Part Two.
Thanks to turtle dove, Keebler-Elmo, Rat, Girlonthem00, Tedabug, tania, Tannimz and Laura...as for Remy's powers; definitely pre souped-up powers now in attendance.
P.S. Just correcting some of the bloopers, thanks Rat, ;) That will teach me for posting at two in the morning with a few glasses of wine in me, LOL!
Chapter.16.
The Xavier Institute, Westchester...
Closing her eyes, Jean let her head lull back against padded high back of the seat. The row of monitors before her flickered lazily, throwing out a blue light over the dark of the sizable observation room, cutting hard cold lines through-out. The screens showed scenes from all over the mansion from the dorms to the grounds, part of Xavier's improved security since the riot and the siege of the U-Men some months prior. Random beeps and the soft buzz of electrical equipment filled the room, only occasionally joined by the high creak of the chair as Jean leant back in a tired stretch or a half yawn as she tried to stay alert; groaning with subtle satisfaction as she felt her joints ease out. The current scarcity of staff meant they all had to chip in at the moment, with even the most mundane of tasks. But they all agreed, they didn't want to take any chances. The monochrome of the screens flickered on, with their static locations and the still dorms of the sleeping children. All seemed well with the world...
Jean wasn't sure whether it was the warning beep on the panel in front of her or her own highly aware psychic fields that alerted her to the jets presence first. But she soon realised that the high-pitched noise that suddenly erupted in the quiet room wasn't a warning call, but the security systems recognition of one of their own; the X-jet that had been 'AWOL' for the past week and a half. Quickly hitting the button to halt the alarm, the red-head's ruby lips curved into a knowing smile as she pushed her chair over to the screen that over looked the basketball court.
"Finally," she half-breathed to herself with relief as she watched the jets somewhat hasty decent; the automatically triggered court-come-hanger doors only just opening in time as the jet headed in; lowering down on strong plumes with a Harrier's uneasy grace. Jean pushed off the long desk that held all the monitoring equipment and rushed from the room, heading toward the catacombs of the mansion.
"Jeeze!" Jean exclaimed as she unthinkingly punched in her identification code to gain access into the hanger proper. "You guy's sure know how to keep people waiting," the smile was still on her face as she rounded the corner; the sound of a depressurised hiss from the opening top of the jet filling the vast hanger for a moment. The red-head came to a stop just at the side of the jet, her head turned up to watch the pair emerge. She folded her arms over her chest in pretence of haughtiness as she said, "I swear Ororo, if I'd have had to have taken one more Arabic class---."
The jovial look and smart comment quickly faded from her features as Ororo awkwardly began to make her way down the steps that extended down the side of the small slick jet. It only took the briefest of looks from her close friend for her to tell she wasn't anywhere near in the best of shapes.
"Oh my God, Ororo," she automatically reached up to help Storm down the last couple of rungs on the ladder, but with typical stoic insistence she softly batted the helping hand away.
"I am alright Jean," she insisted, though the frailty in her voice said different.
"Like hell you are!"
Jean looked up, almost in surprise as another body emerged after the goddess, forgetting for a moment that Remy was with her; watching as he hoped down from the jet on the other side without the aid of anything. He came rushing around, swinging around the thick leg of the extended front wheel, quickly supporting Ororo whether she wanted him to or not. She did not protest this time.
"What happened?" Jean asked quickly, touching experimentally at the makeshift bandage that was tied about the top of her arm. It was wet beneath her fingers and as she pulled them away she wrinkled her nose at the dark stain that ran over the pale tips.
"I've been stabbed," Ororo said grimly, low with anger in remembrance.
As shocked as she was Jean didn't have chance to say anything in response, as all at once Remy began to move them towards the exit and barked at her with uncharacteristic sharpness, "Git Hank in de medi-lab, now."
"Ur, right," a befuddled Jean responded, "sure... I'll call Annie too." As she followed the pair out of the hanger she began to forge her contact with her medically astute comrade.
The Medi-lab...
