[PART SIX]

-precious-and-fragile-things-/-need-special-handling-

(A year and a half later)

"Hey, bébé! Comment ça va? Eh?"

"Maman!" On unsteady legs, the little boy ran in an adorable waddle over to her. Roxanne swept up her son and kissed his freckled nose.

"Merci, Della, for watching him."

"Y' say that every day, girl, and I ain't complained 'bout it, so stop thankin' me. 'S what family does," snapped Della good-naturedly. She looked up from the linens she had been folding (and that Remy had tried to build a fort out of) over to the young woman. Just more than a year and Roxanne Delacroix was a whole different person from the fragile and defiant girl whom had showed up in Della's kitchen. It was interesting how the world worked – funny how things turned out if you gave them a chance, guided them. She had thought for sure at some points she was just housing a ticking time bomb, or that once Roxanne had the baby, she would up and split and leave him behind – especially given his red eyes. But she had embraced him finally, and blossomed with it. The girl didn't even stay at Della's boarding house anymore.

Roxanne kissed the toddler's forehead. "Ready to go home, bébét?" She had held her job steady at the café in the Quarter and had rented (with a bit of her emotional sway gilding the deal) a little apartment outside the Garden District. Third floor, with a balcony outside. A dream home – for this dream that was somehow her reality.

"Home, home," Remy giggled. He'd grown up quick, she felt. She could just remember how small he had been, wrapped in blankets when she had tried to leave him on the cathedral steps. It seemed so long ago. Somewhere the boy had gone from being a creature to her cross to bear to the little boy whom had her wrapped about his tiny little fingers. He was talking – as much as any year-and-a-half old child "talks" – and wobbling about. He wanted to run before he walked. It had taken a lot of falls and just hauling him up and slowing him down to get through that he simply would not accomplish that without walking first. (He gave it a good go, though.) His bright red-brown hair, all flyaways and cowlicks, framed his face that hardly ever a frown graced. And his red eyes, well, they never changed. And she had come to terms with it.

She had found her grounding force in this life, and come more into herself and her nature as a mutant, as well as an almost-regular woman and mother.

"Don't forget 'em." A tiny pair of sunglasses was waved in the air in one hand as Della, multitasking as always, tutted over a tiny shoeprint on a gingham blue sheet in the other.

"Mer—"

"You 'mercy' me again, and I'ma make you think merci. Now, g'on. Little boy needs time with his mama, away from all these hooligans and a crotchety old woman. Git."

"Oui See you Monday, Della."


Roxanne wasn't lost on the irony of the fact she rather hated tourists. She also hated drunks. And drunken tourists. She got that she was a pretty woman – she'd known that all her life, and used to work it. With motherhood, an even more alluring glow evidently had graced her.

She wanted to kick everyone who commented on it squarely between the legs. Mainly, because most were lecherous bastards. And their advances ranged from annoying to invasive and quite frightening. As she made her way home from a double shift at the café, she had the maddening prickle of the hairs on the back of her neck stand up, her ambient radar of emotions sharpening on lascivious lust emanating from someone nearby – rather strongly, but odd. Instead of something crystalline – well, crystalline as a focused thought could seem, it felt more mercurial, murky.

Not thinking, she cut suddenly right, down an alleyway. Too late, she looked up and realised in her distraction she had chosen a dead end. Merde, merde, merde. Roxanne continued to walk, eyes frantically darting side to side to see if a way of escape lay about.

"Hey, honey!" came a call from behind her.

"What's a fine-lookin' lady doin' walkin' alone this time a night?" came another.

And that would explain the strength of the feeling, why it felt off. There was more than one person pursuing her – four persons, she saw as she turned about.

"Fuck," she spat quietly. Stiffening her stance, Roxanne stood tall, chin defiantly pointed.

"Ain'tcha a pretty little catch," murmured a third man, short, scruffy and lanky in build, like a humanised ferret.

Sure, Roxanne thought. And I don't have a desire to catch anything from or for you. The men moved surreptitiously forward, crowding Roxanne – crowding her senses. She doesn't even notice herself backing away, overwhelmed, until her back hits the wall and she emits a sharp gasp of shock.

Automatically, she lunges to run, and a harsh hand seizes her shoulder and throws her back against the wall. "Now, why, ya ain't even said thank ya for the compliments, miss." It's the second voice, the one that had inquired into her late night trek alone – the most salacious mind of the bunch, and evidently the leader, from how the other three have fallen back.

"Now we said," repeated the man, face in Roxanne's, "that it's curious for a nice-lookin' gal such as yourself t' be wanderin' about at this time a night, and it's rude t' not at least pay thanks when a gentleman compliments a li'l tamale such as yaself." His hand tightened about her shoulder, thumb bruising against her collarbone, and then slid into her hair as his other hand pawed at her.

Roxanne yanked herself against his grip, mind whirling, but the fist in her hair only tightened. "Let go of me, connard!" she cried, throwing out an elbow.

The man turned, not letting go of his grip, so that her blow was only glancing. He sniggered. "Think I hafta say no t' that, ma'am." His buddies laughed as he leant in to kiss her. Roxanne stubbornly turned her head away, wet lips sliding across her chilled cheek, making her skin crawl as much as her mind was. She pushed mentally at him, but unfortunately the effect was lost as he backhanded her for turning away, breaking her concentration. As he gripped her chin to hold her face in place for his second attempt, all she could feel and emote was fear: her fear and panic.

