Part 12

He was free.

And he was loving it, energized by the primal song of the roaring engine beneath him, like some deep pulsing melody that resonated down through his bones to the very nature of his being. There was the speed of the air whipping around him, sliding over his body more intimately and shamelessly than any lover could. Kinetic energy filled and surrounded him, bathing him in power and life.

Lowering his body down to streamline himself against the motorcycle, he leaned smoothly around a curve in the deserted back-road. Adrenaline laced his cells, driving out the chills, the thick air of the crisp and cool evening running through the fabric of his trench coat, the pores of his skin—filling the very holes in his heart so that he could be whole… if only for a little while.

No expectations, no requirements, no commitments.

Only speed, only energy, only life. And Remy smiled, glancing out of the corner of his eye to see Wolverine mirroring his movements next to him, looking more content than Remy ever remembered seeing him. He felt it too. They really were a lot alike when it came down to their basic nature, desires, loves. Needs.

He needed this, to drink in the kinetic energy like a drug so precious that no amount of money could ever buy it. Breaking the boundaries of his normal restraint and anxiety about losing control, he pushed his spatial sense out farther than he normally dared, feeling, knowing, being the space ahead of him. If he and Wolverine were going to scout ahead, looking out for the car full of X-Men following behind, they were going to make sure nothing caught them by surprise.

And that was it. The pin that popped the bubble of exhilaration, of ecstasy. There were expectations, requirements, commitments. There always were. He was bound by the sense of honor and responsibility that the little voice in his head, much more powerful than the Green Mist that permeated through him, insisted on. He wasn't free. He had a destination, a cause to fight for, a team he was committed to. The little voice named his "conscience" liked to remind him of that frequently.

It occurred to him then, with the trees and houses flashing by him and the road a blur beneath his feet, that he didn't even know the name of the other voice that occupied his brain. It had seemed fine to designate her the Green Ghost Lady when he was still in denial over how powerful she was, how much a part of him she was, then the impersonal name had seemed like an assurance that she couldn't be of much significance. But now…?

It might be a little late for dis, cherie, but what is your real name?

For a moment there was no reply and for a moment he thought there would be none. And then: "You already know. We share a mind. There are no secrets."

You can't jus' answer de question like a normal person, can you cherie?

"Well, technically, I'm not all that normal." And then she smiled, and for the first time it didn't drive rigid pins and needles into the hairs on his back.

He realized he knew. That the answer had always been there, waiting for him to open up and receive it. Her name was resonating through the walls of his mind, echoing, bouncing across its reaches, and as it passed he caught it on the tip of his tongue.

"Emily. Your name is Emily."

"Disappointed? Sorry it doesn't meet your expectations." Her usual sarcasm was back.

Non. Just… unexpected. I t'ought—I mean, I figured—Well, it's so normal. I expected, something… He trailed off, what did he expect?

"Something more tragic?"

Maybe that was it. Or maybe: I guess I thought it would be more unusual—you are from de future.

She made an irritated noise. "Not that far in the future. Besides, life in the future, at least technology-wise is more similar to your past than present."

He raised his eyebrows, confused.

"Fighting a war doesn't leave much time for luxuries, or for inventing them. Society was forced to revert slightly."

He remembered the visions in his mind, seeing her parents killed by the Witness' henchmen. He remembered how non-futuristic the room had looked.

He leaned even more into the bike.

"Hey, Gumbo!" Remy barely heard Wolverine's voice over the roar of the engines. He looked over to the other man. "You're thinking too much. I can see it in those delicate, baby-faced features of yours. Enjoy the ride!"

Remy smiled at the jibe and shook his head. "De way I see it, you better be de one enjoying de ride, cause it gonna be your last wit' remarks like dat. 'Sides, dese 'delicate, baby-faced features' can catch more femmes dan you any night." He smirked, a footnote to the comment.

"Oh, really?" They were riding close together now, motorcycles almost touching so that Remy could hear Wolverine, Remy not blessed with the other man's animal sensitive hearing. "I hold you to that, Cajun. When this is over, there's a little bar I know, the perfect place to find out for sure."

Remy laughed and steered back to the other side of the lane. He could see the bright lights of the New York skyline approaching a short distance away, slightly painful to his sensitive eyes when contrasted to the oncoming night.

They were close. Just over the bridge now.

