Chapter Five

2042 New Orleans

Everyone took their places and a man was brought to the center. A Cardinal said: "By decree of the Unified Guild, the Crimson Order is hereby abolished. All possessions and knowledge therein are the property of the Unified Guild. All persons and property therein are the property of the Unified Guild. In accordance with the Guild's tenants, which state one's body is subject to one's will alone, all former slaves of the Crimson Order are henceforth freed.

"Damien, you acted as proprietor, violating the laws of state, Guild, and mankind. Despite repeated warnings to cease or evict, you continued to operate unjustly. The punishment for such a crime is death. What say you?"

Wait a minute… Had I gone back in time? Or forward? I'd been here, seen this, I knew how this ended.

Damien pierced my eyes with his and smiled, just like that boy years ago in the Velvet Ministry's library. Suddenly, I was looking at myself wearing his smile.

"Wait, no!" I – imprisoned in Damien's condemned body – tried to protest.

Belle revealed her weapon and approached.

"Stop! Belle, it's me!" I said.

Our eyes locked, she hesitated, and Damien attacked her from behind. Out of habit, I reached in my pockets for something to charge and hurl. I grabbed handfuls of sand, thought I charged them, and threw it in his face. Actually, what I'd done was weaken his hold.

"Bring a priest," said Belle, "Damien's used his magic to switch bodies with Remy."

No one moved. Finally, someone asked: "How can you tell?"

"Damnit, man, you think I wouldn't know my own husband? We'll hold them both here until a priest can sort them out."

Damien, trapped in my old man's body, lay helplessly on the floor. "They won't arrive in time," he sneered. "The time wheel will come for me first. It comes for this body, not you. Rest assured, Gambit, I'll make better use of your powers than you ever did."

"You're not goin' anywhere," I said.

"But I already have. How do you explain the seventy year leap? Did you think my mentor did that? Ha! If only… No. I'm going to use this body to bring you closer to my birth. I hear you have a cult following in a thousand years. They think the X-Men were gods. I believe I'll be quite happy there."

Belle, still young and beautiful, went pale. "If he doesn't go back… It'll create a paradox."

"Bullshit!" I said, "He ain't goin' nowhere."

A voodoo priest arrived with moments to spare. He switched us back into our rightful bodies just as time rolled over again.

"I'll never see you again," Belle said with tears in her eyes.

I swore to her I'd return.

It wasn't easy – physically or emotionally – stealing my infant self and abandoning me in a hospital decades away. I waited until Luc arrived and stole me yet again. With Antiquary nearby, Luc couldn't risk exposing me yet, so he hid me in an illegal orphanage. When I started running around at night, he had Fagan look after me. And those men who'd attacked eight-year-old Belle? He put them up to it, knowing I'd rush in to rescue her. A couple years later, he snatched me off the streets.

"You love her, don't you? She won't have you if you can't provide for her." He'd said.

So he and I stuck together: slaving away for a family we already had. Somehow, we both knew we were unworthy of the other, and we couldn't break out of our painful roles. He was determined to make me a Master Thief so I'd never be dependent on him; I was determined to be a Master Thief so he'd be proud of me. Sadly, getting that achievement was quickly followed by my disastrous first wedding to Belle…

Even after I left New Orleans, I kept running from them. I didn't realize Luc had taught me the skills I needed to survive anywhere. My memories of Belle kept me from settling with the first woman who'd have me. She taught me what love was. I never thought I'd love anyone else until Rogue came along… Had she ever really loved me? I'd seen this part of my life three times now and I still didn't know.

Our kiss in Israel, our night in Antarctica, our house in California – all bittersweet memories more poignant the second time around. Then, I watched her die again in Tokyo. The rage and sorrow, the bottomless depression was even worse this time. When Belle rescued me, I fell in love with her all over again. Go ahead and tell me it was rebound. Everyone else did. I knew better, but "knowing" I'd marry her "one day" didn't make our future any more secure. I "knew" I'd marry her "one day" when I was sixteen, too, and look how that turned out…

Twenty-two years after our first wedding, we married again. We operated the Guild together; bought a house and got a cat. Yes, we were happy… except when young me popped in from time to time, determined to change things and certain he knew it all. I've always had a talent for keeping my thoughts private. Telepaths can't explain it. I used this same method for keeping young-me out of my memories, but it came back to bite me in the ass. As I aged, my mental walls closed in. My mind was so protected even I couldn't access it.

But it was nobly done. With time, Belle and I discovered more about my time-traveling abilities. The Melchizedek grid, which transposes space and time, prevented me from accessing composite years. I could only move to prime numbers – two, three, five, seven, and nineteen years. Besides my mutant ability, there are only a few ways to access the grid: machines are obviously the most popular method. Sleep is another gateway, which is how Fontanelle managed, by hacking into my dreams. The only other way, which is how Belle must've gotten in… is death.

When I tried to stop my younger self from killing Julien and he stabbed her instead, she died. But rather than going to heaven or hell or wherever the dead go, she got pulled in with me.

So why was she given a reprieve while Rogue was not?

At first I thought there was no explanation. I thought it was another injustice dealt to me by the universe, but I couldn't let it go. Eventually I discovered that based on quantum physics, I could only take one person with me. That's why I was all alone on the Enterprise (except for Fontanelle), and why I viewed the past alone (except for Belle).

If the younger version of myself had seen this in my thoughts… He would've let Belle die. He would've saved Rogue instead. Maybe they would've worked out their issues like Belle and I did; maybe they would've been happily married somewhere. But I wouldn't let that happen. I never gave him a choice.

Three weeks later…

"Your play, cher."

I rubbed my grey beard and looked over the board. "And I have one…"

"Could've fooled me." Irritated, she rested her chin on the heels of her palms. When a car pulled up, she rushed to the porch railing. "Luc and Marge are here!"

