Why, do you like playing around
with
My, narrow scope of reality
I, can feel it all start slipping
I think I'm breaking down
See but I don't get it
Don't you think maybe we could put it on credit
Don't you think it can take control when I don't let it
I get stupified
It's all the same you say
Live with it
~Stupify,
Disturbed
CHAPTER 7: REVISIONS & DIVISIONS, PT. 2
"Chere?" the voice penetrated the fog of her mind,
brought her rushing up out of the black hole of unconsciousness.
And there he was; his beautiful face just inches above hers, every detail just
as she remembered it. Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes, and she could
barely muster the strength to shake her head. "Mah
God. Am Ah dreamin'? Remy… is it really you?"
"Remy?" he asked, and his face clouded with confusion as he tasted the name on
his tongue and considered. "Is that my name?" He looked down at her again, as
if he were hungry for the knowledge she held, and her heart nearly broke.
Desperate, disparate, he was lost. He didn't know who he was. And if that were
true… then…
"Do you know who I am?" she asked, her voice trembling with hope that verged on
a need that opened like a sudden cavern in the depths of her soul.
His smile widened with a singular beauty that struck the chord of memory and
shattered her heart.
"I don't," he said. And then his tone caught a bit of brightness, a ray of
hope, as he seemed to recall something that made sense. "But I know you're
beautiful, chere, and there's nowhere else I'd rather
be than with a beautiful belle in my arms."
And Oh, God, she knew him, but he didn't know her.
He didn't know her.
And it was like the first time they'd met, when he'd pulled her from the pool
and looked directly into her eyes, knowing her, owning her.
"Mah God… Remy… don't you remember?" she whispered,
her hand tracing the outline of his handsome face.
"Is that who I am?" he asked desperately. "Is that my name?"
"It is," she nodded with a choked sob. "And Ah've
betrayed you. Mah God… Ah'm
so… sorry," she gasped, lurching in his arms.
She knew him. But he didn't know her. Didn't know how deep her sin went.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Remy… that was his name, so the gorgeous woman in his arms had assured.
And she felt she had betrayed him, though he had no idea how that was possible,
since he had no idea who she was, beyond a warm, compliant body in his arms. He
thought hard, tried to remember, but his past was a mosaic of shattered pieces
of memory, bright bits and shards strung together with no semblance of a larger
picture. He remembered other things; words and the meanings of most of them,
stray pieces of world history and literature. But of himself, there was only a
vague, maddening sense, as if the ghostly form of his past remained trapped
somewhere inside his mind, held just out of reach.
"Chere…" he begged, his voice a semblance of a
satiric, sarcastic tone he vaguely remembered. He shook her in his arms, as hard
as he dared.
"Please tell me who I am."
She shook her head, muscles feeling loose and lost within his embrace. "You're
Remy. Mah love. Mah lover…
Don't you remember?" she pleaded, tears rising to her eyes with bitter hope.
"I don't…" he said slowly, more cautious now. "I don't remember anyt'ing…"
Love? Lover? Oh, this was bad. He didn't know who he was, but he knew those
words made his skin want to crawl from his bones and slink away.
She dissolved into sobs, and Remy—so he had been christened by this woman, the
first of his new existence—cradled her in his arms, as if she alone held his
future in her hands.
And perhaps she did. He had no idea.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
He gathered her in the tangled sheets and laid her body gently on the bed. He
had a sense that she was unconscious again; her low sobs had trailed off into
silence and she lay completely still, and for all those things, he was
immensely grateful. The only problem was; he had no idea what to do now.
The door was still open, and he turned a wary, wondering eye toward it. He had
no idea where he was, who this woman was, who else might be lying in wait
beyond that beckoning doorway, and despite that he had been recognized and
welcomed with… well, without violence if not with happiness, he still found
himself cautious. As if some part of his mind suspected he might have enemies
out there somewhere. Very dangerous enemies.
His eyes narrowed as he wondered why that might be.
And then thought vanished into vapor as he caught the sound of an approaching
footstep. Caution, his mind prodded. Caution, yeah, yeah, yeah, he thought
with impatience, and reached for the first thing resembling a weapon he could
find—just in case.
Umbrella clutched tightly in one hand, he rounded the corner.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
On the other side of the complex, Bobby rubbed the sleep from his eyes and
staggered into the kitchen. Yawning, he reached for a bowl and a package of
oatmeal—apparently the stuff never went bad, which was good, considering food
production in the world was still struggling to regain its former glory of
convenience—and moved to the sink to prepare it. He set the bowl down on the
table and turned toward the fridge, wondering if they had any milk—and stopped.
