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.
[[Text in these brackets denotes French. I don't speak it and I am not even going to pretend to, so if I want to use something that isn't something I've seen in the comics or I can't find in my pocket-sized language translator, than I'll just do this. Like for complex sentences.]]
Through the Years
Chapter Eighteen: Snapshots of Life
As the days spilled into each other and months passed, life with the LeBeaus and the other X-men went without anything out of the ordinary occurring. All the events of life were celebrated in a way only the X-men could. Christmas, like Thanksgiving was held at the Mansion. Now that there were young children in their lives, the holidays held special meaning to the X-men. No one could deny that seeing such young and happy faces gave them hope that someday the future they fought hard for would be treasured by these youngsters. David, Nathaniel, and Jessica being under a year old each were far too young to understand what was going on, but they still seemed to enjoy themselves. Being older, Carlie loved helping the babies open their presents and explain to them what it was that they got while they looked at her as if they understood. The topper for the night was suppose to be Bobby's appearance at the party as Santa, much for the benefit of the children as for Bobby who connected memories of his father dressed as Santa with the happy childhood he had before his mutant powers manifested and everything changed. With Santa-Iceman, the adults couldn't wait for some Christmas magic. They got more than they bargained for when Bobby went to put on the suit he rented and found it to be a few sizes too small. After finding that out, the idea was to be scrapped since the babies wouldn't know the difference anyway and Monica Williams said that she'd taken Carlie to see Santa at the local mall the other day anyway, although Bobby was incredibly disappointed. However, Santa did make an appearance laughing jollily and handing presents to the children, as well as little surprises for the adults as well. Always a child at heart, Bobby Drake's jaw practically hit the floor when the man in the red suit entered the room. When Santa handed a small present to him, the man gruffly said "Merry Christmas Popsicle," and after making his rounds to everyone in the room and having pictures with the children, Santa disappeared almost as quickly as he came.
Later Wolverine came back from the bar he was supposedly at and Carlie ran up to him and told him that he missed Santa. Then he picked her up and told her "No I didn't Darlin." Of course, when asked about his participation in the Santa Claus fiasco, the feral X-man gruffly denied any participation; however, he did express that he was glad St. Nick appeared since he knew how important it was to everyone that he showed up and since the suit was too small for Bobby……but he never came out and admitted it.
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New Year's was also spent at the Mansion. The "Diaper-Wearing Trio" as Bobby referred to the youngest children, spent it sleeping in Nathaniel's room while Carlie attempted to stay up with the adults, only to be found passed out on the couch somewhere around 10pm when her mother put her to bed in a cot set up in the nursery. Of course when the big count down, champagne in hand, those old enough to stay up until midnight rang in the New Year with hugs, kisses, handshakes, clanging glasses, and other ways of expressing happiness that another year had passed and they were all together still.
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For their second anniversary in January, Remy had plans to take Rogue out for a wonderfully romantic evening in NYC, including dinner at a fancy restaurant and a night spent in the finest hotel the city had to offer. However, their plans were scrapped when Jubilee, who offered to baby-sit, was struck with the flu, as were her charges in the dorms of the Xavier Institute of Education. In fact, the teens at Xavier's new school weren't the only ones hit with this flu epidemic, many of the Mansion residents were sick, and those that weren't sick were in charge of taking care of those who were. Jean, Scott, and Nathaniel were in Alaska visiting Scott's grandparents and the William's family was out of town for one of Monica's college lectures. As a result of there not being a sitter, the anniversary plans were scrapped and the day was spent quietly at home with the baby. Not that either of them minded that, their daughter meant the world to them.
After putting the baby to bed and cuddling up into bed with her husband Rogue turned to him and asked thoughtfully, "Remy, ya remember our anniversary last year?"
"'Course Chere," he smiled, "How could I forget?"
"Did ya think that our lives would be like this?"
"No, I didn't. Dis is much better," he said reassuringly as he snuggled up next to her. "I wouldn't trade dis life of stability, of love and family, our beautiful fille sleeping upstairs, none of that, for anything in the world. [[I couldn't image being this lucky ever. I love our life and I love you.]]"
"So ya don't miss the wild and carefree days of old," Rogue asked while giving him a teasing look.
"Not if we get to be wild an' carefree right now."
With that he leaned over to turn off the lights, pulled the blankets over a giggling Rogue, and they recaptured a portion of how their anniversary should have been spent.
Remy did have a chance to put the plans he made for the anniversary into action for Valentine's Day a month later where Monica offered to take baby Jessica for the night.
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In March, the LeBeaus, as well as the rest of the X-men were invited to David's first birthday party. The first of the "Diaper-Wearing Trio" to walk, one-year old David toddled around the room (falling on his diapered rear-end more often than not if he wasn't holding onto the edge of something) while 8 month old Nathaniel watched in amazement and made unsuccessful attempts to pull himself into a standing position. The little red-head's parents watch his attempts with a video camera in hand hoping to catch the moment their son would take his first steps. They seemed unconvinced by Beast who tried telling them that it was fairly unlikely that he would walk just yet, that he would probably be unable to do so until he was closer to twelve months old. Five month old Jessica was more than content to sit in Carlie's lap and be the captive audience for the seven-year-old's stories about her friends from school and other details that were deemed note worthy for the little girl.
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After David's party Gambit and Jessica shared some father-daughter bonding time upstairs in her room.
"Come on fille, say 'poppa', you can do it," Gambit said while lying on the floor of the nursery next to his little girl. [[Now I know you can do it, just say something go on, my little Wildcard, I won't tell anyone.]]
