Chapter 14

Remy marveled at the small digits in front of him. It didn’t seem possible for the human finger to be so incredibly tiny. He lightly touched the infant’s palm and watched, mesmerized, as she grasped his finger with her entire hand.

His daughter had been born two months earlier, in his home city of New Orleans. Genevieve, her mother, had moved into the LeBeau family home three months before her birth. It was an odd situation for them all, but Remy gladly endured it because it meant being able to see his daughter on a daily basis.

At the moment, the baby was sprawled on her back in the middle of his king-sized bed, surrounded by pillows and cushions that ensured she wouldn’t roll over and fall onto the floor. He softly sang an old Cajun lullaby that his Tante Mattie had sung to him as a boy, in an effort to coax the infant into slumber. Stretched out beside her, he gently stroked the side of her leg in a rhythmic motion that always helped in getting her to sleep. It wasn’t long before her eyes closed and she settled into her afternoon nap.

“Mon bel ange,” he whispered lovingly, gently smoothing his hand over her soft brown hair. “I may not be in love wit’ ya maman, but I def’nitely love you.” The sigh that escaped his lips was deep and full of regret. “If only ya were another woman’s chile. If only ya had a diff’rent maman.”

It had been seven months since he had last seen or heard anything from Rogue. Seven months since they had been forced apart in Los Angeles, following the release of the paternity test results. It had been four months since he’d given up leaving messages on her home answering machine. He thought it was more or less safe to say that they had broken up, even though there’d been no official agreement to go their separate ways. The lack of communication for such a long period spoke volumes to Remy, and he knew when it was time to give up a fruitless fight.

It still hurt though, the void she had left in his heart. It hurt like nothing he had ever felt before. Not even the loss of his first love, Bella Donna, had hurt as much. If his love for his daughter hadn’t proved otherwise, he would have sworn he no longer had a heart beating inside his chest.

He tried not to think about it; nothing good ever came from his dwelling on what he couldn’t change. He curled his body next to his napping daughter and soon followed her into sleep.

His visit into dreamland didn’t last long as he was suddenly jolted awake by movement on the other side of the bed. His eyes flew open to see Genevieve lying across from him, watching both he and their daughter.

Reaching over, she brought her hand to the baby’s cheek. “Has she been sleeping long, chèri?” She brushed against his own hand, which lay protectively on top of the infant’s arm. Whether the gesture was by accident or intentional, Remy did not know.

“I have told you, Genevieve,” his said in a stern voice, low enough so as not to disturb the baby, “do not call me that. We are not friends. We are not lovers. De only connection ‘tween us is dis child. Not’in’ else.”

“There is nothing else because you will not allow anything else,” she protested. “We could be so perfect together, mon amour, if you would only give us the chance.” She turned her eyes to the baby, and then softened her voice until it was barely a whisper. “She is not returning to you. She made her decision months ago, and yet you still hold out hope that she will come back.” Her voice rose as emotion began to fill her words. “She is not coming back! When will you accept that and move on with your life so that you can be there for me and for our daughter!”

“Lower ya voice, Genevieve,” he hissed at her in warning, “before ya wake her.”

“I will not!” she declared, jumping off the bed. The abrupt movement startled the sleeping infant awake. Her small cherubic face scrunched up in preparation to cry. Genevieve scooped her up and began to soothe her with a back and forth rocking motion, all the while continuing with her rant. “I have sat back for months, watching your love for her destroy you, and I will not have that any more. I love you, Remy! More than she ever could! Mon Dieu, chèri, I borne you a child! Does that mean nothing?”

He rolled onto the edge of the bed, facing his back to her. The headache that had been developing at the base of his neck seemed to be moving up to his temples. His eyes felt like they were burning with the intensity of the migraine that was assaulting him.

“Stop dis,” he said, standing and turning toward her. She was holding their two-month-old baby to her chest and looking at him with wild eyes that seemed just beyond reason. He had read about postpartum depression and how it sometimes drove a new mother to do things she normally wouldn’t do. He believed Genevieve wouldn’t do anything to harm her own daughter, but at that point, he wasn’t willing to take any chances.