His mind went blank for a moment as he stared at the hastily scribbled notes
posted all over the refrigerator's surface, not registering any of them as his
brain struggled to communicate something of great importance to him.
Something…
He turned slowly back toward the table, operating on instinct more than
anything, and let his eyes sweep over its surface. One bowl of oatmeal; check.
Stack of miscellaneous papers that no one was ever going to sort through;
check. And…
A tiny note card tented up from the center of the table, its smooth, creamy
surface benign and unthreatening. As if in a dream, he walked around the table
to get a better look. The world went slow, like he was swimming through
molasses as he read the words, once, twice, and then reached for it.
Dear X-Men, it read, in scrolling,
almost calligraphic script. You are
cordially invited…
His eyes snapped up from the paper, clicking back and forth in his head as he
tried to look everywhere at once, cold finger of dread trailing down his spine
as he became convinced he could not possibly be alone in the room. He had no
idea how someone had gotten inside the complex to leave this little invitation
without the X-Men realizing it, but they clearly had. And they might still be
inside.
Several long seconds passed, filled with only the sound of his rapid breathing,
and at last the moment of paranoia passed. He appeared to be alone, and maybe
this was all some sort of joke, anyway. Heart racing in his chest, he flipped
open the invitation and read the inside.
To the grand opening ball for the new
Hellfire Club.
He blinked, coughed out a surprised sound, and read the rest. There was a date,
and a time, and it was signed…
His blood froze in his veins and chilled him all the way to the marrow as he
read the signature line.
If it was a joke, it wasn't funny. Not at all.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
The person rounding the corner was babbling at him before he even had a chance
to register who it might be.
"Look, I don't know who you are, or even who I am or how I got here, but dere's a girl in dere and she's
awful upset." The person, a man, he saw now, waved an arm in the general
direction of Rogue's room. The arm slowly fell, and the man turned, looking
lost now.
Recognition turned over like a sputtering car engine in his mind, trying to
fire to life.
"You should, ah… prob'ly help her," the man finished,
eyeing him with uncertainty.
The engine caught.
"Remy?" Magnus asked, his steel-blue eyes going wide.
"Dat's what dey keep tellin' me," the man said. He tightened his nervous grip on
the ridiculous, frilly umbrella clutched in his left hand.
Magnus' heart sank to his stomach like a leaden weight, and his chest felt
crushed inward with its absence. Remy. No. It couldn't be. Not now.
"Imposter," Magnus snarled, his face contorting with sudden fury. With barely a
thought, he picked the man up and hurled him down the hall.
Remy smashed into the far wall so hard that he was actually stuck partially
inside it. The world swam sideways in a kaleidoscope of color for a moment, and
then he pulled himself free and slid to the floor. Wires spilled from the ragged
hole he left behind like snakes, sparking and lashing at the air, and alarms
began to blare all over the complex.
Remy took a deep breath and pushed himself up from the ground, wiping blood
from his mouth. His red-black eyes seemed to catch fire as they tightened on
Magnus' face, and narrowed dangerously.
"I don' know who you are, mon ami,
but all de sudden I'm gettin' de feelin'
I never liked you much."
* * * * * * * * * * * *
All over the complex, X-Men leapt from their beds in response to the alarm.
Clothes were thrown on hurriedly, thoughts of breakfast were forgotten, and a
shower was suddenly deserted, water left running.
In the kitchen, Bobby looked up at the ceiling as if to ask it why. Then he
crumpled the invitation in his fist and took off running.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
"How dare you come here and torment us like this?" the Master of Magnetism
raged, his eyes alight with fury and madness as he hovered above the floor.
Through the haze of his pain and sudden panic, Remy felt his left arm tingle
with warmth. He looked down and saw the umbrella still clutched in his hand,
its lime green tip smashed and bent at an awkward angle. In a split second, it
began to glow a brilliant pink color that crackled and disappeared up the
length of his arm.
He wasn't sure exactly what that meant, but based on what the white-haired man
had just done to him, he thought he might have an idea.
Holding the umbrella up like a spear, he launched it at the other man, putting
all the weight of his body and mental pleading behind it.
The white-haired man lifted his arm, and Remy's heart sank. The umbrella
stopped, a mere two feet from the man's head, and exploded in a flash of
bright-pink brilliance. Still, it bought him a few seconds. The man blinked,
momentarily blinded, and Remy took off down the hallway like all the demons of
hell were chasing him.
