too easily if she doesn't stay in control. Michael, I want you to promise me that you won't keep me out of the loop because you think I would put myself in danger. We can't afford that with all of this," Marianne's eyes softened as she pleaded with the man she loved. She knew his desire to keep the promise he made to her a year ago: that he would make sure she would never have to fight, kill.
Before Michael could reply, the couple barely avoided Tank darting past them, trying to avoid a very pissed of Sarah.
"Someone has to teach her to control her temper," Marianne mused, a grin forming on her face.
"You're talking? Anne, your temper is worse then Sarah's, we're just lucky we don't see too much of it," it was the truth, she knew it too, a smile broke through as she broke free from his embrace and before she left to talk amongst the group, she gave him a soft kiss.
Anne, that was what he still called her when he wanted her to know he loved her for who she was. That he had loved her without a past, that he loved her with a past. Marianne had long ago given up trying to figure out why he loved her. She wasn't as pretty as the other girls, not as charming and most certainly not as easy to be around with. She and Michael fought often (A/N: you weren't expecting the perfect couple, were you?), about how the safehouse was run, about how much time she spent running tests. They bothe had enough sense to do this behind closed doors, in front of the others, they stuck together. The fights never were bad, they just wouldn't talk for a couple of hours, they both would be more likely to snap, but they made up and wouldn't fight for weeks, months even.
After only 15 minutes, the jet landed. Marianne made sure everyone was on the jet and that those who couldn't stand eachother were as far apart as was possible. Fights on the ground, they could handle, fights in a jet? No way, not in this lifetime, not in the next or any other for that matter.
"Mommy," she felt someone tug at her jeans, when she turned around, she saw C, "hug," the little girl demanded.
"I'll miss you C," Marianne whispered as she obliged to the girl's demand.
"Miss you too," the girl began to cry. Marianne stiffened: not good, if C started to cry, the others would too.
"Hey, C, I've got an important job for you. Could you make sure these guys don't get into trouble on the flight?" she stuffed a paper with her e-mail adress in the girl's hand, "have the people with whom you're gonna live send me an e-mail on how you're doing untill you can do it yourself."
"I will mom," the girl nodded eagerly, and Marianne quickly left the jet, before she would start to cry. As they watched the jet take of, she felt Michael's hand squeeze her shoulder while the other wiped away her stray tear. When she opened her mouth to say something, she heard an explosion coming from within the house.
"REMY LEBEAU!" she roared as she turned on her heels and ran into the house.
Michael let out a deep sigh as he went after her to ensure she didn't kill the Cajun. She was fully capable to if he had demolished some of her equipment...
Damn-my-name-was-taken (review last chapter Just A Girl): you certainly have a thing for rodents combined with death and destruction, ne? A friend of mine has !five! chinchilla's, they're pretty cute and incredibly soft, but I'll look for yours.
Fighting Destiny – Evacuating
Marianne was close to going raving mad, and it was just the next morning! She didn't trust Remy for one second to be alone in the hospital wing, and he was bored. When Remy was bored, he flirted, and if Marianne didn't want one thing, it was him flirting with her. Michael thought that it was amusing, which didn't help her. He knew that it was just flirting for Remy and that Marianne was no where near interested in him. But it gave some great entertainment when she came to bed, ranting about the cocky, no good, idiotic jerk in the hospital wing.
Michael was grateful for the fact that Remy wanted to help out. His powers and control there of were impressive, to say the least, the only problem would be that Sarah would now have two people who would irritate her to no end: Tank and Remy.
"Remy LeBeau! Stop that this instant!" Marianne growled, not even looking up from her microscope.
"What is Remy doin' den, petite?" she heard his voice, she could almost see his 'I'm so innocent' look on his face.
"You are disecting the sheets. That is what you are doing, and you are making the threads explode!" she grumbled.
"How do y' know dat?" she heard his curious voice, "y' psychic or somet'in'?"
"No, I am most certainly not," she refused to look up from her tests.
"So, y'r power would be havin' eyes in de back o' y'r head?" he joked.
