Disclaimer: These characters belong to Marvel, and I have nothing to do with Marvel.

Rating: Rated M for sex.

Author notes: And that's a wrap! Thanks to everyone who took the time to review - you're the reason I keep going! :) Enjoy this last chapter, and keep an eye out for Crazy 8's, the sequel to 52 Pickup! :)

-Ludi x

- 96 Hours -

The Things We Have Together

"So," Lila says from the breakfast table, as he finally comes out the bathroom on a cloud of scented steam and heads to the kitchen. "Who's Anna?"

He almost stops mid-stride as he gets to the island, covering his sudden discomfit by ducking into the cupboard for a frying pan.

"Huh?" he says, feigning absentmindedness because he already knows this is going to be yet another shitty conversation, and he doesn't even want to know how she knows that name.

"Anna," she repeats the name, not knowing what it does to him – the way it brings his heart to his mouth and twists up his guts. "You called me that last night. Right before you blew your goddamn nuts out."

He hides behind the cupboard door a bit longer, rattling around like he can't find what he's looking for. Fuck. Fuck. He'd called her Anna? No wonder she hadn't wanted to snuggle after sex. No wonder she'd slapped him away and turned her back on him. Jesus. Okay, so… he'd been thinking of her kind of a lot the past couple of days, but he'd been pretty careful about compartmentalising his outer life and his private fantasies – right?

"So," Lila is continuing. "Who is she?"

He grabs the pan and shuts the cupboard door, his heart beating fast.

"Ummm… Anna. Lemme think."

He pretends to do just that as he goes to the stove and lights it up.

"Don't be an arse, Remy," Lila glowers at him. "You know who she is."

"What?" He lifts his hands at her in a perfect facsimile of innocence. "It ain't like I was Mr. One-Gal-Guy before I came here and you reformed me. But yeah," he puts his hands down, and palms the nearby platter of butter, "now that I think about it, there was an Anna. She was a maybe, sorta, kinda ex. Hadn't even thought about her since I left the States."

The lies patter easily off his tongue as he scoops a dollop of butter into the pan and slides it round the pan. He's so damn used to lying, and she knows it. A part of her already knows that Anna's been creeping stealthily, steadily, into his mind the past few weeks or so; that he hasn't been able to hold the memory of her at bay anymore. That last night, when she'd been out playing a gig, he'd lain there and thought of her, had fucking jerked off to her because he couldn't pretend anymore that he didn't want her more than he wanted anyone or anything else in that moment.

Shit. He still didn't.

Lila's calm, looking at him over her breakfast like she knows all this and more.

"Remy," she levels at him coolly. "If she was just some random ex you hadn't even thought about since leaving the States, you wouldn't have been saying her name while you were coming like the horny bastard you are."

She's angry. More than angry. When she's pissed – really pissed – she gets like this. Icy cold. It almost makes him shudder.

"Look," he replies, erring on the side of caution. "I'm sorry. I know what you're thinkin'. That I'm seein' someone else called Anna. But I swear to you, I ain't. I ain't seein' no one but you, Lila." He goes to the fridge and gets out the bacon. When he comes back, she still looks unconvinced.

"Really?" she says, eyebrow raised.

"Yes," he answers sincerely. "There's no one else. No one."

She still doesn't buy it. And he can't prove it to her. A part of him doesn't even want to. He's sensed for quite a while that this relationship is dying, and while he doesn't want to trash it, not really, he can't be bothered to save it either. It's not because he doesn't care about Lila. It's because he knows she's out there, and he can't help thinking he might be able to start pinning some hopes on her again. That she might finally be ready.

"All right," he finally admits, when she doesn't stop giving him that look. "Listen. There was some woman I hooked up with back in NYC. We had some hot fling. For like, a week or so. It was just sex, Lila. I left; and I seriously ain't thought of her since I got here. I ain't talked to her or contacted her or anythin'. I don't have her number, or an email, and I dunno where the fuck she is. And that is the honest-to-God truth, chere."

He puts the bacon into the pan. It's the truth, as far as it goes, but… it can't hide what he doesn't say, not entirely. That he's thought about ways of finding her, contacting her – even if those thoughts have only been fleeting, whimsical.