Hank sauntered into the lab, rubbing his left eye with fatigue but half in a shielding motion against the harsh sterile light; bright white refraction blasting in stereo from the relative dullness of the corridor. He eventually replaced his clear framed spectacles to see Ororo sat on one of the hard plinth like tables, with Jean just in front of her carefully unwrapping a mangy looking black rag from around her arm. Remy was pacing slowly at the back of the room by the row of floor to ceiling medicine cabinets, still in his Guild garb but sans the trench-coat; his bare arms folded tensely across the smooth sheen of the magenta breast plate. But Hank didn't spare him much of a glance as he strode purposefully over to Storm, taking over from Jean in the unveiling of the wound. The whole room had a drably quiet atmosphere.
"Need I ask?" Hank said drolly as he continued the unwinding. Ororo said nothing, simply staring intently as the gash was finally revealed. He was becoming grimly blasé about having to treat his closest friends for wounds, resigned to it.
"Mystique," Remy ground out as he came forth from the relative shade of the far side, letting Hank see for the first time his own incurred injuries that dotted obliquely, mainly about his face.
"Mystique?!" Jean parroted reflexively as she and Hank gave him a look of simultaneous confusion and astonishment. "What the hell did it have to do with her?" It was the first they'd heard of her since her break-out from the secure S.H.I.E.L.D facility months ago. Realistically, it was only a matter of time before she surfaced again with her hazardous skulduggery, to obvious detriment.
"We do not know," Ororo replied, giving Remy a quick look as he came up at her side.
"Whatevah it is," Remy said, "It ain't good."
"Not that it really matters that much anymore," Ororo added quickly.
"What do you mean?" Hank said distractedly as he prodded carefully at her wound to ascertain its severity, provoking a quick pained wince from the weather witch.
"Don' start dis again," Remy muttered towards Ororo.
"Remy, we both saw---," she started to protest.
Remy shook his head rigorously, a cynical grin on his lips, "If I'd seen de body then yeah, maybe I'd believe it."
"There is no way anybody would have survived that," she shot back assuredly.
"Any uddah person an' Remy would'a agreed wit you...but her---."
Hank coughed loudly and deliberately, distracting them from their increasingly heated to and fro, "Would one of you mind telling us what's going on here?" Hank asked with Xavier's style of calm yet forceful authority. Remy and Ororo exchanged long dark looks, making Jean and the good doctor feel all the more as if they were on the outside looking in on something that they did not understand. The tension became increasingly thick in the preternatural hush of the sterile room, only the background hum of the medical machines that remained on constant stand-by reverberating with their own soft song. The spell was quickly broken however with the hissing noise of the medi-lab door sliding open and several figures emerging through. The school nurse Annie led the group, quickly followed by Scott and Warren, and Professor Xavier himself bringing up the rear. All of them hollow eyed with abruptly interrupted slumber, dressing gowns tossed quickly on, ruffled hair, adamantly trying to look alert.
"Anything I can do?" Annie broke the silence uncertainly, at times like these feeling herself the outsider all the more than she usually did. The others milled into the room, settling in various places; Scott going over to Jean whereon they started a quiet conversation betwixt themselves that seemed more a question and answer session with the red heads quick nods and shakes to curtly put questions.
"You can see to Remy if you wouldn't mind, my dear," Hank answered her as he motioned over to the Cajun who had slunk quietly back into the shadow of the medicine cabinets, leaning back against the wall in the small space allowed between two of the huge storage units.
"Dere ain't nuhddin wrong wit me," Remy countered quickly as Annie made her way over to him.
"Oh really," Annie replied sceptically as she went to the cabinet and automatically whipped out a pair of latex gloves from the box that always sat on the sideboard, "well your face says different, Buster." The gloves smacked loudly as she pulled them on and let them snap back.
Remy grinned satirically but did as she bade as the qualified nurse pointed playfully but sternly at the other examination table. He petulantly pushed himself off the wall and hopped up onto it promptly, submitting to her curious fingers as they explored the bad bruising on his face, the dark and nasty ghost of blood stains still clinging to the deeply tanned skin.
"Shall I get hooked up?" Warren asked as he followed Hank's progress from the nearest supply cabinet with the suturing kit and fresh bandages. "I presume that's why I'm here," he said through half-stifled yawn, covering his gaping mouth with his hand, his tremendous wings wafting slightly beneath his slightly accommodating dressing gown with reflexive motion as he did so.
"Yes, of course," Hank bumbled, forgetting in his own tired state that stitches would not be needed in the light of Warren's latest mutation. Throwing the kit gently back onto the sideboard he went over to where the drips and IV lines were stacked in the corner of the room instead.