"Maybe dis be
hell," he muttered to himself as he slid around a corner.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Logan was aware of the other X-Men
approaching. He could smell their scents and hear their footsteps with his enhanced
senses, but even if he hadn't been able to do that, he would have known exactly
where they were. A monkey would have
known, with the amount of noise they were making.
He shook his head and grunted beneath his breath, disgusted as he stalked down
the hallway in complete silence. There was something odd about this, and the
ruckus they were making wasn't helping him figure it out. He tilted his head
back, lifted his nose to the air, and tried to single out the one scent that
was confusing him. Magnus and Rogue were nearby, the others in the distance.
But there was something, someone else… he almost recognized.
He paused in his step and tensed, muscles coiling, hands flexing. Whoever it
was, they were coming this way in an awful big flamin'
hurry.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Remy slid around the corner and came to a dead stop, his face bare centimeters
from a wicked looking set of metal claws. Their glittering tips were the
foreground of his entire world as he tried to catch his breath, and beyond
them, he saw the burly forearm they protruded from. He looked higher, and just
above a large, rounded shoulder, he met shocked, dark eyes that stared at him
with a series of expressions he was rapidly becoming familiar with.
Recognition. Amazement. Suspicion.
He wondered, for a fleeting moment, if he had any powers of disappearance up
his sleeve.
"Gambit?" the man asked in a voice like rough gravel.
Dat's a new one. How many names do I have?
He stared up at the dangerous, animalistic man and mustered a faint, charming
smile. "Dat who you want me to be?"
The man said nothing, only leaned forward toward him. Remy cringed, already
trying to figure out how he could duck the claws he thought would be cutting
into him soon, and then the man did the most peculiar thing he had seen so
far—which was saying a lot.
He leaned forward and sniffed, as if he were taking in Remy's scent.
The sound of footsteps thundered behind them from the adjoining hallway, and
Remy could hear the raging voice of the white-haired man who had attacked him
coming closer.
He looked up at the rugged face that was inspecting him and swallowed hard.
"Remy. Gambit. Bo Peep. I be whoever you want, mon ami, you get me out of dis mess."
* * * * * * * * * * * *
"Stop, Magnus," Logan said as the corridor exploded with
the bodies of X-Men, Magnus at the forefront.
Magnus went on as if he hadn't heard a word, hand held out and forward as he
closed his fist. Remy's body constricted into a tiny ball as he felt his very
blood turn against him. He panted for breath as he fell to the floor, his eyes
weak, vision fading as watched Magnus' hand tighten like an invisible noose.
"I said stop!" Logan thundered, leaping over Remy's
body toward the white-haired man.
Without a word, and, it seemed, without even a thought, he batted Logan aside.
The other X-Men gasped and surged as they realized the most dangerous of them
had turned homicidal. Had turned against his own teammates.
"Magnus!" Storm commanded. "You must stop this madness!"
Magnus pushed them all aside, kept them from him. Remy choked and coughed up
blood, feeling the world swim away like a slippery fish through his fingers.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Madelyne had no idea what the hell was going on. She
didn't particularly care about this person or the fact that Magnus was going to
kill him. But she knew she owed Magnus a debt or two from way back, and she'd
waited a long time for a chance to one-up him. And if it earned her brownie
points in the process, so much the better.
She stepped forward and lashed out with her telepathic power, severing his
thoughts and shutting him down so abruptly it was like the flick of a switch.
Magnus slumped to the floor in a heap, and Madelyne
grinned like a cat.
"Should have worn your helmet, old man."
Remy took a grateful, deep, gasping breath and promptly passed out.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Bobby Drake was of the general opinion that it never paid to get out of bed in
the morning. And this morning, in particular, was a stunning example of why.
Remy was alive—barely—with no idea of who any of them were, or who he was or
how he had gotten there, apparently. Magnus had nearly killed him before they'd
found any of this out. Rogue was in serious distress—freaking out would be a
more apt way to put it—as were her children, which was understandable,
considering. And the rest of the team was torn between joy, confusion, anger
and fear over all these things. It was shaping up to be one hell of a morning,
and the icing on the cake was the invitation crumpled in the bottom of his
pocket like a little, creamy ball of doom.
He wasn't about to add to the turmoil right now. This little scoop of disaster
might just be the ice-cream that broke the pie's back.