It can't quite hide the thing that he's been too chickenshit to admit to himself – that he'd fallen in-love with her back then, and that he might still be in-love with her right now.

"All right," she finally says. "I believe you."

But it had come as no surprise when, a week later, she'd finally done what he hadn't been able to, and ended it between them.

-oOo-

It was a little bit windy by the river, strands of Anna's hair being whipped from yet another intricate up-do.

Remy watched her silently from the café window while he waited for their drinks. Her, leaning over the railings, watching the moving waters, lost in her own little thoughts.

He remembered watching her in almost the exact same place nearly two years ago, gazing at her from afar as she'd sat there reading so nonchalantly from her newspaper, looking so cute and proper after pistol-whipping him into humiliating unconsciousness the night before. Two things had been on his mind that day – that she'd looked too damn fine to get away with pulling the rug out from under him without a suitable punishment; and second, that she'd looked too damn fine for him to pass up the chance of having a taste of her while he was at it.

He'd had a taste of her many a time since then, and he still didn't think he'd savoured everything she had to offer.

"There you go, sir," the barista said, shaking chocolate on top of his coffee. "Anything else?"

"No, thanks," he replied, smiling at her and picking up the drinks. "That's perfect."

He went outside and set the drinks down on their table, before joining her at the railings. When he put an arm round her, it still gave him a thrill that she stepped in closer to him.

"It's okay," he murmured, following her gaze down into the murky depths. "I wonder about it sometimes too."

"What?" she asked softly, puzzled.

"Whether that tracker you threw in here is still somewhere down there, waitin' to be reunited with me."

The comment had her laughing out loud.

"You're never gonna let me live that down, are you?" she observed wryly.

"Not on principle, no," he answered smoothly. "Not until I have somethin' expensive of yours I can land in the drink."

"Well," she teased back, surreptitiously squeezing his butt, "I do have an extremely expensive pair of silk panties on right now. But I'm guessin' that ain't the kind of thing you're talkin' about."

"Hm." He flashed his most devilish smile at her. "I'm sure it's an idea I can manage to fit my head around. Although I'd prefer it if your underwear didn't land in places they ain't never gon' be seen again. 'Cos you look so damn fine in those things, I wouldn't mind seein' you in them again and again and again." He pressed a quick kiss to her lips, added: "When I ain't seein' you outta them, o'course," before getting in a longer, harder kiss.

When they were done, he smacked her ass affectionately and pulled away, taking her hand and leading her back to the table. He really didn't want their drinks to get cold.

"So what were you thinkin'?" he asked, when they'd both taken their seats and she was busily stirring the froth in her flat white.

"Oh – nothin' much." She lifted the cup, and he watched the way her lips wrapped round the rim, the image making him squirm after the way she'd gone down on him the night before. "Just – the last time I came here, it was right after I got back from Caldecott." She paused, glancing back out to the water. "I was just walking, you know. Thinking about things. And I found myself right back here. Right back to the first morning when I first really looked at you."

She gave a small smile to herself before glancing back at him.

"You wanna know what I really thought about you back then, Remy? I thought you were far too smooth, too cocksure, too conscious of your own damn beauty for me to be anything but unimpressed."

She picked up the biscotto from her saucer, dipped it into her coffee thoughtfully.

"But then I guess something changed… I guess I realised I did the same thing to you. And you weren't afraid to look impressed about it. It… annoyed me at first. But then it did… 'other' things to me."

She put the tip of the biscotto into her mouth and bit into it slowly.

"Well, I s'ppose if there's one thing we're good at doing," he murmured thickly, "it's gettin' under each other's skin."

She swallowed, smiled, licked a few crumbs off of her cherry red lips.

"Ah well, that's just what we do, isn't it, Cajun," she replied, falsely indifferent. "Get under people's skins. So much so that we don't really know what to do when someone else does it to us. Anyway," she continued, before he could say that he knew exactly what to do to women who ended up getting under his skin, "I came right here that day, and… I think that was the moment I wanted you back. For real."

Her gaze was fixed back on the water. It reminded him that, not so long ago either, he'd committed all Belle's memories to the waves. The freedom he'd felt in that moment had liberated him from his past… but it hadn't brought him any closer to the future he'd wanted, the one with her.

