Disclaimer: "There are no happy endings, because nothing ever ends."
(An: That's my excuse, anyway. I'm not trying to make this ending particularly spectacular, just satisfying and maybe a little memorable. Oh, by the way, I had a blonde moment. I had to tack on a little section before Sam's ending. Just some slashy stuff. Not important, just an explanation to that scene between Lance and Pietro at the grave. For the clueless, the blonde woman in this chapter is Mercy, Henri's wife. And I have nooo idea how Jean-Luc talks. I'm still dealing with the ponytail, here. There's a slight reference to Star-Of-Chaos in here, in that Amara collects John's books. And I spelled the pronunciation of his name as one of my classmates spells his.)
Kurt shifted from foot to foot as he knocked on the door of the mansion. It was intimidating, with its age and size and general unfriendliness, but this was lessened by the fact that it obviously wasn't as well-kept as it could've been.
A few minutes after his sixth knock, a tired-looking young man answered the door. He looked to be about Remy's age, only a year or two older. The man eyed him with a mixture of indifference, curiousity, and disdain. "What do you want?"
Kurt shifted his precious burden a bit. "Are you Henri?" The man nodded. "I'd really rather tell this to everyone in your family at once, if you don't mind."
Henri glanced at the urn in Kurt's grasp. "Oh, merde," he whispered. "Not Remy."
Kurt nodded, fidgeting again.
"Follow me," said the man, obviously trying to accept this fact and attempting to remember where the rest of his clan was at the same time. He walked off at a brisk pace. Kurt had to hustle to keep up.
On the way, they encountered a blonde woman, who glanced from Henri to Kurt and raised an eyebrow. Henri said nothing, just gestured for the woman to follow. She frowned and went with them, looking concerned.
Henri took them into an office. There was a man sitting behind the desk, and Kurt assumed he was Jean-Luc. "Mr. LeBeau?" said Kurt quietly.
Jean-Luc paused in whatever it was he'd been doing and examined Kurt. After a moment, he said, "Oui?"
"I'm... not exactly sure how to tell you this..." Kurt mumbled. "There was a car accident a few days ago. Three people died. Remy... Remy was one of them."
The blonde woman gasped. Henri took her hand.
Jean-Luc froze. His eyes hardened. "And why was I not informed of this directly when it occured?"
Kurt set the urn on his desk and rubbed the back of his neck. "We- that is, the professor tried to contact you, but Remy... you know, he didn't really leave a phone number. Rogue knew where you lived, though."
The patriarch of the LeBeau clan nodded, frowning. "And this... Rogue. She's the one he kidnapped, correct?"
"Yes..." Kurt scraped his foot across the ground. "My sister was very close with Remy."
"And you," said Jean-Luc. "Why did you come here?"
Kurt shrugged. "It just didn't seem right, sir."
"Plenty of things in life aren't fair."
"It's not right, sir. I mean, you probably wouldn't have known..." Kurt looked down at his feet. "And nobody at the funeral was there for Remy except Rogue."
"If he was so close to Rogue, why didn't she bring him here?"
"Because Remy was my friend... and Rogue isn't the type to do crazy things like steal someone's ashes," said Kurt, a little smile coming onto his face.
Jean-Luc steepled his fingers. He closed his eyes and just sat there for a moment, taking a deep breath. When he opened his eyes, he seemed calmer, somehow, than he had before. "Thank you for this," he said. "That you would do something for my family- who, admittedly, haven't been the friendliest to you and your allies- means a great deal to me."
Kurt shrugged, looking even more uncomfortable. "I thought it would, sir."
Jean-Luc frowned a moment, then smiled at the uncertain boy. "Sit. Tell me of my son."
Kurt returned the smile, a touch nervously, and sat.
&&&
Amara was unsurprised and unpleased to see Tabitha standing outside her door. These feelings only increased when, as Amara moved to close it, Tabitha blocked her. Amara stepped back into the room, Tabitha matching her stride for stride.
"We need to talk," said Tabitha.
"You said enough," Amara replied.
Tabitha slammed her hands on the wall on either side of Amara. "No, I haven't," she replied.
Amara's eyes glowed a fiery orange.
"Fine, power up," said Tabitha. "I'm not going anywhere."
Amara met her intense gaze, her face firm.
"I'm sorry," said Tabitha.
"If that's all you've got-" Amara started, but Tabitha cut her off.
"No, it's not." Tabitha leaned in a little closer.
For the first time, Amara's expression wavered, her eyes flicking to the floor.
"Amara."
Unwillingly, her eyes came up even with Tabby's.
Tabitha took in a deep breath, and then she whispered, "I love you. I never said it before, and that was a mistake. Even if you still hate me for what I did, I had to say that. Just so you'd know."
Amara's brown eyes widened. "Tabitha..."
The normally fierce girl backed off, hugging herself and looking at the floor.
Amara took a step toward her. Her frown deepened a fraction. After a second, she said, her voice horribly formal, "I am sorry as well. I... I should have been more understanding."
Tabitha glanced up, and her gaze showed she was barely daring to hope.