“Stop what?” she bit out, backing toward the open balcony as he advanced on her. “Stop loving you? Stop telling you the truth?” Her eyes locked to his in anger. “Rogue never loved you, chèri. If she did, she would have stood by you -- without question -- when they told you that this baby was yours.” Her gaze fell to the infant in her arms. “This baby,” she whispered lightly. “Mon fille [My daughter].”

He watched as the glint in Genevieve’s eyes changed. Suddenly, she took a step back, twisted her body toward the balcony and pitched the crying child over the railing.

“NO!” he cried out in horror, jerking his eyes open. Remy was lying on his back in bed, breathing rapidly. With some difficulty, he tried to ease his oxygen intake into a more normal pattern. He closed his eyes and drew an arm over them.

Dieu, dat wasn’ a dream, he thought once he had quieted his nerves. Dat was a nightmare. He rolled onto his side and was immediately met with enticing pools of jade. Dis, he told himself, shutting his eyes yet again, dis is de dream. ‘M gon’ open m’eyes an’ find de other side o’ de bed empty, no sign whatsoever o’ de woman I love.

But when his vision cleared, she was still there, looking across at him with her hands tucked beneath the side of her face.

“How long you been watchin’ me sleep, chère?”

“’Bout an hour or so. Ah was jus’ gonna wake ya. Looked like you were havin’ a bad dream. Were you?”

“Oui. De worst.”

“You wanna talk ‘bout it?”

“Non. Not partic’larly.” He pulled himself into a sitting position and pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. Strangely enough, the headache in his dream seemed to be making an appearance in real life, though not as strong. “Didn’ know ya were comin’ here,” he commented when she failed to continue the conversation.

“Ah didn’ know either. Jus’ sorta found ourselves here, Ah guess.”

He gave her a look. “Ya jus’ ‘found’ yaself in Nawlins? Knew dis city had a pull on people, jus’ didn’ t’ink it could pull dem down all de way from New York.”

Another silence fell upon them. As he looked over to her reclining form, he noticed that she wouldn’t meet his gaze. Instead, she focused her attention to a point over and beyond him, probably the framed family pictures on the wall a few feet away.

In a soft voice, he said, “Left a bunch o’ messages f’r ya. Haven’ heard from you in two weeks. Where were you?”

For another stretch of time, she neither moved nor answered him. Finally, she folded her legs inward and rolled herself into a kneeling position before him. Raising her eyes to his, she replied quietly, “Ah was in Canada.”

“Canada?” he repeated, somewhat surprised that she had left the country altogether. “Why did ya go up dere? ‘Cause o’ de test results?”

She simply shook her head but didn’t elaborate. “Ah’m sorry, Remy. Ah didn’ mean ta worry ya so much. Not like there was anythin’ ta worry about, really. Ah mean, both Logan an’ Guido were with me th’ whole time. An’ Karen, too. Ah didn’ even tell Momma where we were, but she eventu’lly got it outta Rosie a few days later.” Her words were coming out in quick succession, in a mess of syllables and sounds, but at that point she no longer cared. She felt that if she were to stop her rambling, she would never make sense of the chaotic thoughts running through her skull. “Ah never intended ta leave you, sugah -- not at first, anyway. But aftah Ah called th’ lab, Ah jus’ couldn’t think straight. An’ then Logan shipped us off ta Canada as soon as we got home. An’... an’...”

“Shh, petite,” he soothed, pulling her against him and resting his cheek against her hair. “S’okay. Ya don’ have t’explain.”