He hoped that was different now.

"Well, I sure am glad you figured out you wanted me when you did," he laughed. "Cos any earlier, and I woulda been unavailable, and any later, and I wouldn't'a trusted myself not to go out lookin' for you m'self."

The statement got the full force of her attention back on him.

"Then I'm glad things happened the way they did," she said, a little awkwardly with the show of honesty. "I… thought about you a lot while I was down in Caldecott, but mostly in ways that hurt a lot." She looked down at her cup. "I don't think I was ready to see you again until that moment."

She wrapped her hands around the cup, but didn't lift it. Whatever she was thinking of seemed to pain her. He had questions he wanted to ask about Caldecott; but he figured they could wait.

"So," she spoke up, with sudden and forced disinterest. "This woman you were with back in London… what was her name?"

He tried not to be amused by this sudden turn of conversation. It made him wonder just how much this had been playing on her mind. He picked up the spoon from his saucer and stirred his coffee with a shrug.

"Her name was Lila." He wasn't sure how much he wanted to elaborate – he'd barely thought about her since getting here, and he was absolutely fine with that. "She was a singer in some band," he finished.

"Oh," she replied, as if to say is that it? "And how long were you together for?"

He shrugged again.

"About a year."

"Oh. A year."

She raised the cup to her lips and drank. She didn't look jealous – of course she had no damn cause to be – but he sensed curiosity. Maybe because a year seemed a long time to her – it did to him, looking back on it. To be committed to someone for that long was certainly not his usual modus operandi. But at the time he'd found Lila hot, and she'd been more than willing to keep his mind off the 'somebody else' he'd been trying to forget at the time. The sex had been good, and he'd genuinely enjoyed her company. She'd had a great voice, played a mean game of poker, and always given back as good she'd got. But then, as time had gone on, those very same things had begun to grate on him. They'd subconsciously ended up being a very, very pale imitation of Anna herself. He'd only been able to admit it to himself after the fact.

"I met her at some bar she was playing at, literally the first week I landed in London," he found himself explaining. "What can I say? I ended up sleepin' with her that night. The week after, I was out drinkin' at some other bar – and there she was again. After she played her set, we got talkin'. She was fun – nice. I liked her a lot." He shrugged. "Things kinda happened from there."

He smiled, licked the spoon, and held her gaze. The look she was levelling him was like the very same look she'd given him the last time they'd been sitting here. Like she could light a fire with those wild green eyes of hers.

"But then, ya know," he carried on, setting the spoon down and tilting the cup so he could look into its velvety depths, "it got old real quick. I am fuckin' terrible relationship material. The reason why I stuck at it so long, chere, is that I didn't even know how the hell to end it. There's a reason I don't tend t'do the serious stuff, Anna. It's 'cos I don't know how to get out when the shit hits the fan."

"So why did you do it in the first place?" she asked him.

"I dunno."

He shrugged, drank.

"And what do you want… from us?" she quizzed him tentatively.

The question brought feelings welling up inside him that were terrifyingly visceral, the dizzy sensation bringing honesty to his mouth far faster than anything else.

"I want a whole load'a things," he answered helplessly. "But if I ask for them, I'm kinda scared I might jinx us."

He almost winced at this uncharacteristic flirtation with the truth. She, however, didn't even bat an eyelid, looked him straight in the eye and said quietly: "Me too."

Aaaand his phone rang.

"It's okay," she murmured with a faint smile. "Answer it."

And she got up and went back to the water, giving him some space.

He exhaled a pent-up breath and answered the phone.

"Jake," he began, annoyed. "I told ya, I'm on vacation. Can't this wait?"

"Hello to you too, Remy," Jacob Gavin Jr. greeted him sarcastically. "Sorry, but I'm just tryin' to verify your flight details, and you aren't answering your texts. So, I figured I might have better luck if I called you."

Bullshit, Remy thought. He knew, instinctively, that Jake knew something was up, that he wanted in on it. Remy's suspicious silence had been enough to get his business partner's expansive imagination working overtime, but Remy had been in no mood to have his precious time with Anna interrupted by anyone.

"I'll text you my flight details," he retorted ungraciously. "Stop worryin' about it."

"Oh, great, so I am picking you up tomorrow then?"