And then into the tunnels.

Interlude

Hungry. Always so hungry. A deep gnawing pain that, without any internal organs to inflict itself upon, struck at his very being, twisted like a dull knife in the core of his existence. It took everything in its reach, had eaten his conscience long ago and was now working on those of everyone around him.

Hate. Anger. Prejudice. He drank it all up in a cocktail of negative emotion. He was made of energy—pure, raw, and it required sustenance, a replacement of resources. Life tasted good in all forms, but all beings have their preference of foods, his was the black feelings, the dark sides of the human spirits he devoured.

He had taken this body, this man called "New Son" by his associates, after wandering in a delirious and emaciated haze. So much endless time trapped on the psionic plane, starving slowly in an iron prison of Psylocke's will. Maybe he would have died had he not suddenly been set free to wander across a young and volatile criminal with his eye on the talents of the X-Men.

The X-Men. The entities responsible for trapping him in the emptiness with nothing but the hunger to slowly chew away at his own spirit to keep satisfied.

That was the thought that had reached out through the dumb haze of malnutrition like a tether through the fog, as he drifted blind and deaf through the city ablaze with the lights of millions of chaotic minds. This one man, New Son, thinking that he had an X-Man in his grasp, a new tool to use, to exploit the world for all the money that was his own food of choice. Not the right X-Man, of course. Oh, he would relish the pain of any of them, enjoy it like a delicacy and it was that craving that brought him to New Son at all. But there was one, the one responsible for his imprisonment that he really wanted. Psylocke. Even the name sent pangs of want through him.

But not yet, not until he was stronger, not until he had the power of a city of screams filled with anger and hate to back him up. For now, he would have to wait for his ultimate prize and satisfy himself with the tiny licks he allowed when he sometimes felt her on the astral plane.

New Son had turned out to be a good choice to possess, a young mind, easy to overthrow and swallow, a body with enough power to allow him to take a trip to a place where no one would notice him for a while as he recovered, and at the same time, not let on to any of New Son's associates that the mind of the man they knew was now dead.

The children had been partially satisfying, and only temporarily. Their innocence lacked the substance, the filling quality of the negative emotions he yearned for. Their insignificant lives had been a desperate resort, an attempt to build strength without revealing himself with his more signature approach, with the anger and the hate that usually lashed out at his inducement, like a seasoning to make the life-energy he fed on taste better. Plenty of crazy people in the world kidnapped children. The case in Michigan would be assumed to be no different.

But now… now he was splurging, bingeing, mass-consuming.

There was a city of opportunity here, and it was time for him to take advantage, to murder the hunger pains. With great care, he reached out and gave the thousands of minds close by a psychic touch. So much variety: students, professors, office workers, blue-collar, white-color… and so many of them young, full of life—volatile. Perfect.

He was strong enough finally, able to handle the large amounts of minds necessary to gain the power he needed. All it took was a psychic twist, like a faucet being turned off, and restraint was gone from them all, leaving them to act and dwell on the anger he fostered.

Deeply, he sipped the negative emotions, slow and sweet, savoring the taste and digesting the life-energy behind them. So good, so wonderful. It had been so long since he had feasted, and he swelled under the platters, grew exponentially. King of all these minds, all the shadows they held in their depths. Shadow King. Finally, full of life and thriving again.

End Interlude

She had so much trouble remembering things now. It was as if the pieces of herself were slowly spreading apart to fill the space she lived in. Sometimes she almost forgot to pull herself together again, that there was no longer skin and bone and muscle to keep her within herself, but only her will. But sometimes facts got lost, little tidbits of information.

And now she decided to search for them.

There had been something, something nagging at her mind, telling her that there was something that she was supposed to be considering, something that she had forgotten. And it was a key item of information, important.

So she considered all the important things she knew, all the shreds of fact that could help her stop a war.

She knew that Remy was a key.

She knew the conflict would be between humans and mutants.

She knew New Son was a central cause.

And there was something else…

New Son, his name on an old tattered newspaper… and a date. She reached for the missing piece of information, grabbed it as it tried to diffuse away, pulled it back to herself and examined it.

And finally it was there, spread out before her in sudden, effort-requiring, clarity. The date she'd suspected in all began, the date of no return perhaps.

November 25, 2001.