But Warren was stopped half-way through shrugging his plush navy dressing- gown, readying himself for being hooked up to the equipment, when Remy piped up, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, what's dis?" He flung a causal finger in Archangel's direction.
"A blood transfusion," Hank explained, "It'll have the two of you fixed up in---."
Remy shook his head vigorously, a somewhat nervous smile on his face as he pushed Annie's hands away from checking his nose for a fracture, "Non. I don' t'ink so mon ami."
"Oh Remy, do not be so ridiculous," Ororo laughed gently, herself more than willing to undergo the transfusion to rid herself of her smarting laceration.
"It's perfectly safe my friend," Hank concurred as he daubed a pad of cotton wool with a clear liquid and wiped it over Ororo's gash just to clean it and minimise the chance of any infection already setting in. "Why, it did save the lives of several of our students some weeks ago."
Warren carried on taking off his dressing-gown, giving his penned-in wings the chance to breath; a flurry of lose snow white feathers falling to the ground as he did so with beautiful delicacy. "Come on, it's not like I'm gonna give you anything Remy." He threw his gown over the back of a near-by stool, mumbling lightly under his breath, "Though I couldn't say the same if it was the other way around."
"Warren!" Jean chastised but couldn't halt her laugh in time despite pressing her fingers to her lips.
"Ha, ha, v'ry funny homme," Remy dead-panned back, "Will you quit it?!" he snapped, pulling his arms away and turning his attention markedly back to Annie as she now tried to examine the light burns about his wrists. They weren't too serious, the trained nurse could gage that from the most superficial of glances, but the skin had become somewhat red and wrinkled, as if they'd been briefly scolded by boiling water.
But the dark haired, pale skinned woman was given no choice other than to throw her hands up in surrender, "You try and help people 'round here and all you get is attitude," she said, exasperated.
"Don't worry Annie, you'll get used to it," Hank appeased in his own satirical manner, having experienced on more than one occasion Remy's baffling reluctance to except medical assistance of any kind. He cast a weary look at Gambit before going over to Warren who'd in the meantime set himself up in the usual seat, waiting for the IV line to be administered. He was getting quite used to being the resident blood-bank at the mansion, the services of his miraculously healing blood having been called for on more than one occasion so far. Plenty more would un-doubtfully come his way in the future.
As things settled and unnecessary protests died, Scott moved away from Jean, taking a place between the two X-Men on examination tables. With his unconscious dominant stance; legs slightly parted, muscular arms sternly folded, he started, "Okay, enough with the small talk---you two feel like explaining yourselves?"
Remy looked up and huffed a small laugh, "Explainin' oursel'es?" he repeated incredulously, unconsciously pulling his shoulders back a little, "We ain't kids homme---we don' need no permission slip fo' 'field trips'."
"No," Xavier spoke for the first time, having waited patiently for long enough, "but you've clearly run into trouble. Would you care to shed any light?" He looked with those habitually calm, passive eyes from one to the other, awaiting an answer.
It was Ororo who spoke first, Remy remained sullen, defiant; the stiffness of his posture unconsciously mirroring Scott's, tense arms folded. "Could we please leave the post-mortem until the morning Charles?" she asked wearily, not at all in the mood for yet another 'set-two' between Remy and their mentor; or her and their mentor for that matter, if it came to it.
"I'm sorry Ororo," Scott came in, addressing her directly in a more cordial manner, with a natural respect of a fellow X-leader, "but this can't wait—they've told us as much as they know about what was happening, about the Carcoccia, and I've gotta say, it isn't encouraging."
"Isn't dat encouraging?" Remy mocked as he unfolded his arms, resting his weight evenly by spreading his palms flat on the table at either side of him, "Now you really are takin' dis teachin' gig way too seriously, homme," he snipped somewhat facetiously, "You an' Red evah t'ink 'bout takin' a holiday?"
"We can put your mind to rest about that right away," Ororo said quickly before Scott and Remy really had the chance to start bating each other in true style, "as there is no longer anything left to worry about."
"In what way?" Charles asked, intrigued as he made his way over to an available seat to rest his weak and weary legs, easing down gently.
"It was destroyed...whatever it was...before the Guild had chance to use it- --."
