Chapter 7: The Terror of Untouchables – Red Aces!

A/N: I feel badL I'm sorry it took me so long to get this out. Between finals, holidays, and strange soap opera occurrences it has been hard to get anything written down. I know I will have the next chapter out in the next week, so read and review for me^^*.

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"What are you doing?" Gambit looked up from his game of solitaire and grinned at Rogue's curiosity.

"What's it to you?" he asked, trying to be as difficult as possible. Rogue rolled her eyes.

"Ya know, ya don't have to be down here if you don't want to be. Ah'm not going to faint again," she replied, tugging on the ends of her gloves absent-mindedly.

Gambit looked down at his game again. "The Professor told Gambit to look after the Rogue until her tests are done, and that's what Gambit's gonna do," he said.

 Rogue sighed loudly and slumped down in her seat. It was strange being in the same room as Gambit after meeting his psyche. Gambit glanced up at her. "What's the matter Cher? Bored?" Rouge did not grace his question with a reply.

Gambit sighed and gathered all his cards together. He shuffled them a few time and looked at Rogue expectantly. "What?" she asked agitatedly. "Nuthin'," he replied. "Just wondering if the chere would like to play a little…strip poker."

Rogue looked at Gambit like he had just sprouted a second head. "Are you insane?" she asked in disbelief. Gambit sighed. "We ain't going ta touch or anything-"

 "NO!"

"Fine." Gambit continued to shuffle his cards. "What if Gambit predicts the chere's fortune?"

"What?" Rogue asked, still annoyed from the Cajun's last suggestion.

"Predicted yo' future," he repeated. "Honestly, sometimes Gambit feels like he's talking to a five-year-old."

Rogue lifted her gaze from the ends of her gloves to glare at Gambit. "Oh yeah, that really makes me want to talk to ya," she replied icily. Gambit grinned and laid out five cards in a row, all faced downward.

"Now all the chere has to do is concentrate on de homme of her choice," he said. Rogue rolled her eyes. "Love fortunes? I thought you were going to predict something relevant to my life," she said.

Gambit looked offended. "Love is relevant chere."

 "Not in mah life it isn't," Rogue concentrated on the ends of her shirt this time. Gambit smiled knowingly in her direction and continued.

 "Anyways, after the chere's picked her homme, Gambit's gonna place each of the five cards on top of one another and then he's going to shuffle the deck once more. The last thing to do is to place the cards face up and see if de Rogue and her homme have a future together."

 Rogue's only response was to sigh and gaze longingly into the frosted glass separating them from Hank's Lab. Gambit remained set at his task. "Look chere, a pair o' tens. That's means that you and he will have a strong friendship. I guess that throws the option of pure lust out the window, huh?" Gambit said without looking up from his cards.

"Great," Rogue mumbled. "The prediction's accurate so far. Friendship is the highest form of relationship I can ever hope to achieve." Gambit frowned. "Stop feeling sorry fo' yourself and concentrate on your homme," he ordered. "A pair of Kings. That's not good. It means there's another man," he glanced at her thoughtfully.

 A few moments of silence followed as Gambit flipped the cards over one by one. "Aha! Gambit thought so!" Rogue leaned over a bit to see what had him so excited. "Two red aces! Chere, that's even better than black aces!" Gambit said, holding up the two cards.

"What do aces stand for?" Rogue asked, her curiosity starting to show. Gambit smiled at her in a way that made Rogue suddenly become very interested in counting the grains on the wooden coffee table in front of her.

"Two red aces means true love. Who was the chere thinking about?" he asked. Rogue suddenly felt angry again. It was like Gambit was backing her into a corner. "Nobody you would know," she replied hastily. "Oh, but the chere would be surprised… Gambit knows a lot of people." Gambit leaned over the coffee table and tilted Rogue's chin until her eyes met his gaze. He slowly leaned towards her.

 "D-don't do anything stupid Swamp Rat," she whispered shakily. Exactly what had happened to her normal resistance? Usually she would have him back on his side of the table smiling at her in his usual playboy manner by now; but not this time.

 "Gambit knows exactly what he's doing cher," he whispered back, his lips nearly touching hers. "Lab results are ready!" Hank came bursting through the frosted glass door making Gambit wince and Rogue sigh in relief.

Hank grinned. "Sorry, was I interrupting something?" the Beast asked. Gambit smiled. "My homme, if you had not entered this room at the time that you did-"

 "We weren't doing anything Hank," Rogue interrupted. "Gambit was just being the jerk he always is." She looked over at Gambit. He looked if he was about to break out into a pout. This made her want to laugh, but she was sure that was his intent so she stayed silent.

"Well, about the tests," Hank started. Rogue turned towards him. "The results were…interesting, to say the least. It seems your physical stats have nearly doubled quantitatively." "Have they now?" Gambit asked at the mention of the word physical. Rogue roller her eyes. "What do you think caused the stats to change?" she asked. But as soon as the words came out of her mouth she realized that she already knew the answer to her question. Hank nodded. "I think you already know the answer to that."

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A/N: That has got to be the worst ending in the history of endings… I'm sorry. I'm also sorry because I've had a bad case of writer's block, but maybe if I get some good reviews I can get the chapters out a whole lot faster! ^^*