She wondered what today's date was, and she realized she had no idea. She asked Remy. He didn't know either, and was surprised to realize it. He usually always knew the date, except with everything going on lately, he had lost track.

So, she concentrated on accessing the outside world through his senses, searching for an answer to her necessary question.

They were walking the streets of the city now, looking for an inconspicuous place to drop underground, and as Remy passed a corner garbage can, overflowing with debris, she caught a view of a discarded newspaper.

The date was November 25, 2001.

The Morlock Tunnels were quite extensive. Some extended up to Westchester near the Mansion, but the heart of the network had always been across the water on Manhattan Island. Most of these had been forced to be abandoned when the police started catching on and smoke bombing the sewers that emptied into them. And that had led to the move north.

But that didn't mean some didn't stay behind.

No matter how hard the city tried, it would never rid itself of those that lived in the shadows. Because it was impossible. These beings didn't just dwell amongst them; they had become the shadows, pools of darkness sliding around the light.

And everybody knew that the only way to really get rid of a shadow was to turn off the light.

So as long as the city existed, the Shadow Walkers would still be there.

He'd been a Shadow Walker once, in the back alleys of N'awlins as a child. He tried to remember now how to become one, to blend in perfectly with his surroundings.

But there was too much adrenaline seeping from his pores. They'd been forced to leave the cars sooner than intended, loosing them at the toll booth that blocked the bridge into the Big Apple. Apparently, things in Greenwich were getting desperate, because the city had gone into total lockdown—no one came in, no one went out. They'd hit the traffic jam long before the road block.

So they did the logical thing. Left the cars and switched to flying and using the motorcycles that had the convenient ability of weaving through cars.

There were enough flyers to take care of those in the cars, but Remy and Wolverine were left to fend for themselves. Remy had forgotten how much fun it could be to use a police car for a ramp. He must have gotten a good 5 seconds of air time coming off the black shiny roof.

And dodging bullets really could be quite invigorating if you didn't consider the consequences of getting hit. Fortunately, he only got brazed across the arm once, and that was when he busted through the roadblock on the other side and only because he had to cut his insane speed down slightly to weave through more traffic-jammed cars. An ability to sense moving objects all around you really could be quite advantageous. Of course, Wolverine didn't even have to dodge, he just took them and kept going, his mutant healing factor taking care of any wounds he incurred.

Of course, it helped that the area had already been in a state of mass chaos when they'd arrived, and that most of the police couldn't make up their mind whether to shoot the mutants flying over head or the ones riding down bellow.

But those New Yorkers, they were vocal when stuck in stop and go (well, more like stop and stop) traffic. He was still trying to figure out who had been more of a threat, them or the cops.

He was in a different world now. He tried to recall the maps of tunnels he had been forced to study back when he had worked for Sinister to lead the Morlock Massacre. Even though it hadn't occurred near here, he had studied all the underground passages, just to be sure. He'd learned the value of thoroughness long before he'd met Sinister.

Marrow had naturally taken the lead, completely in her element, moving smoothly and gracefully, her steps silent in the puddles of water. Storm and Cyclops flanked her shoulders. Under any other circumstances it would have been an unbelievable sight, to have her associate herself with the team so thoroughly, to be leading them. Inconceivable as relations currently stood. But here? This was the Underworld; the rules here were different.

And that was why Remy chose to take up the rear, because he understood those rules, and he knew that one of them was to always watch your back. Which was why he knew that they were being followed. Oh, there was no noise, no dead give away, and he didn't have hyper smell and hearing to help him figure it out like Wolverine did. But he did have enhanced night vision, and when he turned back to glance over his shoulder he could tell that the shadows weren't placed just right. The strips of light falling in around the occasional ceiling grate didn't fall just as they should, as if something were in the way, obstructing their path. So before the Shadow Walker was even in the range of the kinetic field he had extended around him, before he had even used that field to detect the careful movement, he knew.

And so did Wolverine. He glanced at the Canadian who nodded. They dropped back slightly from the group, kept walking. "He won' bother us unless provoked, y' know," Remy whispered under his breath, so that only Wolverine would hear.

"I know."

The Shadow Walker kept with them all the way to 7th street, when they decided it was time to formulate their plan of attack. Jean was already finding it necessary to create her bubble of protection around them.

They were standing in a sort of oval, having a quiet conference. Remy had dropped a card in the middle of the group to provide some light, which won him a nod of thanks from Scott.