"Thank god I don't. Though I know someone with that mutation, well, sort of," Marianne grinned, remembering the young boy who had been with them for two months, before leaving three weeks ago. He could sense everything that happened around him, it almost drove him insane. Luckily, the same meditation she had been taught for her control, helped the boy too, but she still had had half a mind to send him to Xavier for help. Or Logan, with his sharp senses, but they had send him to Sweden, somewhere isolated, at his own request.
"Remy didn't need t' know dat," Remy shuddered, "so, what be y'r powers den, petite?"
"Other then managing to stay sane here and keeping everyone in check?" Marianne was happy he was not flirting, "illusions, I cast illusions. I can have you face your worst fear, knock you out cold or have you go through your most beautiful dream."
"Den Remy rat'er not have you mad wit' him, but you also a good doctor, non?"
"I had a great teacher. Look, can I trust you to stay alone in the lab for a couple of hourse and not blow anything up?" Marianne turned around and looked at him, the way she looked made Remy feel as if she was a mom waiting for her son to say he was sorry and he would never do it again.
'Merde' he thought, "Remy be good, Remy won't blow op anyt'in'," he promised.
"Good boy," Marianne patted him on th ehead before making her way to the grounds around the safehouse. The jet would be touching ground soon, and she still had a lot of goodbyes to say. Ofcourse, she hoped they would all turn out to be 'see you later' and not 'farewell', but her sense of reality told her that it would be farewell. Even if they survived, and that chance was awfully slim, they wouldn't see eachother again. The refugees would be taken to places scattered all throughout the mutant-accepting world. They'd be crazy to come back to this place, well, most of them were crazy, ever so slightly, but not crazy enough.
Marianne grinned: yup, she was crazy. She couldn't even fight properly, was still scared shitless by her powers and here she was, refusing to leave like any, remotely, sane person would when a couple of precogs told you that hell would break lose, while not giving any details, or having any details, either one of the two.
As soon as she set food outside, she was attacked by at least three kids half her size. That left her sprawling on the ground with the three kids screeching around her.
'This is the LAST time I'm caught by surprise,' Marianne promised herself, but already knew that that was one promise she would never be able to keep. When all this was over, she would be in the exact same position, being 'mom' to more refugees then she could count, being tackled by anyone who needed help with whichever problem they had and they would ALWAYS catch her by surprise. A dark thought fluttered through her mind: if she survived.
"Now, what do all you midgets want?" she inwardly cringed: bad question. She should really learn to watch her mouth. Well, at least it gave her the momentum she needed to get back on her feet. Out of the hundreds of demands she heard, she picked up 'butterflies' the most. With an almost casual flick of her right hand, she put her mutation to work and summoned enough butterflies to keep the children occupied. It was a harmless illusion, so small she didn't even have to focus on it to keep it under control.
She looked around: 23 refugees. Of which there were 7 under ten years old, 9 were teenagers and 5 were alduts, sorta. Then there was the team.
"So, you finally found the courage to leave the new guy in the hospital wing on his own?" Tank came up behind her.
"If he blow anything up, and I mean anything, he will get up close and personal with my mutation," Marianne's face tensed at the memory of the delicate equipment in the room in which she hda left Remy.
"Whoa! Forget I asked, he's getting on your nerves?" Tank exclaimed with mock fear.
"He was, he got me to the point I actually wanted to knock him out. Disecting the sheets of his bed and letting the threads explode. After I told him not to do that anymore, he settled down," Marianne huffed.
"BEN! Come back here this instant or I will make sure you won't be able to have another disaster!" Tank's smirk widened as he heard Sarah curse at Ben and Ben run past the two of them while yelling apologies and that he didn't mean to almost blow her up. In Ben's case, that was the honest truth. The man was a mobile minefield and also a walking, talking disaster area.
It had stopped shocking Marianne a long time ago. She herself had somehow ended up in the hospital wing a couple of times when she was on the recieving end of someone's powers. That always was uncomfortable, mostly because anyone in the safehouse who even had some medical experience usuall only had first aid knowledge present. And in some cases, that just didn't cut it, so they had to fly in doctors sometimes. Ofcourse, news of that never made it to her brother, father or the X-Men for that matter.
