NAME: The Southern Chronicles: Part I - Cards

RATING: T just for safety, PG-13 if you want to get technical

WARNINGS: Mainly that it could be a little angsty and there is a little bit of language! Slight Jean bashing – just slightly!

SUMMARY: What if there was more to the Queen of Hearts card that Remy gave Rogue? What if it wasn’t just to give Rogue hope, but to give her another option?

AUTHORS NOTE: This came about as I was trying to work out the third chapter of Bored in Bayville. It was just something that I wrote to help combat writers block and then I got more ideas and decided to turn it into a one shot series. Anyway – on with the writing. NOTE that I am Australian and there for spell things differently or call things different names. Feel free to ask what they are as I won’t get upset but I’ll try and put a translation on a couple of things and you will find that at the bottom of the page. Also, I don’t write with accents! We all know that they have them and I find it hard writing the accents in. Also I’m sorry if I butcher the French I use in this chappie! I don’t know French and I might not use it right – if I do something wrong TELL ME! Now I will let you go on and read…

I ALWAYS KNEW THAT THINGS WEREN’T ALWAYS GOING TO BE THE SAME AFTER APOCOLYPSE, BUT DEEP DOWN I THOUGHT THAT THINGS WERE GOING TO GET BETTER – NOT WORSE. I know that I’m sounding depressed and everything but it’s the truth. I had really thought that once the world had been saved I would be looked at the same way I had been before I lost control of my powers – not like a human time bomb waiting to explode. I’d have to say that things have improved, if you call the fearful looks an improvement.

Everyone in the mansion seemed to be watching me and waiting to step in the moment that I started to fall, so they could prove that they were truly the good guys. It was like everyone forgot that Jean had been the first one to be possessed and started the whole Apocalypse thing. But then she couldn’t do anything wrong in the eyes of the others. I think that the only people who truly wanted to know how I feel were kitty, Kurt and Logan.

Kitty was just the type of person who hated to see anyone upset. I have a feeling that the fact that we shared a room didn’t help matters and because she was one of the few people to truly see me at my worst – and I’m talking about after a bad nights sleep – she kind of took it upon herself to make me feel better. And to a certain extent it worked. She managed to get me to forget about all of the others who lived in the mansion and make me feel like a normal teenager – or as normal as a mutant could get. And regardless of the fact we were polar opposites, I regarded her as my best friend.

Kurt was a different story. He took the roll of my brother as serious as Scott took the roll of leader. He was constantly trying to get me to smile or out of my room. He acted as protector when my back was turned and people were talking about me and when I just wanted to be away from the mansion he would BAMF me to the gazebo and come and get me when it was time for dinner. Over the past few weeks, Kurt had begun to become the sibling and pet that I had always wanted – and I mean that in a very caring way. We had yet to discover who was oldest – mainly because he had yet to get the courage up at ask me when my birthday was and I really didn’t care all that much so I hadn’t done the math yet. But the way that Kurt acted I guess he might just be the older of the two of us – even if it is by a couple of months.

Logan was – well he was Logan. He didn’t have to speak to give me comfort. Just him calling me Stripes or him placing a hand on my shoulder told me everything that I needed to know. That didn’t stop him from busting my arse when I didn’t do so well in the Danger room though. If anything it made him work me harder than the rest.

Everyone else on the other hand tried their best to treat me the same way, but I could see little things in the way they acted that showed me straight up that they were afraid of me. Well not of me, of touching me. It was something I didn’t really call them on because I had a feeling that if the roles were reversed it would be the same deal and I really didn’t want to deal with hearing a lecture from the Professor about treating everyone the same no matter what their mutation was.

I had enough of that when Jack Miller turned up. The five year old had been found by Spyke and his mutation was something that the Morlocks couldn’t handle, so they brought him to the mansion. He was a likable kid; the only problem was that his mutation was properly one of a kind and very emotion based. Whenever he was scared he would turn invisible, or we wouldn’t be able to see him. The Professor said he had an advanced for of telepathy that affected anyone regardless of how great their mind blocks were. It meant that if Magneto was to walk into the mansion and Jack was afraid even he wouldn’t be able to see the kid.

After the first time this happened and he got a lecture from Jean about the inappropriate use of powers – he had been caught in the girls change room when at the time he didn’t know how to turn himself off at will – The Professor stepped in and explained the situation. Jean = 0. Professor = 1. Of course that didn’t stop the way everyone acted around me, it was like they were stepping on egg shells – and I was starting to dislike it…

…a lot.

‘SO ARE YOU GOING TO, LIKE, COME OUT WITH THE REST OF US?’ KITTY ASKED AS I TRIED TO FIND THE WORD I WAS LOOKING FOR IN THE THESAURUS.