"Yes. You are picking me up, Jake. Anythin' more?"

"Yeah, as it happens. I've left a pile of resumes on your desk, because I'm sick of looking at them. So I hope you're refreshed from this dumb vacation of yours, and ready to do some actual work for a change."

"All right, all right!" Remy blasted back, exasperated. "Fine!"

"Okay, well, text me those details and I'll pick you up tomorrow."

"Yes! Goodbye, Jake!" He almost hung up, when he suddenly remembered something. "Wait – before you go – can you check Ms. Pryde's payment went through? It shoulda gone yesterday mornin', but it won't hurt to check."

"Why can't you do it?"

"Because. I told you. I'm on vacation. Goodbye, Jake."

He ended the call and switched his phone to silent.

Anna was still at the railings, leaning on her elbows, pretending not to have heard a thing. He got up, sidling up beside her and slipping his arm back round her waist.

"Work again?" she asked drily.

"Hmph. Jake's a pain in my ass."

"So why's he your business partner?"

"Heh. Don't get me wrong. He's a snarky li'l bastard and seriously cramps my style, but… all in all, we get along pretty well. He was the one who suggested we get inta business. He does the logistics. I do the…"

"Inventory retrieval?"

He laughed, thumbing the cigarette packet out of his jacket.

"Yeah. Exactly." He shook out a cigarette, popped it into his mouth, and felt for his lighter. "So… If you're ever feelin' 'bored' during your visit, you can always help me out lifitin' some shit for some asshole who's payin' a shit ton o'money."

Her eyes narrowed as she watched him light up.

"Sounds like fun," she said sarcastically.

"Ha. Well it ain't Weapon fuckin'-X, dat's for sure. And I'm glad it ain't."

She said nothing, just watched him suck in a drag and blow it out again slowly. Her silence seemed telling.

"Don't tell me," he said, "you miss all'a dat shit."

Her eyelids flickered. She seemed uncertain.

"No. I don't miss it."

"But?"

"But I don't know if there's anything else I'm good at."

She looked away, down into her hands, suddenly ashamed. Sad. The way she'd always used to look. The expression tugged at him, tightened his chest, made him ache for her in ways he hadn't ached in forever.

"You can be anythin' you wanna be, Anna," he murmured, tenderly touching a white forelock and brushing it back from her face. "That's one thing I know about you."

She was still looking into her hands, a bittersweet smile creasing her lips.

"'Anythin' you wanna be'," she echoed softly. "That's what my momma used to say." She lifted her eyes, looking out to the horizon, trying to remember. "'You're beautiful and clever, Anna-Marie Raven. You can be anyone you wanna be, and don't let a single soul tell you otherwise'." She looked over at him, her smile suddenly watery. "I don't think she could ever have imagined that that's exactly what I would turn out to be. Anyone. Everyone. Everything."

He was silent. It seemed like the perfect time to ask her about the memories she had recovered of her past – but there was a reverence, a sadness to her, that he didn't dare to break.

"There are things – people – in my head that I don't think will ever go away. So many thoughts, emotions… experiences. Things I'll never forget. Ever. There's a part of me that will always be 'anybody'. Sometimes… I used to wonder who I really was. I guess I still do."

This at least was something he could comment on.

"I know who you are, chere," he murmured.

"Do you?" she asked, seemingly troubled by the question.

"Yeah," he answered with certainty. "I do."

He didn't qualify it. He couldn't explain who she was – he just knew he knew.

For a few beats she looked at him, serious, questing, before curling her hands into his lapels and drawing him in a little closer.

"Sometimes I'd wonder what your memories were like," she half-whispered, staring intently at his chest. "Not the memories themselves – though there is that. What I mean is, the flavour of your memories, the texture of them."

Her voice was serious but also somehow sensuous, and it made his pulse quicken and his loins twitch.

"Ya know," she continued softly, "how memories have a taste? A scent? How they feel a certain way when you 'face with them?" She flicked an almost dreamy gaze up to his. "I used to imagine how yours felt. Like… lying twisted in silk sheets and wading through molasses… Like the smoothness of chocolate, and the texture of sun-drenched skin… Sometimes the need to know was unbearable and… … I still wonder, sometimes. I've been wondering a lot the past couple of days."

