A/N The end is in sight, my pretties! Oh, working on a new Romy story for when this is over.
Logan was very uncomfortable with Rogue dating Gambit now that she could touch. Hell, he hadn't been happy about it when they couldn't touch. He pulled Rogue aside about a week after she gained control of her powers and gave her a very awkward sex talk. Rogue, uncomfortable and vaguely alarmed, patted him on the arm and nearly ran from the room. Gambit laughed when she told him. She kicked him in the shin.
Christmas went by without a hitch, then New Years shortly after. They even threw a party and Rogue got to experience her first kiss at the stroke of midnight. Logan would have made a mad effort to keep Gambit's hands from running over her waist and back, but he and Storm were suddenly curiously absent. Barely two days later, the task of returning the kids to the school began. It took awhile but eventually they got everyone back. Luckily, no attempts had been made on any students. In fact, all was quiet on the mutant murder front. They were grateful and wary.
"Come ooon," Jubilee whined.
"No."
"Pleeease?"
"No."
"Pretty please?"
"Not even if you paid me off in chocolate."
"Come on, you have to tell me about Remy and Rogue's sexy time!"
"Jubilee!" Rogue said, covering her eyes with her hand. "We are not having this conversation. Ever."
"But-"
"Firecracker!" Jubilee paled and turned slowly to see Logan standing in Rogue's doorway.
"Er, how much did you hear?"
"Danger room, now," he barked.
"Damn it," she muttered and slouched out.
"And I don't want to ever hear about that," Logan said, very nearly cringing.
"What?" Rogue asked, a devious smile filling her face. "About…our sexy time?"
"You are becoming way too similar to the Cajun," Logan growled and stormed out. Rogue laughed and reclined onto her bed. Gambit popped in a few minutes later and wiggled his way up her bed until he was nearly wrapped around her.
"Hey there," Rogue said with a smile as he kissed her cheek, then with a gust blew the hair off the side of her head so it flew into her face. "Is there something I can help you with?"
"Hmph," was all Rogue heard from Gambit, whose face was now buried in her neck. He lifted his face. "Actually, can yo' tell me why Logan threw an apple at my head?"
Rogue shook with laughter. "Well," she said, trying to catch her breath. "He overheard Jubilee asking me about our 'sexy time'," she explained.
"Ah," Gambit said, a mischievous glint in his eye.
"Uh oh," Rogue said, still laughing. "This is going to end badly, isn't it?"
"Or very, very well," he said leaning in to kiss her.
"We should get going, we have a session with Emma," Rogue said.
"Mmph," Gambit replied, his face once again in her neck. His lips started to move against her throat.
"None of that," Rogue protested. "That is not the frame of mind I want to be in when Emma looks around."
"Prude," Gambit joked.
"Oh if I go prudish, you'll know." Rogue's voice was vaguely threatening. Gambit pleaded with her not to become a nun all the way to Emma's office. As predicted, Emma wasn't thrilled with the smutty state of mind they were in. She focused on Gambit. Now that Rogue's power was under control, Rogue only really needed maintenance and checks to make sure there were no regressions.
She pushed her way through the memories on Gambit's mind and found the fuzzy part of his mind that housed his amnesia. Gambit's mind organized memories into threads, all connecting to other memories that they were related to. Emma essentially was trying to navigate through a giant web. There was a cluster of threads that led into the fuzzy area where the threads weren't solid. Curious, Emma went in, taking a closer look at the memory threads.
Emma emerged a few minutes later, frowning at the couple. Rogue and Gambit looked back. "Is there a problem?"
"This …déjà vu," Emma said. "The feeling you have that you need to tell Rogue something, or Logan, and can't remember what, how often does that happen?"
"Oh. Well…I don't know, pretty often I suppose. I ignore it mostly now," Gambit answered.
"Don't," Emma said shortly. "Let's pretend these memories your amnesia is repressing are like a big hole in the web of your memory, with me so far?"
"Oui."
