So...I finished this up not too long ago, but I haven't got the Internet at my disposal at my new home. But, I'm offering this up to the faithful still there, and hoping it satisfies. It's the first fic I've finished in a while.

Thanks :) And special thanks to CaptMacKenzie, peppymint, anaer, and Skreech for the enthusiasm and reviews.

Edit: Sorry about the formatting issue, guys. I didn't realise it and was in a rush when I originally posted.


[PART FIVE]

-momma-said-like-the-rain-(this-too-shall-pass)-

Roxanne Delacroix, no longer Alix, found herself falling into the shadier side of New Orleans quite quickly and quite easily. There were many shadows to find outside the neon glow of the signs through the French Quarter. And so, not only did she find people who took her up on her quiet, lash-fluttering offerings, she also became part of the community of the same. It was normalcy, of the dysfunctional sort.

Until two weeks later, she heard a word that sent her stock-still for a moment.

"You're a mutant."

The woman looked like a normal human, but a lot of mutants did, Darcy had found. She herself looked normal – well, except for the cheetah-like rosettes covering her whip-lean body (easily-enough concealed, even if it did get sweaty wearing long sleeves in the summer), her claw-like nails (easily camouflaged) and yellow cat-eyes (sunglasses, hello). Ford, her little tagalong, was normal-looking, too, all gangly and tousled towheaded. He could sense other mutants, though.

"You're a mutant!" Ford blurted at the woman, whom Darcy reckoned was as homeless as them, and probably a prostitute, though she didn't like to pass judgment like that. Ford lacked a filter something terrible. Darcy slapped her forehead as the woman jolted and froze in shock. Why she tagged along with him. If he wasn't like a son…

"Ford!"

"She is."

Slowly, the woman turned about, sharp hazel eyes wide and haunted, taking them in. "Excusez-moi?"

"A mutant. Whaddya do?" Ford asked conversationally. "All I can do is tell that y' are. Darce here looks like a wildcat and I know a lotta other people who do pretty far out things. What do you do?"

The haunted look in the woman's eyes faded more into bewilderment. "Really, I'm not—"

Darcy cuffed Ford upside the head and took control of the conversation. "Honey, there's a lotta us, 'specially in a place like N'awlins. We're known for freaks." She slid down her sunglasses, and winked a slit-pupiled, yellow-gold eye. "Now, I excuse Ford here's lack of tact and basic social skills"—a pointed look in the twenty-year-old's direction— "but don't be scared. We're a family out here in the streets, us muties. Come by Della Rae's and she'll set ya up if ya ain't got a place to sleep. Ya can pass at the shelter, which is a blessing, honey – but if they find ya out, they don't play fair, honey."

Roxanne took in the information, mouth still slightly agape in disbelief. "Oh… Okay?"

The older woman shook her head and looked heavenward with a scoff. "Well, damn. Ford ain't got no manners and neither do I, ramblin' at ya." She extended a long-nailed hand. She wore fingerless gloves. "Darcy. Whatcha name, honey?"

"Rox – Roxanne."

"Roxi. Alright, then. Sorry 'bout that ambush. Pro'ly scared the hell outta ya, yellin' things like that at night to a stranger. We'll be along. Just remember, the streets ain't the safest place, I'm sure ya know. Della Rae's is up toward Tremé, 'tween Iberville and Lafitte – take St Louis. If ya know the Cemetery, y'know the area. Just ask. It ain't the lights and sounds of the Quarter, but it's a roof over ya head, honey, and no questions."

With a wave, and Ford's pout, the two continued on, leaving Roxanne stunned and off-kilter.

Mutant.

He had used that word, describing what she could do, implying that it wasn't quite as freak of a happenstance as she had taken it for. But to be face-to-face told that? By at least one person who did look quite out-of-the-ordinary? What world had she slipped into?

Roxanne trembled, on the verge of tears. What had happened to her fucked-up normal life? When did being a mutant come into play, and why did it seem to mean such awful things? She looked like everyone else – hell, she had thought she was just like everyone else, just a little better at getting her way. She wrapped her arms about herself, feeling the hard rise of the life inside her – the life he had put there. Surely it was a mutant, too.

The bile rose suddenly and she barely could turn away from the street before she was vomiting all over the sidewalk. As soon as dry heaves hit, she wondered down into the alley, away from eyes that saw her as nothing more than a pretty, helpless drunk. She didn't want to feel their shock and disgust and pity. She didn't want to feel the darker passing feelings of wanting to take advantage of her state.