She put her face into his neck, murmured:

"When I 'face with a memory I never forget it. I never forget the flavour of that person and… I used to wish I'd 'faced with your memories. So that, even if I never saw you again, ever, you'd still be a part of me, somehow. Always."

Her lips were right there against his jugular, and he felt his blood pulse there, right where her breath warmed his skin. Her words were both titillating and yet… frightening. An admission of the desire to connect and conquer, all rolled into one. Engendering the certainty that if she ever ate him up, she'd never spit him out again. He'd be all hers. Inside her. Forever.

The thought unnerved him, thrilled him.

She kissed along the stubbled line of his jaw, and he couldn't wait – he snatched up her mouth like if he kissed her hard enough he could swallow her whole, that she'd never leave him either.

"Get a room!" someone hollered from across the piazza.

Now there was an idea – too bad they'd already checked out of the Worthington that afternoon. The rude intrusion was enough to get them to break apart – mere inches, since they weren't quite done with one another yet – and laugh coyly at the moment. He rested his forehead against hers and whispered: "Y'know, there's some really classy place a couple of blocks from here that charges by the hour..."

She pouted cynically up at him, joking:

"Trust you to know all the 'classy' joints round here."

"You know I do. You game? 'Cos you know I'm always ready for you, chere."

She looked like she needed a little convincing, so he kissed her again just to make sure she was on track, bestowing her with the kind of toe-curling kiss that had convinced many lesser women. With her, however, he still wasn't sure whether such seductions would ever be enough.

"All right, Cajun," she said breathlessly when it was over. "I'm game." She pushed away from his chest with both palms, making a little space between them that he immediately ached to bridge. "Just let me finish up something here first."

She turned back to the railings, and suddenly he saw there was a mem-chip in her hand. He knew instinctively what it was – and what she was going to do with it. The memories on that thin sliver of plastic and silicone rose like a tide in his mind – the things that, until now, had kept him going through all their months apart. Something took him, and just as she was about to throw it into the water, he jerked forward, his hand snapping round her wrist, stopping her.

"Non."

It was all he could get out, hoarse, urgent. When she looked up at him, it was the first time he saw real anger on her face since he'd got here.

"Why not?" she asked. Her voice was testy; and he struggled with feelings he'd never put into words before.

"You're on there," he tried to explain, knowing it sounded inadequate.

"I know," she said. "And I want... I need to let it go."

He hesitated. He'd stood here 14 months ago with Belle's memories and done the exact same thing, and it had felt so, so right. But Belle had been a dead thing, and...

Anna had already taken his silence as permission. Wrenching her wrist from his grasp, she moved back to the balustrade – and he only just about caught her in time.

"Don't, Anna."

This time she was unmistakeably pissed.

"It ain't your call to make, Remy."

But it was – at least partially.

"It was a gift," he murmured quietly. "Your gift, chere. To me."

Her brow cleared – just a little.

"You gave it back to me, Remy."

He knew, but... …

God, those memories had been so special to him. Didn't she see that?

"You talk about the flavour of mem'ries, Anna," he murmured, his heart caught in his throat. "And yours is on there. Everythin' you were and are. Just... your joy, your pain, your despair, your loneliness... And at the end – your warmth." He felt embarrassed by it – by his tenderness – it was more than warmth he'd felt in that final memory of hers, but he didn't want to say it. He feared what it might mean to do so.

"I don't remember memories, not the way you do," he continued, flushed with the heat of his confession. "I don't store them the way you do, not forever. Wit' time, they fade."

"That's how all memories should be," she whispered; but he shook his head.

"They don't have to be anymore, not wit' the mem-tech."

He was dancing around a fact, a feeling, and she knew it.

"What are you trying to say?" she asked.

He looked down, at his hand on her wrist. He was painfully conscious of how much it hurt to say it. If you're gone... If I lose you... This is the only way I'll get you back. The only way I'll get back the fact that you ever loved me.

"When a thing is over," she told him, at least partially reading his mind, "it's best to just let it go; to forget it."

She looked so damn certain, when he knew that what she was saying was really nothing more than a platitude. He wanted to tell her that humans aren't meant to let things go. That they can only let things go when there's something meaningful to replace the things they've lost. It was a truth he knew intimately now.

