Disclaimer: I do not own any Marvel characters; please don't sue me I am a poor college student. I am not making any money off of this and I am just writing it for the benefit of my own entertainment as well as the entertainment of the other fans out there. Also, this is a story from my own imagination, any resemblance to real life events, or even those in fiction is completely coincidental. As an additional note, there are so many fan fiction stories out there on this site as well as others, so any similarity is coincidental or great minds just happen to think alike. I do claim the non-Marvel characters, such as the Williams family and the new offspring of the LeBeau and Summers families. Thanks!
Note: I apologize for the spacing and random indents and anything of the sort. When the pages are loaded onto this site everything seems to get a bit messed up. I noticed that single lines get double spaced randomly. Sorry about that.
Through the Years
Part IV
Chapter Seventeen: So much to be thankful for…
"What's t'matter wit' Poppa's lil' Wildcard," Remy asked rhetorically as he picked the crying child up out of her crib. He and Rogue had been sleeping in the other room when the cries were heard over the baby monitor. He glanced at the clock, 2:15am, right on schedule. This child was like clock work, she would wake up at all times during the night, but never had a night gone by where she didn't wake up at 2:15am wanting to be fed. Remy went to the nursery, picked up the baby and brought her down to the kitchen where he prepared one of the pre-made bottles from the refrigerator. As he fed his daughter the bottle he sung a French lullaby to her hoping to lull her into a peaceful sleep. He looked at the baby as she drank from the bottle he held. A pair of emerald green eyes stared back up at him. From the moment the baby opened her eyes, it was apparent that physically she was going to take after her mother. Just like Rogue the baby had deep emerald green eyes and fair, almost porcelain, colored skin. In fact, she really didn't seem to physically take after Gambit at all. He could only imagine that the baby might have hair closer to his shade of brown than Rogue's shade of brown with the white stripe. But the baby was only a month and a half old, and as everyone said, as bald as Xavier. Rogue said that Gambit's genes came in with the baby's personality. She claimed the child was already a little charmer, able to melt the hearts of even the toughest X-men, especially Wolverine. She predicted that the baby would end up acting like Gambit in most ways; after all, she was already "Poppa's lil' girl." As Gambit put the baby back in her crib he hoped that she wouldn't wake up too much more tonight, tomorrow she would have a big day. Not only was it her christening, but it was Thanksgiving as well and she, as well as her parents, would need all the rest they could get!
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Thanksgiving is truly a time to be thankful for all of the blessing that life has to offer. No two people knew this fact to be true than Gambit and Rogue. As a result they decided to have the baby's christening on Thanksgiving before the family dinner at the Mansion. It seemed like a good idea because their friends were already taking the day off from doing whatever it was that they do and others who lived farther away would be in the area anyway. As the LeBeaus entered the Mansion early that morning they were greeted by an eager looking Dr. McCoy who ushered them to the MediLab in the subbasement. He had wanted to see if Rogue's powers affected the baby sooner but with all the craziness life with a newborn had thrown their way, he hadn't really had a chance to do so. Since they were coming over before the christening, Beast wanted catch them before everything got chaotic with Thanksgiving and the baptism itself. After looking the baby over Beast turned to the parents and said, "Well, everything looks good, as usual." He tickled the baby's feet and she giggled. Then he looked at Rogue and asked her, "Rogue, have you tried to touch the baby without a barrier?"
"Oh no Hank! Ah wouldn't risk that! Ah always wear gloves when Ah touch the baby and… "
"I understand your fears Rogue," he interrupted. "And I probably should have made you try this earlier but I know that you were scared and of course upsetting you so soon after childbirth may have been risky. But I really would like you to try this. If it will lay any fears to rest you know that I'm right here if anything should go awry, but I feel that this is a risk that you should take."
In her mind Rogue seemed to weight the options in her head, as if reading her mind Hank added, "Wouldn't it be better to find out now if you can hug and kiss your child rather than touching her through a barrier for the rest of her life."
Rogue looked into his eyes when he said that. She knew that Hank would never do anything to put her or her child at risk. If he felt that she should do this, than she knew to trust him. She looked at Remy and he nodded and gave her a small smile. He knew that it killed her not being able to touch the baby like most mothers could. She fed the baby with a bottle of pumped breast milk and he saw the sadness in her eyes whenever he kissed the baby. She always told him to give the baby "a kiss from Momma" and he knew the sadness in her voice whenever she said that, even if she didn't mean for there to be any. She longed to tickle Jessica without gloves and had never given the baby a kiss in fear of absorbing the life out of her little body. Even though she thought she had decided that a life spent touching her child behind a barrier was better than not having a child at all, she wanted, no, NEEDED to know. It was now or never.