"I saw it, but I still don' believe it chère," Remy cut in soberly as he looked over at Ororo once more, his gaze grave.
"Look," Scott said sharply enough to jolt everyone's attention back to him, "I understand that things happen that don't have anything to do with the X- Men. The messes you get yourselves into have nothing to do with us or the Institute. But sometimes, it spills over, an' then we're left to deal with it." Any sense of camaraderie or protection that he felt towards team-mates was temporarily overridden by his ire.
"I promise you Scott," Ororo said before wincing slightly as Hank inserted the drip into the silvery blue vein he'd just tapped out in the crook of her arm at the elbow, "there is nothing left to deal with---the box was destroyed...and so was Mystique."
"What the hell did Mystique have to do with all this?!"
"We have no idea," Ororo explained, "but both her and the box ended up in the swamp—and that is the last we saw of them."
Scott's jaw dropped a little, enough for it to be almost comical, "Mystique's dead?"
"We think so," Storm replied somewhat breathily as Warren's blood began to course through her veins, replacing her own. Her head felt light, as if she were in danger of passing into unconsciousness imminently, but she knew full well that she wouldn't. Hank had still to fathom, like many things that had evolved with his X-colleagues of late, including himself, how Warren's blood would successfully cross match with any blood-type in order to produce its healing effect.
"You think so?" Scott asked doubtfully as he turned to address Ororo specifically. Confidence was not greatly inspired by the tone of her voice. Think? Scott Summers was one for certainty, and certainty alone.
"Yes," she responded sternly, fixing Cyclops with hard glassy eyes, temporarily forgetting her fatigue; Warren's blood beginning to have the desired effect already it seemed. But then her indignation at Scott's doubt was swiftly replaced wit a concern that had only just, at that moment, occurred to her, "Somebody should really tell Kurt." Poor Kurt. Whatever her faults, Raven was his mother, if only in biological terms...the woman was his still his mother...He deserved to know.
"De car crashed—an' dere was an explosion. We saw her go into de swamp but dat's it—dere wasn't no body."
Scott shook his head, quickly trying to take on board all these facts along with the added insanity of the idea that one of the X-Men's greatest, trickiest and oldest foes might actually be dead. Magneto AND Mystique within months of each other? Could it be possible? "So, you're tellin' me that you trekked half-way across the Amazon, to find some...mystical 'who—harr', or whatever, and when you finally got it back to New Orleans, Mystique turned up to steal it?"
"Oui, you got a problem wit dat mon ami?"
Scott turned pointedly towards the Cajun, not completely admiring his tone, "As it happens I do. When members of my team decide that giving a powerful object to a corrupt organisation is a good idea then yeah, I really do have a problem with that."
"We never planned to let them have it—."
"Like I already said, we don' need t' explain ourselves t' you homme," Remy barged in defiantly, cutting through Storm's attempt at diplomacy.
"I beg to differ, LeBeau."
"Really?"
The two X-Men squared off to each other, Scott coming up closer to the taller man, causing Annie to back off slightly as her lover's brother approached, fearing she might be about to witness one of the infamous 'inter-clan' fights that were apt to flare up every once in a while.
"Yeah really," Scott shot back finally; Remy's irreverence and flippant attitude getting to him more and more by the second; really sticking in his craw. Perhaps a few home truths were called for about now, after years of holding his tongue for the simple sake of group harmony, despite the fact that he'd never made a secret of his distain for the Cajun. "Listen, we've put our trust in you time and time again. I've—we've---given you the benefit of the doubt, but I can't see where the favour has ever been returned."
"Scott, this isn't the time or place—."
"No Charles, somebody has to say this," Scott was adamant in the face of his mentors protest; a rare occasion whereon he raised his voice at the man who took him in, "I don't wanna pull rank here but it's about time someone pointed out to him that we're not here to support his errant sojourns whenever the fancy takes him, putting the lives of other X-Men," he pointed sharply at Ororo in indication as Hank began to unhook the IV line from her arm, as much blood as he felt safe having been transferred, "at risk."
"I make my own decisions Scott," Ororo rebuked. She pressed the cotton wool pad to the area where the drip had gone in, bending her forearm up as she administered the pressure and simultaneously hopped down from the chair. She spared a quick glance at her former lesion; only the faint impression of a slit there to mark the skin and that was swiftly fading with all the miraculous speculation of Wolverine's healing factor, now an aspect of Warren too. Within seconds there was no longer the hint of the inflicted wound, just smooth cocoa skin as it was before. "Can we please leave this—."