The bricks scraped against her back as she slid down, knees drawn up toward her chest, making herself as small as possible. She closed her eyes and focused with all her might on shutting herself off as much as she had been casting herself out since escaping the catacombs.

Long moments passed with Roxanne simply rocking herself side to side, trying not to "feel." Finally, the emotions faded, like throwing water on chalk lines and she gathered herself together. She needed to find a restroom to rinse her mouth out at and needed to find a…"suitor" to take her home for the night. The air had changed and it felt like rain.

She used the restroom at the bar up the corner from the alley she'd disappeared into. Going back onto the neon-lit street, she set to attempt part two of her plan, which a large palm tightly gripped her shoulder.

"Now, 'ey there, sweetheart. Whatcha doin' wanderin' int' dives like dat in the middle a th' night all alone, now? Ain't safe for such a pretty woman." A lecherous, nicotine-stained and rot-gapped smile within his grizzled dark beard underscored the last statement.

Roxanne tried to pull away as unassumingly as possible, but the burly man only gripped tighter, coming round to take her other shoulder, his dark brown eyes boring into her, up and down her.

"Where ya goin', sweetheart? C'mon, now. Don't act like I don' know that you know that I know…'xactly why someone like you is out like this, huh?"

Pretence of trying to slip away was given up and Roxanne openly struggled against his grip. She lapsed into French, her own words adding to her sudden panic. "Me libérer, me libérer!" Her fists thumped against his broad chest inefficaciously.

"Whoa-ho-ho. Preddy little minx's gotta preddy li'l accent t' go with it, eh, Mike?"

Roxanne eyes widened in horror. There was another man and she hadn't felt him. …She had shut herself down and let herself open to such a moment as this, and it's inevitable conclusion. She hadn't sensed him. So stupid – so, so stupid…

Like flicking a switch, Roxanne surprised herself by how quickly she took off the mental dampener on her "ability." And it was like flipping it all the way to "high" – she felt everyone, and the two men before her had such dark, driven minds they threatened to drown her.

No. Not like this.

Roxanne threw her hands against the man's chest and much like she had with the shop storeboy in Paris, projected at the man with all her might – and what she mentally threw at him were his own suffocatingly lecherous emotions. As he reeled back in shock, but hands still upon her shoulders, she remedied that impediment by kneeing up, and sending him to his own knees.

And then she ran like hell.

She was small and easily darted between the tourist throngs and across the streets. The men evidently gave up quickly, because within five minutes after she began her mad dash, she couldn't hear their exclamations of "Catch that li'l bitch!" anymore.

Roxanne only stopped though when her ankle threatened to give. She stopped to catch her breath, gain her bearings. She'd only been here almost a month and still didn't know much of the city intuitively. But she found herself at a corner, and she laughed aloud as she saw the cross street: St Louis. "Take St Louis," the cat-like mutant woman had told her earlier. Seems so she would. She took a step out to read the street she herself was on. Rue Royal. Roxanne knew enough to know that Royal wasn't too far up from the river, and Tremé was not near the river. Rue Bourbon – the street she had come from, was in the right direction. She started down St Louis, and when she passed Bourbon, she kept on.

The Cemetery seemed huge as she walked past it, the first drops of rain plopped heavily in her windswept hair. For a moment, she just stood and looked into it, until she picked up on a person walking near. The person felt like a sunny disposition, but wary, whoever they were, and she was going to probably unnerve them further.

"Hello?" she called across the street. The figure stopped. "Do you know—"

"Hey!" the person pushed back their hood to reveal the bright face and flaxen hair of the boy Ford from earlier. "Girl from Bourbon Street!" He waved her over enthusiastically. "C'mon, I'll show ya Della's."

Della Rae Martinique was a buxom lady, with a motherly, warm round face and a red kerchief over her hair.

"Ford, I done tolt cha: Don't be bringin' me in no more strays now, li'l boy," were the first words out of her mouth as Ford approached through the large kitchen, out of the rain, Roxanne in tow. Her words were punctuated with jabs of a wooden spoon in the air, back still to them.

"Don' mind Della – bark's worse than her bite and all," Ford said in a stage whisper.

"I'ma show you a 'worse bark than my bite,'" ranted Della in response as she turned about. "Well come in, girl. Don't just hide back there like a wallflower."

Roxanne stepped forward, chin tilted up. It was her default stance when she felt people were judging her.