She shook her head again, this time in protest, but didn’t move from her position against him. “No, Remy, it’s not okay. Ah was listenin’ ta what ev’ryone else was sayin’ ‘bout you, but th’ only person Ah should have been listenin’ to was you. How could Ah say that Ah believed you in one breath, an’ then turn around an’ get all unsure o’ you in th’ next?” She raised her hands to the front of his long-sleeved silk shirt and met his stare with pleading eyes. “Ah’m so sorry, Remy,” she whispered, her voice thick with the emotions coursing through her system. “Ah’m sorry that Ah doubted you, even fo’ a second. Ah love you. An’ Ah don’ care ‘bout all this nonsense with Genevieve. Whatevah happened, Ah don’t care. Even if ya had a thousand babies with her, it ain’t changin’ how Ah feel. Ah. Love. You,” she emphasized, tightening her grip on his shirt. “An’ unless you tell me ta get lost, Ah ain’t goin’ anywhere.”

Remy had to catch himself before the grin became apparent on his face. He was, after all, supposed to be the ‘mistreated’ lover. But the surprise of waking up to her in his bed and the heartfelt, almost desperate, apology that she was offering now was quickly making up for any hardship he had endured in the past couple of weeks. He had told her before that he could never be angry with her, for any reason, and that still remained true. To him, this emerald-eyed angel could do no wrong. He smiled wryly to himself. Sure, she was stubborn as hell and as determined as a bull on a rampage, but still...

Looking down into her eyes, he saw a splash of fear in them. He realized that he had taken longer than necessary to respond to her monologue, and her confidence in his willingness to forgive her was beginning to crumble.

“Remy?” she asked in a small voice, tears forming like crystal drops at the corner of her eyes. She hated it when his face was void of any emotion as it was then. She didn’t like the thought of not being able to tell what he was thinking. An image of Remy getting up and walking away from her entered her mind, and it was enough to make her insides twist in panic. “Sugah, talk ta me... please?”

He lowered his face to hers until they were barely a breath apart. The blank stare was still evident on his features and it bothered her to no end. Closing the narrow gap between them, he lightly brushed his lips against her brow before he murmured, “Should turn ya over m’knee an’ give ya backside a good spankin’ f’r de hell ya put me t’rough dese past two weeks.” He pulled back and favored her with a lopsided grin. “But seein’ as ‘m in love wit’ you, I t’ink I’ll jus’ let dis one slide.”

The smile on her face couldn’t have been any brighter as she flung herself into his arms and held him tightly to her. “Ah missed you so much.”

He laughed as he gently guided both of them down to stretch out more comfortably on the bed. “Maybe next time I’ll show ya how t’operate de telephone, chère. Dat way ya c’n call ahead an’ warn me dat ya gon’ disappear wit’out a trace.” It felt so good to hold her in his arms again that he almost didn’t want to bring up the topic that had been nagging at the back of his brain. “Mignonne?”

“Mmmhmm?”

“What were you runnin’ from? Why go all de way t’Canada if not ‘cause o’ de lawsuit?”

She scooted up closer to him, placing her hands onto his chest and resting her chin on top. “Swear ya won’t get upset.”

He was instantly alert. “Non,” he answered without hesitation, immediately rejecting her idea. “’M not swearin’ anyt’in’.”

“Remy...”

“What happened, Rogue?”

She sighed. There was no way of telling him the reason for their sudden trip up north without eliciting a negative response. “He sent anothah letter. On th’ last day o’ mah tour, jus’ before Ah went onstage.”

He looked at her in shock. There was no need to expound on who ‘he’ was. “An’ ya still performed?” He didn’t wait for a reply. “Ya promised me you’d go t’de police if somet’in’ else happened.”

“An’ Ah did. Logan took th’ letters ta a detective friend o’ his th’ very next day.”

“So dey caught dis guy?”

“They caught Haller,” she eluded, briefly wondering if it were better to let him believe the stalker situation was resolved. However, she wasn’t given much time to dwell on the matter, as Remy seemed to sense her misgivings.

“Out wit’ it, petite.”

Damn th’ man. He can read me like a book! Still, she tried to feign ignorance. “What are you talkin’ ‘bout, sug-- ” He cocked an eyebrow at her. He’s like a snake on a caffeine high; nothin’ gets past him, she thought in annoyance. “They caught Haller,” she repeated. “But apparently he wasn’t th’ one sendin’ th’ letters.”