He snorted at the strange food analogies his brain kept spitting out, and
realized he never had eaten
breakfast.
Damn. How was he supposed to handle all this on an empty stomach?
Remy was asleep—well, unconscious might be a better word—and the few members of
the two teams who could fit in the small room hovered and babbled and argued
and—
Rogue was pushing up her sleeve, face set as she walked to the pale body
stretched out on the med-slab.
Yep. Disaster ala mode.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Everyone was upset, arguing, confused, and Rogue perhaps most of all. But in
the midst of all the noise, the heat and despair, she had a sudden shining
moment of clarity. She knew what to do. Of course. It was so simple. She
couldn't believe she hadn't thought of it before.
"All Ah have to do is touch is touch him, share our memories, and then
everything will--"
She actually reached out, fingertips on the verge of doing just what she'd
said, and it was Bobby—Bobby, of all people—who reached out and grabbed her
wrist.
"Are you insane?" he asked, as if he believed she actually might be. He turned,
looked at the rest of the X-Men, who were standing around with expressions of
surprise that would have been comical under other circumstances. "Get out," he
said to them.
"Robert," Storm huffed, sounding exasperated. "What--"
"Time to go," Logan explained, and taking her arm, he helped
escort her from the room. He motioned to the others to follow, and with
backward glances and disconcerted looks, everyone began to file out the doorway.
Blood rushed to Rogue's cheeks in a hot fire and she yanked her hand away.
"What're you talking about? Ah just want ta--"
"I know exactly what 'ya want ta',
and I'm telling you; no way, uh-uh, no way Jose, never gonna
happen."
Distracted from her goal now, she folded her arms over her chest and leveled
blazing eyes on him. "You gonna stop me?"
"I don't want to have to try," he said, honestly. "But Rogue, you can't do
this, no matter how much you want it."
"Why not?" she snapped, the thin thread of her patience finally breaking.
"You can't make him love you Rogue," Bobby said, voice and face solemn as a rueful
child.
"Ah'm not gonna make him love me! He already loves me! He just doesn't remember right now!"
"Which means, much as you don't want it to be true… he doesn't love you."
She lashed out quicker than thought, fist connecting with his cheek in a sharp,
thick crack.
He reeled backward, the world seeming to turn upside down for a moment, and
fell back against the bed, sliding down to the floor.
"Oh my God," Rogue gasped, covering her mouth with her hands. "Oh God, Bobby. Ah'm SO sorry."
"Don't be," he said. He rubbed his jaw and slowly rose to his feet, trying not
to wobble too terribly much. "I would have done the same thing."
She looked to Remy's face with eyes that trembled on the verge of tears, her
face a tapestry of emotions woven so tightly together he thought she might
break. "Ah just… he's so close! Mah God, Bobby, he's
HERE! After all the years of wishin' and hopin' and praying and DYING, he's finally here. And he
doesn't… he doesn't… remember." Her voice cracked on the last syllable, and her
face dissolved into sorrow.
"I know," he said, reaching out to touch her shoulder. "And that's gotta be more painful than just about anything in the
world. But you can't do this Rogue. You can't force this. Either he'll
remember, or he'll fall in love with you all over again, or not. It has to be
his decision. His heart that makes
the choice. Push those memories on him now and he'll collapse under them. He'll
never really know what's true and what isn't—what's real memory and what you
put in his head."
"But Ah… But he…" She staggered under confusion.
"Do you really want him to go away again? Because if you do this; he will."
"Ah… no," she said bowing her head low, lips tremulous as they uttered the word.
"God, Bobby, Ah just wish…" She stopped, looked up at the ceiling, trying
vainly to hold back her tears, and sniffled. "Ah just… Oh God, Ah wish…" Her
strength seemed to go with those final words, and her body sagged as if all the
life had left her, chest heaving.
"I know," he said and took her in his arms.
They stood that way together for a long time, the muffled sound of her sobs
against his shoulder the only thing breaking the stillness.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Magnus woke from a strange sea of faces and memory, and it took him a moment to
get his bearings.
A moment later, the pain hit, like a crashing wave that spiked from the very
center of his brain and reverberated in his teeth. Telepath headache—no
mistaking it, even though he had only suffered a few of them in his time. Madelyne must have taken him out. How much joy that must
have given her, he thought with a cynical smile. The smile made his eye-sockets
feel as if they were being pierced from within by a thousand white-hot needles,
and he stopped it instantly.