"You don't believe that," he said. "Tell me right now that's what you felt when you lost Cody, and I'll let you toss the thing."

There was a look on her face that, for a half a moment, made him think she would actually push him aside and do exactly that. But she didn't. Slowly, the cloud lifted from her face… and a small, wry smile actually began to touch her lips. She lowered her hand, and, apparently having changed her mind, she pulled open the front pocket of his shirt with a fingernail, and dropped the chip inside.

"What…?" he began, but she gave him a meaningful look and said:

"You obviously still want this."

"No." He took the chip back out of his pocket and held it out to her. "I don't. It's yours. Just… don't throw it, 'kay?" Her expression was quizzical, and he continued: "If I ever need it again… I'll find it."

"You mean you'll steal it?"

"If it comes to it, you know I will," he half-joked, though his mind – his heart – was in another place. He didn't think she realised just what she had given him in recording those memories. Hell – a part of him still hadn't really processed it yet himself.

"All right," she said, suddenly good-natured. She took the chip from him and slipped it into her coat pocket. She put her hand in his and went back to the table, drinking the rest of her coffee in one long, un-lady-like swig. "Now," she declared, turning and planting her hands firmly into the back pockets of his pants, "where's this 'classy place' you were talking about?"

-oOo-

Earlier that morning, while Anna had still been blissfully asleep in the Worthington's king-sized bed, he'd gone back to the place that had once been his home, his prison.

The Empharma building, once so tall and proud and stately, had now been nothing more than a cordoned off building site, alive with the sounds of clanging metal, bulldozers beeping, men hollering. He'd stood on the outside looking in, only a fence between him and the past, him and the thing he'd left behind. Empharma was gone, razed to the ground – something else was being built in its place.

Fittin', don't'cha think? he'd thought to himself.

Funny – there'd been so much light, now that there was no monolithic tower to cast its shadow over him. He'd never realised before how much of it had been blocked out. He'd stood there and wondered about Essex – wondered whether he'd managed, by some miraculous twist of fate, to escape. Whether all those mem-chips they'd fought so hard for had been left in the rubble for someone else to pick up, or had been pulverised to dust.

He'd found, all in all, that he didn't really care either way.

The feeling had been liberating.

He'd walked away without once looking back; back to Anna, still curled up and sleeping, in bed.

She was sleeping now.

Lightly snoozing for the final few hours before their flight.

He rolled over slightly and brushed the sweat-slickened white locks from her cheek, just content to look at her when he was done.

He'd seen her through the eyes of others before – through the memories of Emma Frost, who'd looked down on her, a barely teenaged girl lying in Weapon X's medbay, with such a violent sense of disdain and – yes – jealousy. Emma's feelings had been so visceral; words had bubbled up in her consciousness as she'd looked at her – ugly, awkward, unattractive little redneck hick! – and yet what he saw now was something so completely different – the thing they had made her to be – elegant, sophisticated, graceful, powerful, clever. Beautiful – but that was something they could never have made her to be. She'd always been that – ungainly, perhaps, as a child – but never the ugly thing Dr. Frost had imagined her to be. She'd only ever been like any other lost, neglected kid. And Dr. Frost's disgust… it couldn't colour what he felt for her now. The admiration, attraction, he'd always felt for her, that had deepened into something so much stronger.

Love.

He was okay with saying it now. He was okay with admitting that truth. The last couple of days had made him unafraid. It seemed impossible to him that this could ever end.

It was like she could hear his thoughts. As soon as they'd passed his mind, she began to wake up, her eyes fluttering open and fixing him dreamily.

"Mmm, how long was I out?" she asked him in that sexy, just-woken-up drawl he loved so much.

"About an hour," he replied, glancing over her shoulder at the clock on the nightstand. "You wanna shower, chere, you better do it now. We'll need t'leave for the airport soon."

"Mmmmmm." She gave a satisfied purr and snuggled in closer against his naked body. "I'm sure we can afford to be fashionably late. We are flying first class after all. And if not… then I'm sure you and I can charm another couple of tickets outta the powers that be, between the two of us."

She slipped a hand between them, wrapping a fist round him and stroking him languidly.