‘Nope,’ I replied, not even looking up at her.

‘Why not?’ Kitty asked.

‘I’ve got things to do, Kit,’ I replied, running a finger down the page I was looking at, my eyes skimming each word.

‘Like what?’ Kitty said. ‘Rogue, you’ve been cooping yourself up here for the past three days. Every time I come in here you’re looking over something that you’re writing. I have no idea what you’re doing but it’s not healthy to lock yourself away for days on end.’

‘Kit,’ I said and looked up at her, my finger marking the word I was up to. ‘It’s been three days. It’s not like I’ve locked myself up here every day since the fight with Apocalypse.’

‘Rogue,’ Kitty said and sat on my bed. I looked at her and knew what she meant by saying my name.

‘Don’t go there Kit,’ I said, frowning slightly.

‘Rogue, I’m worried that you’re going back to the way you were after-’ she trailed off but I knew what she was talking about. For about a week after Apocalypse I had locked myself in my room, not coming out for anything. Logan had been called on by S. H. E. I. L. D. to explain the whole fight to them and the fact he just left without a word, so soon after everything that had happened affected me worse then it properly should have. I had a short dose of fear of everything outside my bedroom. Once Logan got back everything slowly went back to normal, but I knew that Kitty was worried that I was going back to the way I had been during that week as at the moment Logan was away on a mission with Scott and Jean.

‘Kitty, I’m not locking myself away like before,’ I told her. ‘I’m just trying to get this done. Once it is finished, I will once again become the little social butterfly that you all know and love.’

Kitty giggled and placed a hand on my knee. ‘So you’re definitely not coming?’

‘Yes, I’m not coming,’ I said. Kitty nodded and walked over to the door. She pulled it open, stopped and then turned to face me.

‘You sure?’

‘Yes, now get going and tell Kurt not to bother coming up here. My answer will be the same if he comes up here,’ I told her and Kitty nodded.

I watched as Kitty walked out of the room and closed the door before I went back to what I was doing. It took me a couple more seconds to find the word I was looking for before I continued on with my essay. I had been working for about an hour and all I really had was another paragraph to go with the other five I already had and a giant migraine. I covered my eyes with my hands for a few minutes before getting to my feet to stretch my legs a bit. I had been working so hard on the essay that I had spent the past few days on it once I had figured out what I was going to write about. And as far as I was concerned I hadn’t even scratched the top of the subject yet.

Maybe I was thinking too hard about the damn essay, I mean I still had months to go before I even had to consider writing one; but early entry^ was a little hard to pass up when I had heard about it. As I paced beside my bed I let my eyes wonder around the room until I spotted the playing card stuck to my mirror. I had someone managed to stick pictures of myself, Kitty, Kurt and the one I had of Logan and myself into the frame around my mirror and along with a Queen of Hearts card. The only person who knew who had given it to me was Kurt and he still gave it a glare every time he saw it. I thought that it was rather stupid that he glared at an ordinary playing card, but I understood why he glared at it.

It wasn’t the actual card that he didn’t like; it was the person who gave it to me. To say that Kurt didn’t forgive Gambit for kidnapping me a couple of months ago is kind of an understatement. I have a feeling that if Gambit ever showed his face around the mansion again Kurt would try to port with him to Antarctica and leave him there. This of course brings me back to thinking that Kurt is older than me.

I walked over to the mirror and picked the card up and just looked at it for a couple of minutes. Gambit’s lucky lady. Trust a womanizing Cajun to have a woman look over him. I hadn’t heard from the Cajun since we parted ways back in New Orleans and to tell the truth I really hadn’t thought about him that much. I wondered if he was going to help when we went to fight Apocalypse, but not much over the past few weeks after that. I guess trying to catch up on all of the school work that I had missed was enough to keep my mind busy.

I went back to sit down on my bed and laid back as I looked back at the card. I took in every detail, just trying to burn it into my mind as if I was never going to see it again; kind of how Gambit had looked at me in New Orleans. I think he had a feeling that he wasn’t going to see me for a while and for some reason he wanted to take every inch of me and burn it into his memory. It was the scanning looks that I had managed to stop Kurt and Logan from seeing because if they had see Gambit watching me as intently as he had been, well I don’t think there would have been much left of him other then sliced and diced frozen chunks.

Then again I might have been reading too much into things and really he was just trying to make me think that. It wouldn’t have surprised me one bit. Sighing, I looked down at my essay that I really wanted to finish tonight but it seemed that my writers block was much larger then I had originally thought. As looked back at the card I flipped it over and was going to start twirling it when I spotted something.