Amara, usually the shyer one, wrapped her arms around Tabby's waist and settled her head on her shoulder. She tilted her face up and whispered in Tabitha's ear. "Just so you know... I love you as well."
&&&
When Kitty met John in the kitchen for the third time that week, it was finally on purpouse and not because she heard some strange noise. "Have you been sitting there all this time?" she demanded.
John glanced up. "What brought that up?"
"I'm only saying, if you're depressed, this is no way to deal," said Kitty.
A corner of John's mouth went up. "Believe it or not, I've come to terms with my grief," said John. "You helped. But I've been sitting here because, like I've said, I've got writer's block, and my editor doesn't count 'raging sadness' as a reason for me not to meet my deadline."
Kitty sat on the table. "Have you moved at all from here?"
"Yeah, for the funeral and soda and stuff..."
"Have you slept?"
John opened his mouth, then closed it again. "Not really, no."
"I didn't think so."
John cocked his head and examined her. "So what brought this sudden rash of concern on?"
Kitty shrugged, pointedly not meeting his eyes. "I... you know, I like you." John blinked and opened his mouth, but Kitty hurriedly cut him off. "What do you write?"
To her surprise, he ducked his head, looking at the table and tracing intricate patterns on its surface. "Gothic romances," he admitted.
Kitty's eyes widened. "Waitaminute..."
"Yes, Amara has a few of my books," said John, a blush rising in his cheeks.
Kitty covered her mouth, fighting a losing battle against giggling. When she had control of herself, she said, "I actually thought those were pretty good... but your real name is St. John?"
"That's pronounced 'Syngyn', thank you," he replied.
Kitty tilted back her head, looking at the ceiling. "So you write romances... and you've got writer's block."
"Yep, that's the way it stands."
Kitty swallowed and slid off the table, stepping over next to John, who gave her a quizzical look. "Maybe this will help..." And she brushed her lips against his.
&&&
Piotr sighed as he looked down at the little drawing in his hand. He'd redone it several times over since he'd started and only now was he satisfied with it.
He took a deep breath and walked out of his own room and up to Rogue's. Her door was open, so he walked inside. Rogue was laying on the bed, involved in some vampire novel. He sat down beside her. She looked up, an eyebrow raised.
Blushing a little, Piotr handed her the drawing.
Rogue looked down at it and her breath caught. On the front, the side she was looking at, there was an old sketch he'd done of her and Remy sitting on the couch. Remy was asleep, his head resting on her lap. Rogue touched the drawing, an unnamable expression on her face. After a moment, she flipped over the paper. Her eyes widened.
On the reverse was what Piotr had worked so hard on last night. It was small, and simple, but it was perfect. It was himself and Rogue, sitting together on one of the benches in the courtyard, his hand covering hers. She looked up at him.
"I can understand," he murmured, "if you aren't interested..."
Rogue smiled a little and wiped at her eyes. "Piotr..." She looked back at the other side of the paper.
"I can wait, if you want," Piotr went on, standing up. "I have waited, for a long while now."
She shook her head. "No, stay here."
Her face broke into a true smile as he sat back down, closer this time.
&&&
Sam was sitting in the common room, feeling worse than he had over the past three days combined. It was the atmosphere in the room that got him.
Jean and Scott were cuddling on the couch, Kitty and John were holding hands, Amara was sitting on Tabitha's lap, Rob was whispering in Dani's ear, Ororo was involved in her fourth hour-long conversation with Forge that day, Jubilee was talking in a low voice with Logan, and Rogue was resting her head on Piotr's shoulder, watching him draw.
Basically, there was enough love in the room to make his heart ache a thousand times worse than it already had been.
Sam rested his head on his arms, watching the happy couples around him. After a second, he couldn't take it. He stood up and walked out. No one seemed to notice.
Rahne was up in her room, he knew. So he marched up there before he could lose his nerve and rapped on the door.
The desire to run in the opposite direction doubled when she opened the door. She eyed him skeptically, but didn't just slam the door in his face as he'd feared she would.
"Rahne," said Sam. "I know you're still mad at me for not talking to you and I know you're probably just gonna hate me more for what I'm gonna do, but I have to do it, because all these few days have taught me is that tomorrow, or even later today, I might not have the chance to do this." He leaned forward, taking her face in his hands and kissing her.
Sam was completely taken aback when Rahne opened the door wider, putting her hand on his shoulder and deepening the kiss. When they broke off, she slipped both arms around his neck. "Do you know how long I've wanted that?" she asked.
"But..." said Sam. "You- you like Rob."
Rahne shook her head. "I did, a little," she replied. "But it was you I was trying to get, always you, Sam." She rested her forehead against his, brushing the blond hair out of his face. "I liked you from the moment I met you, but you never seemed to want to be more than friends, so I never did anything. And when I caught you staring at me the other day... I thought that maybe it would be better to be mad at you than to love you, because it had been so long."
"And everyone says I'm stupid," Sam replied.
Any retort Rahne would have made was cut off by his lips.
(And that's that. There is no sequel. This is all. You must be satisfied. And if you are (or even if you aren't and desire to yell at me), then why not drop me a review?)