Della's brown eyes took her in, head to toe and back, and she tutted as she came forward. The girl was a bit rain-soaked, a bit scrawny, with vibrant auburn hair and the prettiest hazel eyes. While she lacked a well-kept lustre, there was a glow to her, and Della noticed how she kept her arms crossed with her shawl pulled round her. Girl probably thought she was disguising how she was showing, but she actually brought attention to it.

"Alright, bébé, letcha guard down a bit; I ain't gonna turn ya away." She put a reassuring hand on Roxanne's shoulder, and no matter how she knew the woman had a warm disposition and meant no ill to her, Roxanne still flinched. Della's eyes softened and she dropped her hand, stepping back.

"Now, whatcha name, honey-chile and whatcha need?"

"My name is Roxanne."

"That's a right pretty accent ya got, Roxanne. Ain' so southern as to be from round down heah, but definitely French, huh?" When Roxanne offered no comment, Della raised an eyebrow, but inclined her head in deference to the girl's privacy. The people who lived under her roof had plenty they wanted to be secretive about, from where they'd come from, their names, their abilities. Hell, there was a girl here and she only knew the poor child's name because she had had it Sharpied on her tattered backpack.

"And…Ford and Darcy tell me I could stay here?"

"She's a mutant, too!" interjected Ford.

Della shook her head. "Done told you that ain't criteria to stay, boy."

"It helps," he muttered.

"G'on now – ain'tcha got somethin' t' get up to? Go on, little boy. This is womenfolk talk, now."

Roxanne couldn't help but smile as Della swatted him out of the kitchen with her spoon and came back and escorted Roxanne to the table.

"Nosy little runt." Della shook her head, but had a motherly smile upon her face. "Now child, I don't need t' know much to letcha stay. I don't ask f' rent, but if ya'll contribute, I appreciate it." Once again, she eyed Roxanne up and down and she felt the surge of…concern, she thought, emanate from Della. "Y' look like ya know the streets, dear. Y' ain't got to no more. An' I don't wantcha to feel ya gotta do that to contribute. But I encourage ya – Lord I sound like I'm tryin' t' be ya momma." Della put her hand over Roxanne's upon the table, hovering but not touching. Roxanne caught her gaze in appreciation of the gesture.

Della continued, "I ain't gon' tell ya how to live, bébé. But I got an idea that ya've gotta reason t' want t' do better." She gave her a pointed look.

It suddenly burst forth from Roxanne, the sudden tears and sobs. Della was either unfazed or recovered quickly and came round and took her up in a hug. "Now, bébé, come now. Shush, shush." She rocked her back and forth and the sobs kept coming. "Whatever it is ya runnin' from, y' got a home now, baby. You and y' baby."

The keening wail at that told Della exactly what she needed to know. "Oh, honey." This girl had some things going on all right, and this baby she tried to hide was a good deal of it. "Poor chile. Shush, shush. …C'mon, darlin'. Lemme putcha up in a room f' the night. You come down in th' mornin' and we'll talk. 'Bout whatever – anything an' everythin', y' hear? But y' need some rest, honey. Come on."

She took Roxanne to a room on the ground floor, near her own/office. "Lay y' head, chile. Tomorrow's a new day."

Roxanne nodded, hardly seeing anything through her hot tears. Della guided her down and tucked her in, taking her shawl. Roxanne didn't care; she had stolen it off a chair outside a café, anyway. She cried herself to sleep as this woman she just met watched over her, a guardian in her new life she had desperately needed.


Della Martinique wasn't a mutant herself, but she liked to do what she could to help the misfortunate of the New Orleans streets – as many as she could, anyway, and mutants were a disproportionate amount.

Mutants were people with "abilities" or attributes that made them distinctive from the rest of the general population. And just as varied as the common human was ("flat-scans" or "frails" were the more derisive term for "normal" humans, Roxanne learned; "muties" and the generic "freak" of course, for mutants), mutants had even more variance. It was as if you took anything upon the earth and that your mind could imagine, and that was the range of what mutant abilities and appearances were.

Roxanne also, at Della's insistence, had gone to the free clinic. She went through it mechanically, and it always took a couple of hours for her to come back to herself afterward. Della had voiced her concern the first couple of visits, but Roxanne eventually had gathered herself enough to tell her that it was something that she couldn't discuss and Della left it at that.