"Jean, how are you doing?"

She looked okay, not terribly stressed or anything. "As long as we stay close together like this things are great, but I don't imagine it's going to stay this way for long." She stuck her hands in her jean pockets, weighing down the waistband so that in rode down below her shirt line. He could see the yellow and blue spandex costume peeking out from underneath.

"No, sorry, not likely." Scott shook his head. "Once we attack, we'll probably be scattered, but more than that, I'd like to have the ability to attack from multiple sides if that's possible. If we threaten the Shadow King from a series of different points at once, maybe it will spread him out enough to weaken him."

"How much distance do you need between attack groups?" Jean asked.

"How much can you give me?"

"As long as each group is within 5 long city blocks of me, I think we'll be okay, but that's going to take all I have. There will be nothing left for me to fight with."

"Then it makes sense that you be positioned beneath the attack point, to give all the groups maximum range of motion." The voice came from Storm, who was standing stiffly, tensely, next to Remy. He wasn't sure if it was the claustrophobia or the nature of their situation that was bothering her. Probably a mixture of both.

"But that will leave her also in the center of danger, meaning that somebody will have to stay and protect her, at least until the rest of us have entered the area. That leaves two groups of two and one of three to attack with. Wolverine, I want to you stay with Jean. When the time comes to attack I'm sure you'll have no trouble finding your way upstairs to join in the foray. I'd like to try to confuse Shadow King as much as possible, so instead of coming out of the tunnels right near his location I'd like to come up a few blocks away in each direction and avoid taking the straightest route to our attack point, just to see how much trouble we can cause before we get there. That leaves us to form attack groups. I want to have the flyers spread out so we can attack from both the ground and sky angles. Storm, you're with Gambit. Rogue, I'll keep you with me and Beast, Iceman and Marrow are together. Bobby, you have your ice bridges and Beast, you should be able to find enough lamp posts to swing off of if you find the need to get a higher perspective."

Beast nodded. "Undoubtedly." It was hard to tell in the shadows of the lit playing card, but Remy thought he was grinning.

"Jean, I'm going to need you to coordinate our attack. You'll have to contact each of the groups so that we can time this thing right. I want us all to hit Shadow King at the same time."

Jean nodded. "Fine, but that's going to cut your radius from me down by about a block."

"Alright, we can deal with that."

"Which leaves one question," Bobby interjected suddenly, "where exactly is our attack point gonna be? Or, more to the point, where's Shadow King?"

"Right where he's most powerful, where stress is up and people are distracted enough to be easy targets for a megalomaniac telepath," Jean answered.

Bobby gave her a look in the semi-darkness. "And that would be…?"

"Washington Square, mixed right into the hub of the NYU (New York University) campus, with a never ending supply of stressed students and young radical minds."

Interlude

The Light Dwellers had split up and he'd had to decide. Who to follow? He'd almost settled on the furry, blue one, the one who most looked like a Dark Dweller might look, or the one with the bones who clearly knew her way around, but then he'd seen the glowing red eyes with the darkness like holes in the center.

That had clinched it. He was fascinated by the bright color, by the faint light they gave off. Imagine, a Light Dweller who brought his light with him. And the Light Bringer could make light too, turn a piece of paper into a glowing lantern, like the one he held in his hand now.

They weren't far ahead of him, not too close either, so he could keep himself hidden, but not so far that he couldn't hear them speak every so often, quiet, capturing the wind and forcing it into words. His hearing was so good now, as were all his senses except his sight since he'd come down here, as if there were a certain part of his brain allotted to experiencing the world and once he'd come into the darkness and had not much use for eyes anymore, some extra space had gone up for rent. Oh, he could see colors and shapes and such, plenty enough for his needs, but details were lost to him.

The Light-Bringing one said something, too quietly for him to hear and then the woman with the white hair glanced briefly over her shoulder.

Did they know he was here? Had he made a mistake, somehow done something to alert them of his presence? But they were still walking, still keeping the same steady pace, and the Light-Bringer never once looked back, never once lent him a glance of the glowing eyes.

His mind tickled.

It was a very strange feeling, something he'd never felt before, but his mind tickled and then there was something else there, working its way in and the tickle became a poke which soon became a stab.