"Well there are threads around that hole that want to rebuild it and are related to what's missing. Whatever you wanted to tell Rogue is in the hole, it's part of the memories you can't access," Emma explained.
"How do yo' know?"
"The déjà vu events are threads around the hole."
Gambit's stomach dropped. "Could dis be something dangerous for her?"
"Easily could be," Emma answered. "So there's more motivation for you to recover these memories. It's not just about you, it effects the woman you lo-care about." Emma winced at her near slip up, but Gambit seemed more concerned about Rogue's safety to be worried about what Emma had almost said. "The only advice I can give is to attack this from all different angles, memory is tricky."
Gambit was withdrawn for the rest of the day. He still spoke to people and participated in activities but the usual Remy LeBeau flair was missing. Jubilee noticed Gambit's quietness at dinner and took it upon herself to lighten the mood.
"So Gambit," she said, all too cheerily. "We were talking about you and Rogue's sexy time earlier…"
Rogue inhaled her drink of water and began coughing violently. Gambit gave her a thump on the back. "I just bet yo' were. Did she tell yo' about de blindfold game?"
"Cajun! Firecracker!" Logan boomed from the other side of the room. Gambit, Rogue, Kitty, Jubilee and Pete laughed.
"Seriously though," Jubilee said. "You guys really need private time. Maybe you should go out of town. There's this really cute bed and breakfast in Boston, it's way mutant friendly, too. They love us, can't get enough."
Gambit froze. Boston…mutant…Boston…not enough…mutants...Boston's mutants, no, mutant's Boston, yes that was right.
"Remy," Rogue whispered. He was frozen, mouth slack, eyes unfocused. He didn't respond. "Remy, are you okay?" Still nothing. "Emma!" Rogue yelled.
Images were crashing into Gambit's consciousness. The Brotherhood, Boston, mutant gathering, money changing hands, and…he was being attacked, fists and energy balls slamming into him.
"Emma, what's going on?" Rogue asked. Gambit was still unresponsive, memories assaulting him, taking up all his concentration.
"I don't know, the shield around his mind is still up."
"Rogue," he gasped. "Rogue, dey want yo'. Dey…dey…" Gambit closed his eyes, trying to organize his new memories.
"Let's take this somewhere more private," Storm said. There were students hovering and trying to hear what was going on. Gambit nodded and they all made their way to the war room. As soon as everyone was seated, Gambit began to speak very fast as if he were afraid he'd forget again any second.
"It's de Brotherhood, dey're behind de mutant deaths," Gambit said.
"Are you sure?" Rogue asked. "John seemed pretty genuine about the Brotherhood's new 'peaceful' path."
"Magneto's playing it very close t' de chest," Gambit said. "Almost no one knows what he's planning."
"Then how did you find out?" Bobby asked.
Gambit gave him a withering look. "I'm a very, very good thief. Plus I make it a point t' know as much about my employers as possible." He turned to the rest of the group, ignoring a frowning Bobby. "Magneto was trying t' recruit de powerful mutants dat ended up dead. They turned him down and dat's why he had dem killed."
"Recruit them for what?" Logan asked.
"De Brotherhood is gathering in Boston. Dey're planning on wiping out all humans and claiming it as a mutant utopia," Gambit said heavily. Silence met this.
"But," Kitty said in a soft voice, "there are thousands and thousands of people there…"
"My family's in Boston," Bobby said softly.
"How do you know this?" Jubilee asked.
"I was hired by them," Gambit said, bracing himself.
"What!"
"Just listen t' me, please!" Gambit pleaded. "Dey hired me t' get information on Rogue and Emma. I knew dat Emma was wit' de team so I looked deeper."
"Why would you care?" Bobby muttered.
"Storm is my friend, I wanted t' make sure she and her people weren't in danger."
"Well that went well…"
"Shut up Bobby," Rogue snapped.
"He's right. Dey were planning on taking out Rogue, Emma and a woman named Cassie Hart because dey were de biggest threat. As soon as I found out deir plan I came t' warn yo'. Dat's when Magneto's flunkies jumped me. I barely made it here."