"Non, non 'Roro," Remy waved her off, "Let him 'ave 'is say. 'Cause I mean, let's face it, Scottie boy 'ere an' jus' about everyone else 'as got me pegged, righ'?" he cast a look at everyone in turn; guilty looks and confrontational stares abound, and downright confusion from Annie.
"Remy," Scott said most pointedly, "we have been here for you through thick and thin. All the faith, the friendship, the trust...and what do we get in return?" A mousey eyebrow raised sharply above the smooth curvature of his titanium crafted visor. "Very little, it seems," he answered to his own admittedly rhetorical question.
"You know me Scottie," he said, practically sneering, "Nuhddin mor' dan a liar an' a t'ief---what mor' did you expect?"
Scott was more than prepared to play the Cajun's game, to call his bluff, not ever having been one to back down from anything. "Exactly---what else should we have expected from a thief with the moral clarity of a sewer?"...and by the time he'd said the words and realised their significance, it was too late... "Remy, I didn't mean---."
"Save it, mon ami," Remy warned; the tension in the room now palpable. It was a struggle for him to keep calm and one that he was rapidly loosing; an innocent comment, blown out of all proportion he knew...but he couldn't help it. Inside he felt as if he were about to explode...
"Um...sorry to interrupt," Annie said nervously, "but is that normal?"
"Oh my stars and garters!" Hank exclaimed somewhat habitually, for his attention was drawn to the bed on which Remy perched, indicated to its direction by the school nurse's surprised question. It was only then that they all noticed the bright magenta glow that was engulfing the edge of the sick-bay bed, all of which was emanating from Remy LeBeau's hands. Slowly it started to spread, flowing over the thin metal structure like the bona fide shimmering glow of lava.
"Remy!"
"Merde!" he exclaimed as he finally looked down, realising that his powers had activated without him expressly knowing. He quickly removed his hands from the bed; instantly the kinetic fire receded back from whence it came, leaving a gaggle of dumb-founded X-Men to stare after him.
"What the hell?" "I thought..." "Since when did...?"
A barrage of garbled questioned rained down on him, all of which he was presently powerless to answer, and to an extent unwilling. It was only the thankful intervention of Professor Xavier that saved him from the unruly fusillade of inquiries.
"Alright everybody! Alright! Calm down!" His cool eyes ran over the gathering as the animated voices petered out, one by one, "I think we really should wait until morning before we have this discussion," his light eyes ran over every X-Man; all quiet and compliant, "I'm sure they will inform us in due time as to everything that has happened. But right now...it is not either the time or the place. Nobody is in a fit state at this moment."
"I agree," Ororo said as she manoeuvred over to Remy, placing a comforting hand on him as he hopped down from the bed, appearing strangely reluctant to look anyone in the eye.
Xavier ran his forefinger and thumb over his eyes, his weariness telling; mental as well as physical. They didn't, and would never know how much he had worried about them when they were away... "Everyone, go to bed," he instructed them, "We will meet in the morning."
Nobody said anything else for the longest while until Scott, firmly back in leader mode clarified things. "Okay," he began as he tiredly ruffled his shortly cropped hair, "we'll meet in the War Room tomorrow, nine A.M. sharp."
"Fine," Ororo confirmed as she practically escorted Remy to the door, waiting for it to zip open before disappearing through. Nobody said a word; there was nothing for them to really say at this hour; shocks withstanding. With tempers frayed, and patience sorely tested they slowly traipsed and dispersed back to their quarters. Whatever was to happen in the morning could be left until then.
The Attic Sanctuary of Ororo Munroe...