I hadn’t noticed it when he had first given it to me but as I looked at it now, I saw that there was something written on the back of it. I sat up and looked at the back of the card harder. I could see why it was hard to see because the writing was written in the same colour as the patterns on the back of the card, but as I looked at it I saw that it was actually a couple of shades darker. Not dark enough to be spotted right away, but dark enough that if you were studying the card you would be able to make out the words. I read what was written and then re-read it to make sure that I wasn’t seeing things.

Rogue -

While you might have people watching you,

I thought that I would have a backup plan just in case.

Call anytime.

– Gambit

A back up plan, sure. He didn’t have one when he took me down to New Orleans, so why did he have one for this particular reason? Some subconscious part of my mind (that sounded a lot like Kitty) came up with the idea that he liked me more then he let on. The other side (which was more like Kurt) pushed that aside saying that I was thinking crazy talk and well the third level headed part of my mind growled (a lot like Logan). There was only one question going through my mind.

What was I going to do now?

I had a couple of options: 1) I could forget about what I had read and go right back to my essay and hope that if Kitty ever played with the card she wouldn’t see the writing. 2) Go straight to Logan and show him. 3) Call Gambit. Option one was something that I could possibly live with – until Kitty found the card. I told her the bare minimum of what happened down in New Orleans, if she found out I had Gambit’s number then there was no way in hell I would be able to stop the squealing and stop Logan from taking the jet and going down to slice and dice a Cajun at the same time. Option two made me laugh. Right at the moment I didn’t think I would be getting any answers from Logan’s communicator. Option three though had potential.

I smiled and ran my hand over the back of the card before looking back at the essay. I didn’t think I would be working on it for a little while. I grabbed my school bag and pulled out my mobile*. Carefully I put the number in and waited for the reply. It felt like hours and I was just about to hang up when I heard the tell tale click of someone picking up at the other end.

‘Bonjour.’

I smiled as I heard the familiar voice and a rush of memories hit me before I answered.

‘Hi Gambit.’

REMY LEBEAU LOOKED AT THE CARD HE WAS TWIRLING BETWEEN HIS FINGERS. To anyone who didn’t know the dark eyed mutant they would have thought he was just playing around in a lazy way. But to anyone who knew the card dealing Cajun they would have recognised right away that he was deep in thought. About what they would know as he a bored, almost asleep look on his face which gave away nothing; but as Henri watched his brother from where he stood next to Jean-Luc’s desk he could only guess that Remy was thinking about something up North.

Henri couldn’t understand his brother’s fascination about the going’s on of the New York part of the guild. Remy knew there was a surer chance that he would get a cool pool in hell then being allowed near the unorganised fraction known as the New York Thieves Guild. As Jean-Luc went through the job that Henri and Remy were to pull off together, Remy’s mind stayed else where.

For a few minutes, Jean-Luc stopped talking to see if Remy was paying attention and even when Remy gave the motion to continue talking; his eyes never left the card in his hand. Henri kept his mouth closed for the next hour until Jean-Luc let them go and it wasn’t until they were in the privacy of Remy’s room that Henri asked.

‘What is going on with you, Remy?’

Remy was once again staring at the card in his hand, while lying back on his bed in the way that most male models did.

‘I know you don’t have a lot of respect for Jean-Luc at the moment, frère, but what you just did for the whole meeting would have given a lot of people good opportunity and evidence to jump in and claim that you are not fit to be the next leader of the guild,’ Henri said. ‘Remy, what is going on in that thick head of yours?’

Remy sighed and looked at his brother. ‘It has been two months since I got back. I thought that Jean-Luc’s plan to keep me here had something to do with a job, but not a treaty!’

‘It is a low way to keep you here, frère.’

‘I should have expected it,’ Remy said and ran a hand through his hair.

‘The treaty isn’t the only thing though, is it?’ Henri said.

‘Non,’ Remy said. ‘But right now I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘Okay,’ Henri said and Remy went back to staring at the card in his hand. When Henri realised that the conversation was over, he quietly exited the room and left Remy with his thoughts. Remy sat there for a few minutes, just staring at the card before he turned away from it, sighing.

‘Mon dieu,’ Remy said. ‘You need to stop thinking about that. About the femme.’

As he ran a hand over his face, the sound of his mobile* ringing brother him out of his chain of thought. Dragging the phone out of his pocket, he flicked it open and brought it to his ear. ‘Bonjour.’

When he heard nothing for a few seconds he thought that maybe it was a prank and was going to hang up, but stopped when he heard her voice.

‘Hi Gambit.’

His eyes widened slightly as her voice hit him and the card in his hand stopped twirling. Looking down at it, the Queen of Hearts stared back up at him. A smirk came to his lips.

It looked like his Lucky Lady had turned up to save him once again.

* Mobile is the Australian word for cell phone.

^ I dunno if the USA has this but early entry is when you apply for Uni early, about half way through the school year