"No, don't—" Roxanne couldn't see, her welling tears blinding her.

"Step away fr'm the woman!" A strident, authoritative baritone cut through the moment. The man looked over…

…and was caught neatly in the jaw by the swift sweep of a black lacquered cane.

"Holy shit," Roxanne heard one of the men whisper – the ferret, she thought.

"It's the Patriarch!"

"Git!" The possessor of that striking baritone and cane evidently was of import; Roxanne watched from her knees through streaming eyes as the men scattered at the curt command.

As the men fled, her saviour came over and knelt beside her, offering a hand. Roxanne didn't meet his eyes, still shaking, though his chivalry blazed like a comforting flame in her mind. He was still a man, and she was still reeling. He wore a long, black leather coat, and dark, velvety looking pants tucked into calf-high black leather boots.

"Ma petite chèrie, are you alright?" He rose slowly to his feet with her, his other hand taking Roxanne's.

Roxanne nodded, gathering herself and meeting the man's concerned gaze. He had deep green eyes that seemed to house an old, old soul, though his face was only lightly lined, but weathered. His long black hair was shot through with a bolt of silver here and there about his temples and sprinkled his goatee.

"Merci, monsieur. I—I—"

"No need t' thank me, chèrie. I know this town through and through, an' while it's th' most bon city I've ever come across, it definitely possesses a darkness. Them hommes, they be part of the package." He brushed a thumb across her cheek, smearing away a tear. "But then there's gems like y'self that only make th' city brighter." He offered a rakish, crooked grin, and Roxanne mustered a feeble smile of her own in response.

"Merci."

"Whatcha name, chère? And where can Jean-Luc LeBeau personally escort y' to this evening?"

Roxanne felt him out, trying to see if there was anything sinister behind this front of chivalry. He felt honest through and through – a bit of mystery in general, but nothing malicious, definitely nothing malicious toward her.

"I need t' go t' Madame Martinique's, M. LeBeau. D'you know—"

"Oh," cut in Jean-Luc with a smile, "I know Della Rae." The look in his eyes was faraway and bemused. He shook his head at some private memory of his own and looked back to Roxanne, offering an elbow. "Ready t' go…?"

"Roxanne," she supplied finally. "Roxanne Delacroix."

"Roxanne Delacroix." Jean-Luc rolled the name across his palate. "Well, Mademoiselle Delacroix, le's not dally."

Roxanne took the proffered elbow, and let this Monsieur LeBeau, in all his assured graciousness, lead the way.

"Roxanne! Girl, I been worried about you! This bébé a yours has been cryin' his damned eyes out f'r the past hour outta nowhere!" Della was waiting at the doorstep of her tenement, and had obviously been watching for her wayward charge like a concerned mother.

"She got a bit waylaid, Della Rae," Jean-Luc spoke before Roxanne could. He slid his elbow from her arm and took her hand and gave it a formal, gentlemanly kiss. Roxanne couldn't help her blush, so she smiled and hurried up the stairs to Della's.

"Patriarch!" gasped Della. She bowed a bit, but Jean-Luc waved away the formality. Roxanne had already ducked inside.

"My Lord, does that girl even know who walked her home t'night?" Della asked aloud, shaking her head.

"New t' town, then, is she?" Jean-Luc inquired, leaning against the wall by the doorway Della stood in.

"Not exactly – but she ain' a native. She's always done a bit a her own thing."

"Ah."

"Thank y', Jean-Luc, for seein' her over here. I worry 'bout that damned girl jest about ev'ry night."

"She's a bright girl, too pretty for her own well-being. She can't help dat."

"Oh, I know."

"She, ah…'one a y'rs,' then, Della Rae?"

Della's face shuttered. "Don't go askin' me no more, Jean-Luc LeBeau. I let y' know most of my gems, but she ain't one f' y' to mess with."

"Della, y' wound me."

"I do my tithe t' the Thieves, an' I honour y' as my Patriarch. I don' really know what y' Guilds do, and ya've always been a good man t' me, Jean-Luc. But this girl? She's special, and she's damaged, and she don' need no mo' drama in her life than what follows her already."

Jean-Luc shook his head and held his hands up in mock-surrender. "I assure y', Della: I meant no harm. Jes' curious. Let this old cat have his moment t' paw."

"Moment's over, Jean-Luc."

"And I'll be goin'." With that, Jean-Luc set back across the yard, until a call halted him.

"M'sieur LeBeau!"

He turned back. Roxanne stood in the doorway beside Della, a child on her hip. She waved. "Merci once more, m'sieur." She took one of the child's hands and made him wave, too. "Ma Remy thanks you for what you did for his maman tonight." With a thoughtful smile and a kiss to her child, Remy's, forehead, Roxanne turned and disappeared back into the house. Della followed behind her.

"Don't you even dare think on it, LeBeau," forewarned Della to Jean-Luc, her eyes hard. And then she shut the door behind her.

Jean-Luc stood frozen for a few moments longer, dumbstruck. Only one thing was in his mind: That gal she had saved tonight had a son…

…a red-eyed son just as the Antiquary had foretold of.

Shaking his head, Jean-Luc filed the information away – Della's steely warning heading it – and set home.

In the shadows, someone else remained, only leaving after Roxanne left for home.


(The lyrics in the page break are from "Precious" by Depeche Mode.)