In the early pale light Ororo could still not find rest. Despite her physical tiredness born of all the chaos and commotion of the past twelve hours, she could not, for the life of her, find true rest. She tossed and she turned, the crystalline light was full and hardy. She punched the pillow to flatten its small lumps, ones she'd never noticed before, then, within seconds, she lifted it and she fluffed it to its former bulk. She tried to get comfy in a warm niche, she tired to refresh herself in the vast space of bright cool sheets but nothing, absolutely nothing, would do. The mind was agitated too much with various qualms...sleep would simply not come. The thoughts of him, in every way...she grabbed the pillow roughly and tossed it over once more, slamming back down with a demur bounce, the cool linen resting against her smooth cheek...it wasn't enough. It would never be enough to erase the memory of their union, just hours earlier. Where did that leave them?....she knew not. There was a certain amount of desperation simply not to think about it but it was clearly fruitless. The thoughts popped into her head at their own leisure, the memories were persistent in their valour, now that all was calm and returned to a semblance of normality. Pleasant as they were, the tormented Windrider currently wished they would disperse, for mercies sake. She tossed and turned again....
Her pale chemise clung to her body irritatingly; the elaborate lace that graced the curving dip at her bosom seemed to scratch the skin. Absently she pulled at it, almost to ripping point, murmuring softly to herself in her altered state. That awful state that does not grant sleep but neither does it permit full consciousness. Her brows knitted above loosely closed lids, as if perturbed by some faceless nightmare, the dark spectre that ran through dreams. But this was no dream...
Knock knock knock
Blue eyes opened sharply and widely. The three raps were loud enough yet gentle as not to amplify down the stairs and through-out the hall where a majority of the Institute staff slept. For her ears and for her ears only, yet odd that he'd bothered with the courtesy. After all the man was not above steeling in through her sky-light or picking her lock when she was not there, when the fancy took him. Many a time had she been away only to come back and realise that someone---a certain someone---had been using her room in her absence. She remained where she was for a moment, uncertain as to whether she had heard the knocks or not; simultaneously hoping yes and no. Perhaps her exhausted mind was playing tricks on her? She lay as if on a tomb, yet wished to hear the noise again. It was an eerily unfamiliar feeling, this pain of new love...
"'Roro?"
The warmth of his husky voice was pleasantly muffled against the door that blocked off the stairwell and all the madness below.
"Come in Remy," she called as she sat up in her Queen sized bed; the butterflies were frantic, she'd never felt so nervous...But as was to be expected, it was all hidden beneath an exterior of arctic proportions. The door to the relatively secluded attic crept open and closed as quickly, with a minimum of fuss. There was a fair amount of light in the room, peaking cheekily through her haphazardly drawn drapes, but she still strained to see him as he moved into the vast space; just a tall lithe shadow slipping seamlessly towards her. Lost behind a tall plant or a roof support and then back again, just like the thief in the night that he was, not a footstep to be heard. Ororo unconsciously gripped at the cool sheet, pulling it slowly up her lap as he at last came into her full view; the only outward sign as the raw glow that his eyes often held appeared more pronounced than usual. The devil's fire burnt bright that early morn.
Gambit came to a stop at the end of her bed, in the shaft that cut down diagonally from the skylight. Leaning casually forwards on the bedstead, both arms outstretched to support him, he stood before her with nothing on but a pair of school branded navy sweatpants hanging low and slack about his hips. Ororo could not fail to make out the vicious red lines of the wounds that still marked his bare chest, and the light bruising to the left side of his nose from the back-hander that Thierry had given him.
"You should have let Hank give you the transfusion," she said softly, looking at the wounds---in fact, looking at anything as long as it wasn't his eyes, those eyes that shone out and damned attention.
He gazed at her steadily, but said nothing for the moment. She would never have guessed that beneath that disarmingly cool exterior he felt just as awkward, just as nervous...but happily so. Her façade didn't fool him for a minute, but then again...doubt had room to sliver in; the conceited snake. This was the type of nervousness he could quite gladly live with, not the usual trepidation. But the question was now, back in the familiarity of their home, what happened next? He wanted to say something, but found himself scared to. Yes, the fearless Diable, scared that he'd hear the words he didn't want to, that she'd say now they were back in reality what had happened between them in New Orleans was a mistake. Her responsibilities, her commitments...He wasn't sure he could take it if she did...Slowly he started around the bed, sauntering up to the side that she was currently nestled in with apparent ease.