Rogue walked in on the scene and smiled as she said, "Remy, ya know that the baby is too young to start talking! Ya starting to act like Scott was with Nathaniel today! 'Sides, if she was going to say anything, it would be 'momma', isn't that right Shugah," she added as she picked up the little girl.
He shuddered in mock disgust as he said, "Don' compare me to t'fearless leader again! Anyway, who says she's too young," Gambit said getting up from the floor as Rogue motioned to the baby care books that were on the shelves, gifts from the baby shower not so long ago. "Bah, experts what do dey know? Perhaps our lil' girl is a super genius who can talk at 5 months, who knows."
"Right Remy, if ya say so," Rogue said nonchalantly as she started to change the baby's diaper.
"Well, dis does bring me to a burning question dat I've had for a while now," Gambit said as he handed Rogue a baby wipe.
"What's that Shugah?"
"Well, t'French language is an important part of my Creole culture and you know I always sing and speak to t'baby in it. So do you t'ink we could teach it to her?"
"[[I think that when Jessica is old enough then it would be an excellent idea to teach her another language. Lord knows that between us and the other X-men, she'll be speaking 40 languages by the time she's ten!]] But, Ah think we have to work on getting her to crawl 'fore she'll talk. When she's ready she can do anything."
Sometimes he forgot that Rogue spoke French as fluently as he did, whether she knew it from childhood like he did or she acquired it from a psyche she absorbed at some point before they met, neither of them knew.{1}
Freshly diapered and in her PJs, Jessica LeBeau was ready for her bedtime routine. Gambit sat in the rocking chair with Rogue in his lap while she held the baby and began to read a storybook with colorful, vivid pictures. They did this every night, where one or both of them would sit in the chair and read a bedtime story to the baby. When the story was done they each kissed her on top of her head, which had started to grow some brown hair, similar in shade to Gambit's hair, but with the beginnings of a white streak that resembled Rogue's.
Author's Note- Wow, I was so floored to hear that you all were glad that there is more story, I was afraid I might be boring and dragging it out or something (not that it would make a difference, because I already know what happens and I don't want to change the chapters I already finished and haven't posted yet). Also, I was afraid I would offend people with the whole Wolverine vs Cyclops thing with the baby, but I didn't seem to. I hate to say it, but Cyke is my least favorite X-man and I am trying not to do anything unusually cruel to him since I know there must be some Cyclops fans reading this and that isn't fair to them.
{1}- The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe X-men 2004 confirms that Rogue speaks French, I thought so from reading other fanfictions, but I wasn't sure, but now that I know it is cannon, I'll perhaps use it a little more.
PS: This goes especially for the fans of Gambit and Rogue (particularly as a couple) but Marvel might be doing some things that we might not be too happy about. There is a link in my profile with more info than I could give you. Check it out, thanks.
Ishandahalf- Hey, I'm glad my story makes you smile since your comments always make me smile! :-) Remy's super dad, huh, well, I'm certain that he tries to be anyway:-P Babies must be like animals, they have good taste in people, haha (in reference to your comment about her choice of Wolverine over Cyke) On an unrelated note, I read that you graduated from high school recently, congratulations! My brother also graduated this year, as did my boyfriend's cousin so I got to see all the graduation excitement first hand. Enjoy it, and good luck with everything! :-)
Star-of-Chaos- Maybe in a different story it would work to have Rogue's powers not allow her to touch her child, but not in this one, as you said it would be too cruel. And I am sure that Gambit likes Cyke at times, like during poker games when he can take is money, haha :-)
Tammy- Haha, yeah I use to read those and I even had a "Sweet Valley High" board game before I was old enough to read the books, but I was a bigger "Baby-sitters Club" fan. I know I liked the name Jessica because when I was younger "Murder, She Wrote" was one of my all time fav shows (what 5 year old not only watched but loved that show, I know I was weird) and the main character played by Angela Lansbury was named Jessica Fletcher. But you are right, I wish there was more comic interaction between Rogue and Nightcrawler too. It would be a nice change of pace to see some every day moment like that, you know, like what they do when they are not off saving the world :-)
T- They'll try to be one big happy family, but other events in life do get in the way sometimes. But knowing the X-men, they'll make it work:-)
Bibliothecaire- I am so happy to hear that you glad to see another update. I was afraid people would be like "Oh man, this is still not done yet, it already more than ten chapters and that's long!" But I can't help it, I have a lot of plots that will ultimately connect & intertwine and I don't want to neglect any of them because then the story won't make sense! Thanks for reading this and I hope you keep enjoying this story! :-)
Kitsu Lebeau- Hmm, I'll have to see if my local library has the Animated series on tape or DVD. With my town I somehow doubt it though. We never have any cool stuff. Anyway, Logan or Bishop for Storm, eh, well what about Forge too? Personally, I've always leaned toward Storm and Wolverine, even though I would secretly hope that Jean would dump Cyke and go to Wolverine. I couldn't make up my mind for the right person for our feral friend. I guess it really does just depend on the story. Hope you keep enjoying this! :-)
Karen- Oddly enough the day before I got your comment I read about this occurrence in ishandahalf's profile page. When I read that Marvel wanted to pull something like that I was not a happy camper to say the least (ask my boyfriend I complained to him about it, I think he thinks I lost it:-P) I put the link you sent in my profile too so that other people can hear about it. I wrote an email to both addresses and will be sending a letter too. I plan to write a few more snail mail letters once I get the chance, but I want to get at least one out there first. Thanks for bringing this to everyone's attention. Let's hope it all works out :-)