It took a minute for the X-Men to digest this. Gambit sat very still, well aware that they could very easily became extremely angry at him. Rogue reached out and took his hand, giving it a squeeze. He looked over at her and was instantly warmed. She didn't hate him, anything else could be dealt with because she didn't hate him.
"We have to do something about this," Jubilee said. "We can't let this stand."
"You're right," Storm said. "Gambit, do you know where their base of operations is?"
"Oui," he said. "I don't think he knew I knew about it but I can't be sure."
"It's a place to start."
"Storm…" Kitty said softly. "How will we do this? I mean, we know where the base might be and we have a vague idea of his plan. But we aren't sure of any specifics. Basically we don't know anything. How are we even going to start?"
They were quiet. Kitty had verbalized what they all had been thinking. How do you fight something if you have no information and no idea where to begin?
"There's something else we need to discuss," Logan said. "If we stop Magneto, what are we going to do with him? It's not like sticking him in prison has done a while lot of good."
"You're suggesting we kill him," Hank said shortly.
"We can't have him running around. He's killed people, trying to commit mass murder," Logan said.
"We'll deal with that when we come to it," Storm said. "Right now I want Gambit to go with Kitty. Tell her everything you remember. Research, see if there's anything we can find out, then we'll send teams in to gather intelligence. Logan, you, Hank and I are going to try to find this Cassie Hart on the off chance that Magneto hasn't gotten to her yet."
"The rest of us?" Jubilee asked.
"Help, reach out to any friendly contacts you have in Boston. We need a clear picture of what's going on. Go, now." Gambit breathed a sigh of relief. They didn't hate him, they didn't blame him.
Carrie Hart lived only two hours away. Storm, Logan and Hank were back in four. "What happened?" Rogue asked when they walked in. Storm and Hank's faced were devastated. Logan just kept walking, presumably to grab a beer.
"She was already dead," Storm said heavily. "Probably for months now. It's horrible…that she can be dead in her own home for months and on one even noticed?" Hank put a hand on her shoulder. "It's not right."
"No, it's not," Hank said gently.
"Yeah," Storm said. "Anyways. What did you guys find?"
Rogue sighed. "Not much. We've reached out to the mutants we know in Boston. They say mutants are definitely gathering and gave us some of their rallying sites. Bobby called his parents, told them to get out of the city."
"But we're scared if we try t' get a city-wide evacuation underway, dey'll start killing people," Gambit said. "We could start by-"
He was cut off by a rapid, desperate repeating pounding on the mansion's front door. The doorbell started frantically ringing a second later. Bewildered, Storm went to answer it. Logan reappeared and followed her.
"Storm!" the guest gasped as she opened the door.
"John? What're you doing here?"
"Yeah." Snikt. "The hell do you think you're doing, showing up on our doorstep?" Logan growled.
"I didn't know, I didn't know what they were planning. My god, I swear I didn't know," John said. His voice was high and fast and he was dangerously close to hyperventilating.
"Didn't know what?" Logan asked.
"Magneto…we, we were all freak out as all hell after the whole Alcatraz thing…" Logan growled low in his throat. "We were wrong okay! We saw the damage mutants can do too, especially in the wrong hands. Not just humans hurt people, it's us, too. That's when Magneto started his whole positively educating and promoting mutants thing. He said he wanted to help people but he lied!"
"We already know he's behind the mutant murders and is planning mass murder in Boston," Storm said.
"It's worse," John said quickly. "They're coming here, now."
"What?" Storm asked horrified. "Why?"
"To kill Emma and Rogue and any X-Men that they can and take any kids that might be useful. I promise I didn't know, as soon as I found out I came here. I swear I never want Rogue hurt, or any of you!"
"Didn't seem to care when you attacked the clinic and called her a traitor," Storm said.
"I was angry and hateful. I…don't you get it? They're coming and they're coming now! And they will kill you all."