Slowly, with shaking hands, Rogue took her gloves off and laid them next to the baby on the medical table. Then she reached over and slowly brought a shaking hand to the baby's face. Rogue lightly placed her fingers on the baby's rosy cheeks and the child stared up at her and cooed. And that was it, nothing else happened! Rogue didn't feel Jessica's lifeforce flow into her; the baby didn't lose consciousness, nothing! With a sigh of relief Rogue picked up the baby and held her tightly, kissing her on the forehead over and over as if to make up for the kisses missed out on during the last month and a half. The tears streamed down her face as she repeated, "Oh mah baby, mah dear sweet baby" over and over. After a few minutes she looked over at the elated Remy and an equally happy Beast. "But Hank, how was this possible?"
Hank reminded her of how Remy was immune to her powers and how the baby was carried to term whereas other children failed to follow suit.{1} He then explained the hypothesis he held about the baby being equally a genetic combination of both her and Remy
"This combination explains why Jessica was able to be conceived, carried in utero, and be born when other children failed to follow suit. Gambit is immune to your powers. Similarly you are immune to your own powers. This child survived because of the sheer fact that she is genetically a combination of both of those traits. Fascinating!" Beast said excitedly.
Gambit walked over to Rogue and kissed his wife on the cheek before saying, "Genetics is purely a gamble. Sometimes you get a crap shoot, and sometimes," he kissed his daughter on the head; "you get a wildcard."
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The christening itself went off without a hitch. Nightcrawler was thrilled that the second baptism in his chapel was that of his niece. Though not blood-related, Rogue was the closest thing he had to family in the area and she felt the same way about him. Sometimes he would come over from working at the chapel and have dinner with the LeBeaus. He loved spending time in the familial atmosphere, swapping stories with Remy and Rogue at dinner, singing his niece German lullabies, playing a game or two of cards or chess with Remy, or talking to Rogue about anything and everything. His goal of becoming closer to his foster sister had been realized better than he had ever expected. He exchanged smiles with Rogue during the ceremony. She knew that Kurt was thrilled to be doing this; he had told her one evening after dinner that she was more of a sister, more of a family than he had ever hoped to have. She had to agree, it was nice to have a brother, even one that she didn't know in childhood, but in their years with the X-men, they had certainly grown up together. She recalled how like the others, he didn't trust her at all when she first came to the X-men, not that she could blame him. As the years had gone on and she went from being a scared teenager to a confident adult woman, Kurt had been there with her, growing and transforming himself from the impish fan of swashbuckling heros to a full-fledged man of the cloth.
Both Wolverine and Storm were thrilled and honored to be chosen to be the baby's godparents. Each of them took turns holding baby Jessica during the ceremony. At one point during the ceremony while Storm was holding the baby, Wolverine leaned over and whispered to Storm, "Kind makes you wish for a kid of your own, eh Ororo?" The normally cool and composed weather goddess looked a little shocked at the comment, then smiled over at her friend. "Logan, this is neither the time nor the place to discuss such matters!"
"Name the time and the place 'Ro," he winked towards her before moving few steps away.
Again, the white haired mutant looked taken aback by the comment before regaining her poises and giving him a look.
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After the ceremony, everyone headed back to the Mansion for Thanksgiving dinner. Gambit and Jean-Grey went into the kitchen to prepare the meal while Bishop was sent in to referee the event. For as long as anyone could remember, both had considered themselves to be the better chef, and it often ended with one or the other wearing food. {2} But the times that they did work together in the kitchen a meal of incomparable proportions was created. While the X-men sat around with their mouths watering for the meal, they talked, laughed, and enjoyed each others company.
"Oh Rogue, she's adorable," gushed Jubilee as the proud mother handed the baby to the younger X-man. Because of the chaos of organizing the first school year at the new school dubbed The Xavier Institute of Education, the birth of two babies to teammates, and the other events of life, the LeBeaus had not had a real chance to show their daughter off to their friends.
Each of the X-men took turns holding the baby. She was fairly cranky from all the excitement of the day, making faint whimpering noises while being passed from X-man to X-man. When she made it into Scott's arms she started wailing. He quickly handed her off to Wolverine where she instantly quieted. "You just gotta know how to handle the kid Cyke." Everyone laughed at the sight. A clean cut man like Scott who was a father himself would seemingly be the natural choice for a child to be drawn to, but instead the gruff, sometimes animalistic Wolverine was the one baby Jessica was drawn to. In fact, besides her own parents, Wolverine was the only one who could calm her down sometimes.