He would have screamed, only before the message could be sent from his brain to his vocal cords, his mind was no longer his. Shadow King had just acquired some new real estate.

His mutant power was rather complex, but what it came down to was this: he had the ability to disrupt the forces that bound molecules together. The relatively weak intermolecular forces were a piece of cake to destroy, without which a solid substance just sort of vaporized. He'd never completely understood it, having been banished to the darkness before he had a chance to really do any studying on the topic. An unfortunate side effect of his ability was that the molecules of his body were constantly phase shifting, intermolecular forces weakening and strengthening intermittently. It made him quite odd to look at, as if he were shimmering, or glittering unnaturally.

For Shadow King, it was all perfectly convenient.

Because next to and above the Light-Bringer and the White-Haired Woman there was a tallish building, whose foundation extended deep into the ground, not far from where he was standing.

The foundation never had a chance.

End Interlude

Remy had thought himself ready for any possible attack should the Shadow Walker prove to be hostile, which he doubted.

That was before he felt a strange sensation with his empathy in the direction of their follower.

Which was before the building fell on them.

Somehow, Storm managed to keep most of the debris from hitting them with a mixture of wind and lightning, and somehow, Remy managed to use his mutant senses to help them dodge the rest.

But the most amazing part by far, perhaps even more amazing than the actual collapse of the building, was the fact that when it was all over, they were still alive.

He looked at Storm, her face dimly illuminated in the light of the kinetically charged card he held. The red cast reminded him of the emergency lights that had lit up once when he tripped the alarm in a museum he was robbing. He had been 16, cocky and sure, never expecting that something would go wrong. Everything had been cast in an eerie pall, and he hadn't been able to escape the tinge of fear it brought to his confident teenage mind.

There was fear now, but for a different reason. Her expression was one of terror, barely controlled, the white eyes wide as she created a slight, cool, breeze in the enclosure to help keep her calm.

Her voice came to him on the wind, searching for him in, what must be to her eyes, relative dark. "Remy?" Her voice sounded hoarse, maybe from the settling dust, maybe from her own anxiety. He could feel the shifting walls around them, the boundaries of their entombment, how little space those walls afforded them. Small spaces never had worked well with her.

"Yeah Stormy, I'm here. How you doin'?"

She took a deep breath. "I will be fine." The words were forced, losing all believability.

But for her sake, he nodded and pretended to believe. He'd known her for a long time now, and he knew that she was suffering inside, that she desired with every nature-tuned cell of her body to be free. Even without his empathy, he would feel it.

His hand reached out to the wall of fallen concrete behind him. There had to be a way out, and he was going to find it as soon as possible. He walked along the perimeter of the enclosure, running his hands over the walls, and holding the glowing card in his mouth for light. A jagged piece of rock sliced through one of his gloved fingers. Blood ran out, staining the gray stone crimson. He ignored it, continuing his assessment of their situation. He could feel the movement of debris still settling above them. There was a chance that even their little pocket of air could collapse if they didn't get out soon.

And then he felt the support pillar high above their enclosure, moving ever-so-slowly, cracking under the stress of debris, the one that would break under any provocation.

He cursed.

"What?" He could feel her anxiety projecting out like a noxious gas filling the room. He blocked it, closing the doors of his mind against her.

Turning, he tried to keep his expression as neutral as impossible. He took the card out of his mouth, knowing how frightening his eyes must look in its light. "We may be here for a while, Stormy."

He waited for the panic on her face, but she was stronger than that, refused to be defeated even by her claustrophobia. She nodded succinctly.

She trusted his judgment. They'd worked together long enough for that, and he realized that she was perhaps the only one of the X-Men that did. She believed him, even when she must have wanted so much to tell him he must be mistaken.

One large portion of wall was still standing in what was left of the tunnel they had been in, the other three sides around them mostly crumbled and jagged rock and concrete. He found his way to it, walking behind her and slid down, legs extended across the floor. Gently, he nudged her heel. "Come on, might as well get comfortable." She turned, looked at him and he gestured to the floor beside where he sat.

She came next to him, hugging her knees to her chest, leaving some space between them. "You cannot blast us a hole out of here?" she asked. She almost seemed afraid to hear the answer, but she wasn't a woman to run away from the truth.

So unlike him.

"Non. Dere be a strut ready t' collapse. If I use my power it'll break, sendin' de whole building down on us." There was no way to put something like that gently.