Remy. Remy was alive. And he realized now what he hadn't been able to process
then; Logan had known it, had tried to stop him from mistakenly
killing an innocent man. And he, in his madness, in his all consuming rage and
heartache, had been unable to listen.
Perhaps he hadn't wanted to listen.
He pondered that, pondered all its possibility and meaning, turning the idea
over in his mind like a gemstone that must be studied from all angles to truly
appreciate all its facets.
It was possible. Beyond his burgeoning relationship with Rogue, there was the
fact of the man's traitorous heart. Remy had come to his camp, come to his team
with all of his trust, and in return Remy had swept Rogue away, poisoned her
heart and then both had turned against him. Rage rushed through him again at
the memories. If not for Remy LeBeau, he would have—
He shook his head, blinked the odd memory away. Would have what? He suddenly
couldn't remember what he had been thinking.
Sorrow rushed to fill the void of his thoughts, and he remembered other things.
Rogue. Sabine. She was lost to him, as she had ever been.
He closed his eyes, clutched the sheets in his fists, and tried to drive away
the thought. He was not a man of great outward emotion; he kept his secrets
safe behind walls like a fortress. Those walls had eroded a bit with time, with
a new team, with the woman he cared for slowly fanning the flames of his
ancient heart… but they still held. He had loved before, and lost. Why should
this be any different?
But try as he might to shove it all away with trademarked stoicism, it was different. He couldn't explain it,
couldn't puzzle it out, and after years of denial, he had finally stopped
trying to justify it and let himself feel it. He hadn't felt so close to anyone
since Magda, had perhaps, felt closer to Rogue than
he had with his wife. He had let time lull him into a sense of safety he had
known better than to trust in, but had believed anyway. Because it seemed
right. Seemed worth it. And on the cusp of having everything he'd dreamed, it
had been snatched from him, as his family had been snatched from him, as his
own life had been by Nazi Germany.
He should have known better. He had known better. He knew better, even now. And
still, he couldn't stop. Some of these emotions belonged to Joseph, he knew,
but that didn't stop them from being real. He was Joseph, in mind as well as body, now, and beyond his feelings
for Rogue, there was that to consider. He must keep a clear head, must not let
his feelings interfere again.
And still… he couldn't help but wonder. If he had killed Remy, she would never
have forgiven him. But would he have been able to forgive himself?
He found that was a question he didn't want to consider too closely.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
When the door to his room opened a few hours later, it wasn't the face he had
hoped to see.
"Sorry to burst in, Mags," Bobby said, his silhouette
framed in the doorway. "I know it's been one hell of a day, but I'm afraid I've
got more bad news."
"Come in, Robert," he said in a world-weary voice. "What is it?"
Bobby shuffled up to the bed, and handed him the crumpled invitation without
another word.
Magnus' eyes went wide as he read. "Where did you get this?" he demanded.
"Our kitchen table," Bobby said with a humorless smile. "That's not the worst
though. Read the signature."
Magnus' eyes returned to the paper, and went dull with shock.
"This cannot be."
"That's what I said," Bobby agreed. "But all the same, I think we'd better
check it out."
"Have you told anyone else?" Magnus asked with sudden urgency. "Does Piotr know?"
"If he did, you can bet he'd be in New York right now." Bobby snorted and
shook his head. "No, I haven't said a word. I thought we should be sure,
first."
"You realize the fact that this message made it inside the complex at all,
without tripping any alarms, goes a long way toward confirming the identity of
the sender?"
"I know," Bobby sighed.
"Seven years. I had given it up as a lost cause, added another to the list of
the dead. And now… this. Damn…" Magnus muttered, clutching the paper tight in
his fist. "This is all we need. Remy's return already has both teams in such an
uproar…" He looked to Bobby with haunted eyes.
"This may well break them."
* * * * * * * * * * * *
In the city of New York, the new Black Queen stood before
the mirror and admired her attire.
The white marble, gold-trimmed walls made a grand backdrop for the deep, black
silk of her cloak, just as her pale skin contrasted starkly against the leather
bodice that pushed her small breasts up firm and high. Black leather pants
covered her lower body, leaving only a small portion of her stomach exposed,
and high-heeled black leather boots rose to just below her knee, completing the
picture.
Almost perfect she thought, and tilted the mirror closer toward her face.
She painted her lips a deep crimson, pressed them together, and inspected her work
closely.
Yes. Perfect. They were going to be so surprised.
Satisfied, Katherine Pryde stepped back from the
mirror and smiled at her reflection.