The months passed, and Roxanne fell into an actual normal life. A bed to come home to – a home to come to. A job – she had started to work as a waitress at a small café in the Quarter – her first real job. (Of course, she had sort of…"charmed" her way into it, but other than her personal information, she worked hard and true.) …A family, of sorts, even. And soon, a child.

She didn't know how she felt about that. Thankfully, her days of breaking down spontaneously at the serious contemplation of the fact that come October, she would give birth to something that a madman had implanted within her had passed. She had instead repressed that little detail (whether that was healthy or not), and was adjusting to the idea that she would soon be giving birth to a life inside her. A little life that was her responsibility.

And most likely, also a mutant.

It was when she recalled that, that memories of how the child had come to be threatened. She hoped it was innocent. Was it truly just her child, or was it considered a creation? Would it be like him?

She didn't know. She would just take it day by day.


October 1st was the day she delivered her baby. And as the local mutant-friendly midwife handed her the swaddled baby, she realised that he ("A boy, chère – y' gotchaself a baby boy!") was indeed a mutant.

"Mon Dieu. Il a des yeux comme le Diable," she whispered under her breath. Horrible, but true: Burning red eyesset in black squinted up at her between a button nose and a cap of hair that still was the colour of dried blood. The hair, though, testified he was hers, with his red hair like his mother's. …But his eyes – they testified to what she had told herself deep down, but never voiced: this child was her punishment. She had borne the Devil's child.

She closed her eyes and crossed herself…but held the baby tight. As she opened her eyes again, the baby looked up at her in what seemed like wonder, little rosebud mouth opening and closing. Not a scream, just…sweet and quiet and…

Hers.

He might have been forced upon her, some weird experiment that she couldn't wrap her mind about, but he was still part of her. Her son. She had just had him. This baby…he was a defenceless child that he had wanted to create for his own purposes and would have done heavens knew what to.

Whatever she made have thought against this baby, she couldn't find it in herself to leave him left to a world where he might find him. Not when she recalled it was this child's aura that had kept her near-sane in her captivity. She couldn't deny that.

Even so…the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Roxanne figured she was already damned, so what was the harm in trying to do something good?

Two weeks before Halloween, two weeks after she had had the child, she left the baby on the steps of St Louis Cathedral, and waited in the shadows. Churches took in children. Would they take in the Devil's child, though? Non, you foolish fille. They aren't going to take him in. …But still she held an irrational hope. It would be things better all the way around. She wouldn't have the reminder of the mad doctor, and the child would have guardians.

Unsurprisingly, it went as she had logically expected it to.

The priest picked up the squirming bundle, looking around for any sign of the person who had left it. There was a moment of awe and pity, of course, as he focused back on the child. And then the blanket was gently lifted back from over the baby's face.

There were a lot of Latin cries and genuflecting, and the baby was hastily put back where it had been found, almost dropped. The priest disappeared back within the sanctuary of his church, rosary clutched tight. Roxanne swept forward as soon as the priest was out of sight (though she could still hear the man's alarmed cries about the Devil's own child being at the door) and gathered up her child, hurrying away into the night.

As she headed back toward Della's, she looked down at the little bundle, who hadn't once made a sound. So quiet, so accepting.

"Guess I'm stuck with you, mon enfant. You are my bébé, after all." She sighed heavily, knowing it sounded resigned – and it was. She shook her head. He was her penance.

A little hand tugged on a coil of her hair and she looked back at him. Just a little baby. He didn't know anything of what had just happened, of why she had felt the need to. Maybe…she could live with the fact he was her son.

Time would tell. Time would tell.

As she came through the back door into the kitchen, Della eyed her from where she sat sipping chicory coffee at the table. Sometimes, she could swear that woman knew everything, mutant or not.

Della shook her head. "I seen you carryin' this kid 'round like he's a parcel f' delivery ever since y' had 'im. …How 'bout y' make the poor chile a real boy and give 'im a name, heh, honey-chile?"

She hadn't. They had asked, and she'd replied she was thinking about it. Roxanne sat down at the table, baby in her lap, babbling.

Make him a real boy, Della said. She didn't realise how true the words were – or maybe, since it was Della, she did. Damned woman. She knew how to make a point.

"Remy," Roxanne finally whispered. She had sworn to the heavens she would, and so did. Remy Delacroix.

Della came over and caressed the boy's wispy auburn hair and put an arm about Roxanne. "How ya doin' then, li'l Remy?"


(The lyric in the page break is from "Momma Sed" by Puscifer.)