"I see." She took a deep breath, hugging herself tighter. He felt the breeze in the room pick up a bit.

The lit card was still in his hand. He began to flip it easily over his fingers, playing light patterns on the wall. "Well, look at it dis way. If it collapses, at least it'll be quick."

She looked at him, exotic features tense. "Was that supposed to put me at ease?"

He shrugged. "Um… yes?"

An eyebrow rose. "I thought you were supposed to be a smooth talker."

His head turned to meet the diamond stare. "Y' wan' me to smooth talk you Stormy?"

The wind whistled gently through a crack in their prison walls. The card moved faster across his fingers.

She looked away. "No. I just want you to talk."

He looked forward again, and it occurred to him that there was one more venue left for him to try. Maybe if he could reach Jean with his empathy, let her know that they were in trouble, she could follow the tether of emotion back to them and get help. Closing his eyes halfway to help him concentrate, he tried to reach out past the walls of debris.

Inside him, the silence was unnatural. It had been for some time he realized, even before the collapse. Emily, where are you? he wondered on his way out of his mind.

"Busy working on a way out of here."

And then she was gone again, receding back into wherever it was she had been before. He focused his thoughts together, into a field of energy, wrapping himself in its blue glow. Into the crossroads of his mind, and then back out into the psionic plane beyond his own psyche.

Indiscriminate thoughts, feelings, yearnings… hate, anger. It was all around him. Every mind he met consumed in it so that the webs of emotion wrapped around him, sticking to him and weighing him down. Down, down, into the mouth of the spider. The central energy source so hungry, so blood-thirsty, so… wanting. And then its shadow fell over him, it's black, glassy eyes turning to him, arms reaching out and him trapped in the web of hate, unable to escape…

Remy, what are you doing? Get out of here! Help is on the way.

He gasped, slammed back into his body, Jean's voice still echoing in his ears. The card playing over his fingers slipped and skidded across the floor a few meters away, fizzling to darkness.

"—What is wrong?" It took him a moment to realize Storm was urgently speaking to him.

"Remy? What is happening?"

Her hand was on his shoulder, shaking him gently. He blinked, reorienting himself, shielding his mind from the echoes of webbing. So much hate…

"Sorry, Stormy. I'm okay." He grinned to assure her. "Don' worry, de swamp rat still be here to keep y' company."

Her eyes were wide, barely controlled panic there. He could sense the fear of abandonment in her, that she had almost been left alone here in this dark, tight, space. There must be horrible memories of being buried alive next to her dead parents as a child playing all through her mind. He wasn't the only one with baggage to carry.

"What happened?" she asked him. "You were unresponsive, blank."

"I was reaching out to Jean. She says the X-Men are on their way."

"That is good news." But she seemed unsure. Like she was holding back on her hope a bit, just in case. "Do not ever do that again without warning me first."

He smiled, nodded dutifully. There was silence for a time. Her hand had fallen from his shoulder into her lap, and somehow, in trying to get his attention earlier, she had closed some of the space between them. He lit a new card up, shuffling it over his fingers, drawing her eyes to it with the movement.

"When did you first become interested in cards?" she asked suddenly.

He thought for a moment, then shrugged. "Found a deck in a garbage can once when I was a pup foraging for food. Didn't know how to play and dey seemed pretty pointless to me, boring, but I kept dem jus' because I didn't own very much and dey were something I could say were mine. Den one day dis woman offered to give me a place to sleep for de night. Dere were some people who did dat, made dem feel like a Good Samaritan, I guess. So she takes me home an' when we get dere she locks me in a room an' I overhear her tellin' a man on de phone dat she'll sell me to him and he can pick me up in de morning. Course, I didn't plan to still be dere in de morning. I picked the doorknob lock easy enough, but dere was a hook on de outside of de door going through a loop on de wall, an' de only t'ing I could find to fit between the door and the doorframe to unhook it was one of de playing cards I had. After dat, I decided dey weren't such a bad t'ing after all. 'Course, I didn't realize until much later, when I was facin' dis baddie named de 'Pig' how good of a weapon dey could be."

"And now it is your trademark."

"Oui. And a star is born."

"How about the trenchcoat? Does that also have a story?"

He shook his head and grinned lopsidedly. "Nope cherie, I don't need a story to wear somet'ing dat has dis much class. An' as long as de girls agree, I'll keep wearing it."