“Dey found someone else’s fingerprints?”

“No. He... he called th’ house. By then, Haller was already in custody.”

If it hadn’t been for the slight tightening of his arms around her, Rogue would have thought Remy had taken the news with no reaction whatsoever.

“Dat’s it. Ya ain’t goin’ back home. Ya stayin’ right here in Nawlins wit’ me.”

“What?!” If she had been expecting anything at all, it certainly wasn’t that.

“You heard me. You’ll be safer here dan in New York anyway. I’d like t’see if dat bastard c’n take on de LeBeau clan an’ come out alive.”

“Ah can’t stay here,” she protested.

“Pourquoi? [Why?]”

“Well, fo’ one thing what would Jean-Luc think o’ me livin’ here, even if temporarily?”

“Poppa would love t’have ya here. He adores you, chèrie. If he were twenty years younger, I’d be worryin’ ‘bout him stealin’ ya away from me.”

“Remy, Ah’m serious.”

“So am I.” He brushed a lock of hair from her face. “Dis fam’ly is de best dere is when it comes t’keepin’ t’ings safe, what wit’ Poppa havin’ ta keep his business interests secure. An’ even if dat fool were t’come t’de Big Easy, he’d never be able t’touch us out dere.” He gestured to the city outside the windows.

She knew that he was right. Half of New Orleans seemed to be related to Remy in one way or another. He couldn’t walk ten yards without bumping into one of his countless ‘cousins.’ Because the LeBeau family was so extensive in numbers, they formed a sort of guild, where acceptance into the family was made possible only by blood or adoption. They took looking out for their own to a whole new level.

“You get no say in de matter, mon amant,” he continued, “so you might as well accept it.”

“Oh, so it’s a dictatorship now, is it?” The playfulness in her eyes belied the sternness of her voice.

“Oui. Does mademoiselle have a problem wit’ tyranny?”

“Yes, Ah believe she does.”

“Mmm,” he murmured, receiving her kiss. “Well, tough. She’s jus’ gon’ have t’take it t’de higher-ups den.”

Smiling against his lips, she whispered, “An’ what do th’ ‘higher-ups’ have ta say ‘bout it?”

“An’ de judges’ decision...” he pulled away from her, pretending to ponder the request, “... de appeal is denied. Verdict still stands.”

With agonizing slowness and the skill of a woman who’d made half a career out of dancing, she crawled atop his stretched-out form. “An’ there’s nothin’ Ah can do ta change their minds?”

Her hips were dangerously close to his, and the heat emitting from her body was all but driving him mad.

“Dey’ve been known t’throw a trial or two. Wit’ de right incentive.”

“Well, then,” she declared huskily, undoing the buttons on his shirt and lightly running her fingertips down his chest, “we’ll jus’ have ta find th’ right incentive, now won’t we?”

Unsurprisingly, he had no objections to that.

Hours later, Remy lay awake with Rogue nestled comfortably in his arms. She had been asleep for some time now, claiming he had worn her out more than ‘Ororo’s credit cards at an after-Christmas Day sale.’ Truth be told, she had done the same to him. But for some reason, tired as he was, he couldn’t quite bring himself to fall asleep just yet. It would be soon, though; his eyelids were getting heavier by the second.

In the meantime, he wanted to savor the feeling of having her next to him once again. Not being able to see her for weeks on end while both of them were on tour was a difficult thing to take. But having absolutely no idea where she was, whom she was with or if she were safe, had all but killed him. Finding that she had come home to him in New Orleans was not only a surprise, it was a godsend; an unconscious prayer answered.

Leaning into her hair and closing his eyes, he inhaled deeply. With the barest of whispers, he said, “Merci, chèrie, you came back t’me. Je t’aime... toujours.”

Although not really intending to, he slowly drifted into a contented sleep.