"I'm going to divert some attention now," Tank excused himself as he went after a raging Sarah with scorch marks. Marianne didn't even bother to surpress the giggle.
"I just got of the phone with the professor," Marianne suddenly felt two arms encircle her waist, "they will be joining us tomorrow. Connor, Ezra, Samantha, Jonathan and Jamie are getting out of the country to a friend of Xavier's in Canada somewhere. Perhaps that will make you feel better."
"What would make me feel better is if this wouldn't be happening, or if it is happenening, that they would be at the other side of the galaxy," she muttered, while relaxing in his hold.
Their safehouse wasn't big, so when they had a full house a couple of months ago, Marianne had (finally) moved in with Michael. According to Tank, it was 'about damned time'. Ben was still muttering about the bet he lost and Sarah had won. When the house had relatively emptied again, Marianne had staid in Michael's room, which was now their room.
"Well, unless wishes come true, that won't be happening," he silently whispered.
"Damnit Michael! Can't you just lie for this once?! Just tell me that it was all some big, god awful, joke! Just tell I'm going to wake up any minute now and that everything will be fine, we'll live on happily ever after, humans will accept us and we can just be a normal couple!" Marianne turned around, eyes blazing with anger.
"Do you want me to paint the sun blue along with that?" Michael made one of his rare jokes.
"I... I guess so. Life just has no happy ending, does it? It's just, in one year, I have seen so much pain, more then in the rest of my life. I've grown up from a party-girl from Boston to a doctor for refugees. Hell, I grew up from a shy, harmless girl into a woman who can kill all too easily if she doesn't stay in control. Michael, I want you to promise me that you won't keep me out of the loop because you think I would put myself in danger. We can't afford that with all of this," Marianne's eyes softened as she pleaded with the man she loved. She knew his desire to keep the promise he made to her a year ago: that he would make sure she would never have to fight, kill.
Before Michael could reply, the couple barely avoided Tank darting past them, trying to avoid a very pissed of Sarah.
"Someone has to teach her to control her temper," Marianne mused, a grin forming on her face.
"You're talking? Anne, your temper is worse then Sarah's, we're just lucky we don't see too much of it," it was the truth, she knew it too, a smile broke through as she broke free from his embrace and before she left to talk amongst the group, she gave him a soft kiss.
Anne, that was what he still called her when he wanted her to know he loved her for who she was. That he had loved her without a past, that he loved her with a past. Marianne had long ago given up trying to figure out why he loved her. She wasn't as pretty as the other girls, not as charming and most certainly not as easy to be around with. She and Michael fought often (A/N: you weren't expecting the perfect couple, were you?), about how the safehouse was run, about how much time she spent running tests. They bothe had enough sense to do this behind closed doors, in front of the others, they stuck together. The fights never were bad, they just wouldn't talk for a couple of hours, they both would be more likely to snap, but they made up and wouldn't fight for weeks, months even.
After only 15 minutes, the jet landed. Marianne made sure everyone was on the jet and that those who couldn't stand eachother were as far apart as was possible. Fights on the ground, they could handle, fights in a jet? No way, not in this lifetime, not in the next or any other for that matter.
"Mommy," she felt someone tug at her jeans, when she turned around, she saw C, "hug," the little girl demanded.
"I'll miss you C," Marianne whispered as she obliged to the girl's demand.
"Miss you too," the girl began to cry. Marianne stiffened: not good, if C started to cry, the others would too.
"Hey, C, I've got an important job for you. Could you make sure these guys don't get into trouble on the flight?" she stuffed a paper with her e-mail adress in the girl's hand, "have the people with whom you're gonna live send me an e-mail on how you're doing untill you can do it yourself."
"I will mom," the girl nodded eagerly, and Marianne quickly left the jet, before she would start to cry. As they watched the jet take of, she felt Michael's hand squeeze her shoulder while the other wiped away her stray tear. When she opened her mouth to say something, she heard an explosion coming from within the house.
"REMY LEBEAU!" she roared as she turned on her heels and ran into the house.
Michael let out a deep sigh as he went after her to ensure she didn't kill the Cajun. She was fully capable to if he had demolished some of her equipment...