"And as long as Rogue agrees." She smiled knowingly and he mentally patted himself on the back for having distracted her from her claustrophobia so much.

"Rogue and I rarely agree. Dat's what makes it so interesting."

She didn't reply, and the smile slowly died on her lips. She seemed to be somewhere in her own thoughts.

"What're ya thinkin', Stormy?"

She shook her head, coming back from her mind's meanderings. "Nothing."

"Suuuuuuuure. An' I'm not wanted in most of de free world for stealin' something." He challenged her to deny it with his gaze.

She looked at him sternly, and then the look turned into a gentle smile. "You do not know when to leave things alone, do you?"

"I didn't get to know de taste o' my own foot so well by keepin' my mouth shut."

"I suppose not." She paused for a moment, considering. She looked so small here, back to the wall, arms wrapped around her legs, hair short and framing her delicate face. He didn't usually see her like this, stripped of her regal confidence.

She continued. "I was thinking of how I miss having a companion."

He paused for a moment. "Y' mean like a boyfriend?"

She said nothing.

"Look 'Roro, you're a beautiful woman an' one day de perfect guy is gonna walk through de mansion doors an' find you. You jus' haven't met him yet." He found her eyes and for a second something passed in them, a something that he couldn't quite identify, and it took all of his will-power to resist chasing it down with his empathy.

She looked down at her hands, holding each other in the comfort of their own warmth. "Perhaps. I find it so hard to trust people too deeply now. The world is a shifty place and it has affected me. I think that is what always destroys my relationships in the end. I am an independent woman, and could survive alone for the rest of my life, and I know that. That is what scares me."

He looked at her, watching her eyes, white and shadowed like the face of the moon. She was trembling, her skin raised in tiny bumps. "You're shivering, Stormy."

"I am cold."

"Turn down de wind a bit den," he suggested, gesturing in the air.

"The cool air soothes me. It helps to keep my fears in control."

"Fine den, have it your way. But I ain't gonna sit her an' watch a femme convulse wit' de chills." He moved over, covering the last of the distance between them and gently put his arm around her, pulling her against him, using his kinetic body as a heater for her. She didn't resist, moving to him, her head against his chest.

"Thank you. Occasionally, you really can be suave."

When he didn't reply, she added, "Remy LeBeau at a loss for a clever comeback? I have seen it all now"

"I'm still tryin' t' decide whether to be offended."

"Ah, I see."

There was a stretch of silence, one that lacked awkwardness. He felt her stop shivering against him.

"It ever bother you that Scott came back an' was automatically leader of de X-Men again?" he asked suddenly. He wasn't sure why he asked it, but it was something he had been wondering about for a while, something he'd been meaning to check with her.

"Do you mean jealousy?"

He didn't answer, knowing she understood him.

"I… have mixed feelings." She sounded as if she were choosing her words carefully. "I did not enjoy suddenly having the responsibility of leader taken away from me so easily, but I was also injured at the time. If you recall, I had just fallen out of the sky."

He knew she was trying to be light about it, but his memories of seeing her lying unconscious and wounded in the medlab kept him from appreciating any possible humor. "Yeah, I remember," he muttered.

She paused, as if interpreting his mood and then: "Scott had every right to take over the X-Men. He came when we needed him."

"And now? Now dat you're better?"

"I am still not completely healed. After a trauma such as the one I suffered, it sometimes takes years to feel normal again, as I believe you would understand. But… I do sometimes wish that I could be in control, and then I remember how much more experience Scott has in leading. I do not enjoy such responsibility, even if part of me craves it."

He looked down at the card in his hand. "I don't t'ink anybody enjoys responsibility like dat." And yet his was so much worse, if he was to believe it, the entire future rested on him. For all he knew he could have already messed things up beyond repair.

She was quiet for a moment. "But still…" Then she stopped.

"But still…?" He prompted when she seemed unwilling to continue.

"Nothing."

"I'm telling you Stormy, I really am wanted in most of the free world."

She sighed. "Sometimes it is hard to watch decisions be made that you do not agree with, and to not have the ability you once had to change them."

"Y' mean like coming down into the tunnels to get into Greenwich."

She didn't reply.