"You're insatiable, y'know that, chere?" he rumbled, half-aroused, half-amused. Her answer was a wicked grin, as she worked his body with growing intent.

"Like I said," she whispered, "I've been workin' myself up on the memory of you these past few months, and now that you're here… …"

She pleasured him a few moments before, before rolling him onto his back and straddling him all in one movement. A shift, a wiggle of her ass; and suddenly he was sliding right up deep inside of her, as far as he could go.

She pressed her hands into his chest and moved her hips just so, making him suck in a breath and exhale a strangled moan. She felt so good. So damn good.

"So what you wan' do when we get to London, hm, chere?" he asked her, digging his fingers into her backside for purchase as he effortlessly matched her pace.

"Oh, I don't know," she murmured back languorously, her accent drifting in and out of its native state. "I wanna try anythin' and everythin' with you. I'm sure you'll think of somethin' to keep me occupied…"

"Maybe you're the one," he said, moving a hand to cup her breast as she began to work herself harder against him, "who'll be keepin' me occupied."

She laughed, the sound bubbling up from her throat, deep and rich.

"Remy, sugar… For every move I make, ya somehow manage to turn it right back round on me…"

He couldn't deny that one. And just to make the point he rolled her right over onto her back, sinking himself into her so deep that she cried out loud with pleasure.

"And vice versa…" he ground out roughly, hovering right there over her, letting her feel him, all of him…

"And vice versa…" she agreed, snaking her legs around him and impelling him deeper. Until this point he hadn't thought he could get any further inside her than he had already, but God… …

The breath was locked up so tight inside his chest that he was literally seeing stars; and for a little moment, he thought he'd blacked out, until her fingernails dug into his shoulder blades and the pain brought him to. She was whimpering, like he was hurting her, like he was pleasing her, so damn sexy it made his heart swell and the breath burst from his lungs.

And her legs were winding tighter and tighter around him, and fuck, if he went any deeper he didn't think he'd get out…

He leaned in over her, meeting her eyes, that steely green gaze that had snared him so effortlessly the first time he'd seen them, and…

"God, I love you," he found himself saying, his heart crashing in his chest… and she raised her lips to his, kissing him once, twice, briefly but passionately, whispering:

"I love you too…"

And there they were.

The words he'd been waiting so damn long to hear, without even knowing it.

He kissed her once more, with all the feeling he'd once buried deep. Years and years of aimless wandering and he'd finally come home. He'd found his home in her, the woman he'd collided so unceremoniously with, and who had, somehow, never really walked away.

-oOo-

The first-class airport lounge was bathed in a soft, golden light, the atmosphere gloriously tranquil, alive with the subtle scent of lilies and the susurrating sound of running water.

Remy sat on the cream leather couch, his gaze drawn across the marble floor to Anna, standing by the ceiling-length windows, talking animatedly into her cell phone. He could tell, from the exuberance of her gestures and the smile on her face, that she was talking to Katherine. Dieu, she looked so damn beautiful, framed by the vast expanse of black on the other side of the glass; like some ethereal goddess.

He lifted the cigarette to his lips and grinned smugly to himself.

This fucking gorgeous woman was his, all his, and it made him insanely happy. He reckoned he had it made right now. How many other men could say their woman was as easy on the eyes, amazing in the sack, witty and intelligent and great to talk to, and just such a darn perfect match all-round? He didn't think there were many.

Her call evidently finished, Anna shut off her phone and walked back over to him, her stride confident, her perfectly curled hair bouncing to the rhythm of her movements. He tilted his head and smiled wryly at her approach. She looked happy – radiant. He hoped it was because of him.

"Oh my Gawd!" she exclaimed as she rejoined him, dropping down into the space next him – so damn close it made his heart sing – and slinging an arm easily over his shoulders. "That gal is nothin' but trouble!"

He blew smoke aside and laughed amusingly at her.

"What? She still askin' for details of the incredible time we've spent boning each other the past couple of days?"

Anna hadn't admitted to him as such that that was what Katherine had been up to, but he'd known it was what the bulk of their conversations had been about. He knew it could hardly be about anything else.

"Hmph." She looked away, flushing slightly – all the way from her cheeks to her breasts, peeking so perkily from the front of her vanilla yellow chiffon blouse. "She may have been."