Rogue’s eyes snapped open. Something had woken her up from a blissful slumber. Looking about the room, she tried to pinpoint exactly what it had been.

It couldn’t possibly have been Remy, she thought as she felt his steady breath against the back of her neck. It sounded as if he had been asleep for a while. Judging by the grayish tones of light seeping through the windows, sunrise was still an hour away so it couldn’t have been time to get up yet. There was no knocking on the bedroom door to ensure that they woke up on schedule; and no incessant ringing of a telephone or a pager echoing off the walls, demanding that they get ready for an early morning appointment.

She was mentally running down the list of probable causes for her rude awaking when she heard it again. It was a soft buzzing noise. Gradually, it grew louder and louder. She suddenly realized that the sound was playing itself inside her head. It started out as a quiet jingle in the back of her mind, but slowly progressed into a full-scale melody.

She softly kissed Remy on the lips before rolling out of bed and then looking around for the clothes they had hastily discarded the night before. She spotted Remy’s silk shirt in a heap next to the bed and quickly donned it. The smooth material fell to her mid-thigh and well past her wrists.

Making her way to the desk against the wall, she started opening drawers in search of a pen and paper. She needed to jot down the song playing in her mind as soon as possible. There was no guarantee that she’d be able to recall it again once she got back to the studio.

There’s more paper in here than a stationary store, she mused, shutting one drawer and then pulling open another. Unfo’tunately fo’ li’l ol’ me, they’ve all got somethin’ written on ‘em. Wouldn’t wanna accidentally ruin somthin’ important. C’mon, sugah, where do ya keep all th’ blank paper? She removed a folder from the bottom compartment and placed it out of the way on top of the desk. You’ve gotta have some kind o’ – Aha! Triumphantly, she withdrew a legal pad from the drawer and immediately went to work on writing out the song in her head.

“Da, da, da, dum...” she hummed softly as the pen flew across the page. The words were crashing around in her brain faster than her hand could write them. “... was afraid you had gone... never to be seen... but you came back to me... who would have believed...”

The tune was slow and sultry, like a lazy river on a summer afternoon. It reminded her of her childhood in Caldecott when the highlight of her day was floating down the Mississippi until the sun decided to shyly duck its face behind the horizon. Within minutes, she had written the chorus and both verses of the ballad. It was when she reached the song’s bridge that she began to have some difficulty. She tapped the end of the ballpen against the desk, trying to come up with suitable words that would compliment what she had already written down. Her left foot soon began to mimic the pen’s rhythmic movements.

Something out of the corner of her eye caught her attention. Momentarily abandoning her song writing, she moved her hand toward the folder that had earlier been discarded.

Soft humming gently coaxed him back into consciousness. At first, Remy thought it was coming from the woman lying beside him, but he soon realized that she was no longer there. He swallowed a grunt of displeasure. He hated waking up to an empty bed. It was a ludicrous thought on account of the Louisiana heat, but the bed always felt colder without her.

He raised sleepy eyes to the opposite side of the room and spotted her scribbling furiously at the desk. The quiet melody reached him once again and he recognized the mannerisms of a songwriter at work.

Dat’d be jus’ like her, he thought in amusement, watching her pause and begin to tap her pen against the wood. She’d sacrifice much needed sleep jus’ ‘cause a song was runnin’ t’rough her head.

Languidly and with the grace of a panther, he slid out of bed and pulled on a pair of pants before making his way over to where she sat. Wryly, he pondered the predicament of his current situation. At the moment, he was half-dressed. In order to become fully dressed, he’d have to strip Rogue of his blue silk shirt. Normally that would have been a no-brainer for him, but there was something very... seductive about her wearing his clothing. It was hard to describe considering that it was just a simple shirt, but somehow she managed to make it look incredibly provocative.

He approached her from behind and was about to open his mouth to speak when he spotted the open folder on the desk. Stunned, he turned his attention to Rogue. From over her shoulder he could see the item in her hand.

She was holding his picture of Genevieve.

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