"I'm sorry about dis, 'Ro." He wasn't sure why he felt like he needed to apologize, maybe because he had supported the idea to come here, maybe because of something completely different and long past.

His arm was around her shoulder, and as she tilted her head to look at him, he could feel her soft hair gently tickling his hand. "For what? Believing in a plan? This is not your fault."

A little voice in his head wanted to say, 'It's always my fault,' but he intercepted it before it could reach his tongue. Angst bad, he told himself. Despite how often I do it, angst is bad.

And then, as if she could sense his train of thought, she snuggled in a little closer to him. Not much, possibly he'd even imagined the movement completely, but he could feel her presence next to him, trembling within from fear, warm and alive and without even intentionally doing it, he realized he was feeding comfort and calm into her using his empathy.

Her breaths were even against him. "You have questioned me. I believe it is my turn now." She looked at him and smiled. "Do not think I missed that look in your eyes, Remy LeBeau. I can see the doors closing inside you."

He didn't meet her inquiring eyes. "Sorry, 'Ro. Reflexes." If only it were just that, too bad even now he had secrets to hide. Probably he always would. Maybe it was just in his nature.

She was quiet for such a long enough time that he began to believe that maybe she was kidding about questioning him, and then she shifted in his embrace to look at his right hand on her shoulder. She traced the scar with a finger. "Does it hurt?"

He shook his head, uncomfortable. "Non."

Her weight shifted back to where it was before, his hand free from further scrutiny. "I mean inside."

He squinted at her. "You're speakin' in riddles, Stormy." But he knew exactly what she meant.

"You have been through much, my friend, and you have talked very little about it. You nearly died, as did I. I know how traumatic it is." Her breath was on his neck as she looked up at him. It was warm, soft, and persistent.

His shoulders managed a modified shrug. "Wouldn't be the first time. I t'ink I fully expected dat I wouldn't survive when I decided to try and blow up de lab. 'Course, I wasn't thinking fully coherently at the time."

"Then for you, the threat of dying was not a shock, it was waking up alive. Sometimes that can be just as traumatic. That, I also know."

He said nothing. Finally he decided on: "Well, I ain't gonna complain if somebody upstairs decides to give me a few extra years to run around terrorizing the world and all that good stuff."

"You are avoiding the main point."

"I know, pretty good, eh?" He gave her a lopsided grin and winked.

She nodded. "Intolerably so."

He chucked quietly, hoping the mood had lightened for good.

"I know Remy, that there are things you are not telling me, and I suspect you may even know why it is you have recovered so quickly from your injuries. I do not wish to force information out of you, I just want you to know that when you are ready to talk, I am ready to listen. But please, remember what hiding secrets got us last time."

He could hear the genuine concern in her voice, not the berating or lecturing tone that would have evoked hostility in him. "Don't worry Stormy, I won't forget de lessons I've learned, an' I promise dat in de end, you'll know all dere is to know, and dat it's for de best dat you don't now." He was surprised to hear himself say it, to admit that he was hiding things rather than flat out deny it. But he also knew he was tired of lying, tired of lying to people he loved and trusted and who wanted so much to trust him back. He'd meant what he said. As soon as he could he would tell her everything, everything she wanted to know.

She simply said, "Okay." That was it.

"Dat's it?" It escaped him before he could stop from saying the words.

"If you are ever to trust us again, we must learn to trust you. It must start somewhere. I choose to begin it."

All he could say was, "Thank you, Stormy." And he almost told her, almost said everything right there, about the future, about Emily.

Except that Emily wouldn't have any of it. "You tell her and the X-Men will have one less member to worry about. We can't have any distractions, any potential trouble with worried friends. You tell her and she tells the X-Men and they do whatever they can to get me out of your head. Sorry, I didn't come all this way to lose because we went soft. Suck it up, there's work to do."

So he did, because he could feel the urgency rocketing through her being, the knowledge that something was going to happen soon, very soon. It was an infectious feeling, and it caused him to shut his mouth before it even opened to blurt out the truth.

The cold breeze had lessened slightly, no longer enough to cause goose bumps. And she seemed to be much calmer now. No reason really for him to need to hold her anymore, no reason for her to really need to stay in his embrace.

Neither of them moved.

In fact, they stayed entwined for another five minutes or so, up until Jean contacted Remy and told him the X-Men couldn't get in without collapsing the chamber.

End Part 12