"And what did you tell her, ma chere?" he asked, wanting to know. She pouted at him, merely to cover a smile, twisted closer into him, and ran her hand up and over the inside of his knee.

"I told her to mind her own darn business," she replied peevishly.

"What?" He pretended to look disappointed. "Ya mean you didn't tell her how fuckin' amazin' I am at goin' down on you, chere? 'Cos I know how much you love it when I do…"

She leaned in and bit his lip, just to shut him up, only to end up sucking it into her mouth and kissing him in the end anyway.

"Some of us don't want our sex lives gettin' out to all and sundry," she reprimanded him silkily when they were done, just a hair's breadth away from another kiss. For a split second he thought she'd make good on another one; but instead she turned away from him, declaring loudly, "Now where the hell is that perfume you got me?"

He watched her rummaging through the pile of bags around her, quirking an eyebrow at her sudden interest in something other than him.

"Which one, mon amour?" he asked her lazily, taking another drag. He'd been quite happy to lavish her with all sorts of luxurious goodies from duty-free – anything she'd even so much as taken a vague interest in, he'd bought for her. It was silly, and she'd told him off for it, but he wanted to please her. Appeasing her shockingly expensive tastes seemed too obvious a way to pass up – even if he knew Jake would tear him a new one for purchasing nearly everything on the company account.

He was waiting – just so darn gleefully waiting – for Jake to work everything out. For him to figure out that he'd found Anna again, after all this time.

Because he knew he'd talked to Jake about her once, the night he'd broken up with Lila. Jake had taken him to the nearest bar, and he'd got completely wasted. The morning after, he hadn't remembered much in the haze of a hangover he'd subsequently suffered, but… he'd known he'd talked about her. Possibly a lot.

Jake's gonna love her, he's gonna LOVE HER, he thought giddily to himself, because he really couldn't see how anyone couldn't.

"This is it!" Anna exclaimed, having rummaged through the sea of bags for several seconds and finally found what she was looking for. She turned to him, a bright pink bottle in her hand, a triumphant look on her face. "This is the one I actually wanted!"

"You mean you didn't want the other ones?" he asked, but she appeared not to have heard him, opening up the stopper and spraying a little on the inside of her wrist. She lifted her hand to let him have a whiff. "Whaddaya think?"

Her voice was soft and silvery, seductive. She wanted to give him every chance to admire her, to drown his senses in her, and… he was only too happy to oblige. Stubbing out his cigarette on the nearby ashtray, he grasped her forearm gently, drew her wrist closer. Her skin smelled of exotic fruit and flowers, like something he could eat up.

"You smell delicious," he murmured, and he pressed his lips against her wrist and kissed her slowly, his tongue brushing against the scar there.

The smile dropped from her face; but she didn't move her arm away. Instead she watched him as he ran his tongue across the line of the scar, like he could lick it all away. He couldn't help it. There were things he wanted to take from her – the pain, the suffering, the hurts – all the memories that she'd given him and that he was powerless to save her from.

When he was done he kissed her wrist, put her hand back in her lap. For a long, lingering moment they sat there, fingers curled together, her expression suddenly sombre, eyes on his like she wanted to say something and—

"The 10:30 flight to London Heathrow is now ready to board from Gate 30," the dulcet tones of a female employee sounded over the intercom, breaking the moment.

Anna took her hand back, suddenly all smiles again.

"That'll be us, darlin'," she said, in an endearing tone of both shyness and exuberance. She got to her feet and snatched at some of the bags, then her case – it was small, light, compact.

Y'know, she'd told him, when she'd thrown everything she'd owned into that small little case. This is how I've always travelled. You jettison the old, bring along only what you need… and wherever you land, you start anew.

It was the way he'd always travelled too. But suddenly it seemed so lonely, so forlorn. What he wanted now – in this present where things were so very different, so full of hope – was more of the things that they could have together.

He picked up what was left of their purchases and followed her towards the glittering green mesh of the neural scanner. She looked back at him with a smile; and he caught up, leaning in to kiss her as they walked on through, two fake names on two fake passports – Robert Lord and Marie D'Ancanto – off on yet another whirlwind trip.

Remy LeBeau and Anna Raven, starting a new life, together.

-END-