I smacked her ass.

"Stop that!" she hollered.

"Never! Look at me. Are you listening? I will never stop."

"Should've put that in the wedding vows."

My father, ever middle-aged and now younger than me, helped his elderly bride out of the car and onto our front porch. Marge was in her eighties now and her balance was precarious, but her mind was as sharp as ever. I had the opposite problem – mushy brains and solid abs.

"What wedding vows?" Marge asked.

"I was tellin' Remy we should've vowed to never stop smackin' each other's rears."

"Now there's a promise to keep!" cheered my step-mother. "If you can't be naughty together, who can you be naughty with?"

I cleared the Scrabble board. "I was about to win, but we can start over since y'all are here."

Belle brought out a pitcher of tea and Luc turned on the radio. My little, white-haired companion looked around helplessly. "Well, if everyone's going to wait hand and foot on me, you can throw the game, too. One syllable words, if you please. It'll make me feel smarter."

"Anything for you," I winked.

She smiled and touched her temple with her forefinger.

The wind changed direction and the temperature dropped. Marge pulled her shawl around her shoulders and looked at the clouds. "Heavens! Is that the weather or did my vision finally go?"

Belle and I looked at each other apprehensively. This was no ordinary storm; this was time rolling back on me. The journey would deposit me at the Enterprise, where I could return to the point of departure. If all worked out well, current-me would appear as past-me left. But that life had been so long ago.

I grabbed my wife's hand and thought 'Don't go, don't go, don't go'. But I felt myself fading and the sound of rain, thunder and tempests overwhelmed my senses. Then... It stopped.

"Bella Donna?" Luc said, "You feeling alright, petite? Lookin' awfully green around the gills…"

She nodded. "Just allergies."

"Or maybe someone's cutting onions," said Marge. "Now, are we going to play? Or are you waiting for me to die?"

There was much to do since Damien's incarceration. We wouldn't make the same mistakes as we'd made with Antiquary. No, the Crimson Order would be incorporated into the Guild. I didn't like it, but the antiques had to be protected and I trusted no one more than my own clan. The slaves knew no life outside of obedience – they had to be deprogramed. Again, I trusted no one else to this task.

I wish I could say what happened to Lena's body, but I never found out. Belle pointed out that the Church would never have buried her since she took her own life. So she'd either been cremated, buried in a pauper's grave, or Luc had secretly buried her on consecrated ground. I wondered if her true coffin had been unearthed by some very confused construction workers or if it'd been lost and built over.

My father never spoke of her. It was like he'd dammed everything in and any crack would dismantle the whole operation.

The work kept me young, but I knew I wouldn't live forever. I adopted a protégé, Claire, who reminded me so much of my sweet, stubborn Rogue. Belle was disappointed. I think she wanted me to choose someone more like her, but Claire was level-headed and brought balance to the Guild.

Years flipped by. While my fingers stiffened, the X-Men were disbanded. The year Marge passed was the year Luc moved in to help Belle and me… Truthfully, he was helping her take care of me, but I was too humiliated to admit it. Never expected to live this long. He'd read me the newspaper – the Jean Grey High School was being turned into a historical land-mark; Ororo Munroe won a Nobel Peace Prize; Laura Kinney had joined the Avengers – and I listened quietly, wondering who he was talking about.

Sometimes Belle and I fought about the stupidest things. She didn't want me cooking or exercising, but she didn't want me sitting around all day, either. Sure, I sometimes forgot I'd turned on the stove or how much I could bench-press, but that was no excuse to scold me like a child.

I could never make her happy.

Claire got me a dog, a bullmastiff I named Tsavo. Never been a "dog person", but this mild-mannered lion kept me occupied and out of trouble. On the days I was too tired to get out of bed, Tsavo laid with me. Belle never slept in the bed with me anymore. I snored and was often sick. Every winter, it took me longer and longer to recover.

The man I'd become was a stranger. An ugly, old, worthless stranger. My double-jointed knuckles swelled and locked; my hair turned white and frail; my skin stretched like parchment paper over easily-bruised veins. Where was that young man with charm? When had all my adventures become stories I'd told again and again until all the flavor had been sucked out? Where had all my friends been buried?

And then, one summer afternoon twenty-nine years after I'd decided to stay, the wheel of time came for me again.

"Belle?" I called, but my voice was too weak to carry. "Belle!"

Tsavo sat up and barked.

Belle ran into the room. "Remy?!"

"Do you feel it?"

"Yes."

"I'm not going crazy, am I?"

"Oh, you've been crazy, cher."

Weakly, I grabbed her hand. "I'm going back… Please don't hate me."

"You're man enough for more than one life." She kissed me. "Good-bye, my love."

As the room faded away, I kept gasping. There was so much I wanted to tell her… That I was sorry I'd been such a burden these last few years. And how I regretted all those years we'd been apart. And that I'd often been unfaithful, but my love for her was undiminished. I hoped I hadn't hurt her. And if I had it all to do again, I'd always pick her. Always. And, and, and. There was so much left unsaid. How had we spent our entire lives together and still not said everything? And where was Luc? I wanted to know he'd take care of Belle for me… to say good-bye, although it wasn't really good-bye… At least, I hoped I wasn't dying.

Rogue.

Lena.

…

Blackness.

Humming.

No, not humming – purring.

I woke up on my couch in Manhattan, sleepy-eyed Lucifer content as my pillow. When I moved, my joints didn't scream in agony. Color appeared ultra-saturated; sound, rich and bold. I looked over the balcony and felt my life without Belle or Luc or Claire. Just me. I realized too late how lucky that forgetful, useless old man had been.

…

The End.

…