"Dey'll be gone in a couple o' days ma chère, I'll be fine," he said in reference to his cuts and bruises. "Remy's had worse---a lot worse," he gestured casually down, "dan dis." He sat down, close to her feet as she hitched her knees up a little as if to make room for him to come nearer. "Yaw arm all good?" he asked as he made to reach out and touch it but then hesitated; the simplest things seemed so loaded now, but then he felt himself stupid and let his hand continue on its journey, softly tracing a finger over the now smooth skin where the nasty gash had formerly marred it. There was no tremble, no backing away, no hint of awkwardness on receiving his touch. He let his hand rest there; his palm feeling warm against the coolness of her skin...
She stared down at the red marks about his wrists, tracing a finger as lightly as possible over the burns, wishing she could simply wipe them away. "That was quite some way to announce the return of your powers to the rest of the team." She looked up then, meeting the demon orbs for the first time, far more contently.
"Oui," he chuckled softly, "Guess I'm gonna 'ave a few control issues I'll have t' work t'rough on dat front, hien?"
"I guess so."
Mutual silence stretched, only to be broken..."You know dat's why I didn' tell you straight away," he told her as he pushed himself further onto the bed, lifting his feet of the floor and crossing his legs into a lotus position as the springs creaked lazily below. He drew his hand back from her arm, letting it rest on the peak of her knees whereon he squeezed one gently as if to assure her, "I would o' told you sooner...I jus'...I couldn' be sure...I didn' want t' 'ave t' use dem, if I couldn' control dem..."
"I understand," she reassured him with one of her rare jewels of a smile as she placed her hand comfortingly over his.
Remy grinned a little as he looked down vacantly at the clean white linen and shook his head, "I felt jus' like a pup again---scared o' dis t'ing, dis power growin' inside o' me. It been so long since I felt dat...I almos' fo'got what it was like...."
"I understand," she repeated, "I felt the same when my powers returned after losing them. The fear in the face of what feels beyond your ability to control and it makes you wonder how you ever did."
He nodded, looking down into the ether, his hand holding steadfastly to her knee. Finally he looked up, catching her unflinchingly, now was as good a time as any... "Bu' you know Remy didn' come up here t' talk 'bout dat petite."
"I know..." was the only thing that she could muster at this moment.
Remy was almost relived at her minimal answer, it meant he could ignore the fact that he, the unflappable Gambit, almost felt his nerve giving in. But deep down he realised that it wouldn't, because this felt...true. Good and true. He moved his hand slowly from her knee, usurping hers that lay above his, holding onto it steadfastly, as if to ready himself. It was so delicate to him, so soft that it was all he could concentrate on for a while, lost in its familiar yet new feel. It made what happened next all the more of a surprise. He looked up, about to speak when he received the welcome pressure of her lips over his, allaying everything in space and time. His initial shock gave way to his longing and he couldn't help but smile against her supple lips as he took charge of the liaison, running his fingers into her hair and cupping her head firmly. He kissed her softly, with intimate thought, drawing her to him, releasing her slowly only to pull her back. His gentle teasing meant she could remain passive no longer; taking his bottom lip lightly between her teeth and sucking it demurely as her hands sought to hold him in the stillness of the muted attic atmosphere, closing over his hard tense shoulders that immediately slackened upon her touch. The kiss deepened as they pulled each other closer; Remy sitting back as he pulled Ororo into his lap and she automatically wrapped her legs around him, securely, letting the sheets slip from her body and the hem of her pure silk chemise ride up.
"I didn' know if you'd feel de same when we got back 'ere," Remy said quietly as their kiss came to a mutual finish, but they still held each other close, feeding off each others body heat, "I t'ought---I feared--- t'ings would change."
"Things have changed," she told him, her lips brushing lightly against his cheek, "I can not...explain...but---."
"Den let's not, ma chèrie," he cut in lightly, not wanting anything to ruin this tenuous beginning, "let's not..." Holding her tightly about the waist, his hands shimmying down her body to arrive at their destination, he lifted her from his lap and lay her down on the bed. He pushed up against her as her legs unfurled from about him, moving his lips back down to hers, seeking that tender connection, as blindly he took a hold of her hands, threading his fingers through hers as he pulled them above her head, resting on her plush pillow. After they had settled he moved back, one...two...three soft pecks, but kept his face just centimetres from hers, the words he had to say unstoppable yet absolute, sincere but timorous. "Je t'aime..."...and as the morning sun rose, he made love to her
-TBC-
A bit shorter than usual, but hope you all enjoyed none the less?...;) Will try to be quick with chapter 17, M'iko, xx