During the meal itself, Xavier looked around at the family gathered around the Thanksgiving table (or tables as the case may be since so many were gathered that day). The group gathered was certainly larger than most gatherings due to the fact that Jessica LeBeau's baptism was earlier in the day. Still, he was happy to have so many people, both X-men and non-X-men, mutants and non-mutants alike gathered together in love and friendship. This after all, was his dream being realized. He also couldn't believe how much had changed in the last year. This time last year he had made the announcement of starting a new school for mutants; now the Xavier Institute of Education was in its first year and doing quite well with an enrollment of thirty high school students and one middle school student whose powers made learning in a traditional setting impossible. Xavier hoped that with each passing year the new Institute would grow and help shape the lives of numerous young mutants who where unable to learn in a traditional school environment. Currently he, Hank, Bobby, and Jubilee were able to handle instruction but as the school continues to grow he knew that more help would be needed. Also at last year's Thanksgiving Jean had announced her pregnancy and Rogue was deemed incapable of having a child. Now both women were mothers to happy, healthy children. Xavier also reflected on the sadness that occurred in the last 365 days. The day before Thanksgiving last year he had had dinner at the house of Congressman Jeffrey Williams to discuss the new mutant scanning technology. While the technology hadn't been on the radar screens of the media since that time, Williams was killed out of hate for what he did to help mutants only months after Thanksgiving. Xavier looked at the end of the table where the remaining members of the Williams family sat. Being good friends of both him and the LeBeaus, it only seemed natural to invite them. A year had made so much of a difference in many lives, both for good and for bad. Xavier's thoughts were interrupted by Nightcrawler leading everyone in grace and Xavier could only hope that in the upcoming year the good would outweigh the bad.
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While dinner was being cleaned up, the mothers of the youngest three children went to Nathaniel's nursery to put the babies down for a nap. The three babies were placed in Nathaniel's crib and they smiled as they looked at their children. Nathaniel, David, and Jessica: This was the future that the X-men fought so hard to preserve all these years. It was too early to tell whether all if any of them would have mutant powers. All of them had mutant genes in their family trees, but that was not a definite indicator of future mutant powers. One of the biggest anti-mutant leaders of all time, Graydon Creed, was the son of Sabertooth and Mystique, and he was a flatscan human. Still, not matter what the outcome, they knew that their children were destined to be friends and as their parents, they were destined to do what they could to make the world a safer place for them.
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Author's Notes- In case I haven't thanked you all for reading this story lately, thank you so much! It really means a lot to me that people are actually reading something that I thought of and put down on paper (or computer screen as the case maybe, I'll print it eventually when I am done). I hope you are enjoying it so far, but the ride is far from over, so sit back, relax, and have fun!
{1}- Gets confusing huh, in fact, I was confusing myself when I wrote this chapter, check out chapters 3, 8, and 11 for clarification.
{2}- I know, this is more of an X-men: The Animated Series reference since there was an episode where Jean and Gambit had a colorful argument while preparing Christmas dinner, but I still love the idea of them being the competing "Iron Chefs" of the X-men.
Ishandahalf- Look, you are right again, Rogue can touch the baby. I mean I couldn't be evil like that and make her unable to touch her own baby and as you picked up in my earlier hints, since she could carry this baby to term, of course she could touch it. I sprinkle hints all over the place, that's why I am so damn predictable:-P Glad you liked the reasoning behind the name choices, truth be told, the name was pre-chosen and I wanted to do something with the definition (I love meanings behind names) but everywhere I looked I got a different meaning so I HAD to incorporate that into the story. It also seemed to fit as a reason for Gambit calling her his "wildcard" another preordained name that just happened to fit.
Star-of-Chaos- Glad that you like the name. That's one of the holdovers from my childhood stories I created with my brother. Any stories we ever made-up, I ALWAYS named characters Jessica or Elizabeth because I loved those names growing up.
Tammy- See what happens when Rogue ate all those weird foods, she starts having crazy dreams, haha. Yeah, I can totally see Remy spoiling a little girl, I mean it just seems so natural :-)
Kitsu Lebeau- Awww, thanks, your compliments made me blush :-) Glad that I bring you into the world of the X-men. As for Jessica's eyes, I made mention of them, but I don't see it being too big of a deal in comparison to some other stories out there, at least in my opinion. But you are right, eyes always play an important part in these stories, what's that saying again, eyes are the window to the soul? :-)
T- Like I told Ishandahalf, I couldn't be evil and not let Rogue be able to touch her baby. :-)
RealityDreamer- We'll just have to wait and see what happens ;-)