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The mansion is quiet as Remy pads through the dark halls. It’s rare for the place to be entirely silent, with so many people on different schedules, but Jean and Scott are visiting her family along with Hank, and Jubilee’s spending Christmas with her former foster parents. God above knows where Logan and Morph are; he suspects there is alcohol involved, and probably Bishop as well, but they hadn’t said anything before they’d disappeared for the night.
The silence is made worse by the darkness. In years past, garlands and lights would festoon every available surface, casting a soft glow into every corner, even ones only reached by flight; there’d been a half-hearted attempt to drag decorations from storage a few weeks ago, but nobody had really had their heart in it.
Even Storm isn’t around: she’d gone into the city this morning, and—she claimed—the incoming blizzard had kept her there overnight. He’s got the feeling it’s more that she can’t really stand the empty halls any more than the rest of them; even now he expects to turn a corner to find the Professor waiting, though it’s been weeks.
Still, he’s not entirely alone, and as he approaches the rec room he’s not surprised to see the blue light of the TV spilling into the hall and the sound down low. He pauses at the doorway: the decorating had started in here, before everyone had drifted away, and between the tree in the corner and the TV, the room is bathed in a soft glow. He can see her well enough, curled into one corner of the couch with her feet tucked up and a mug of cocoa cupped between her hands, a familiar shape amongst the strangeness of the night.
She doesn’t notice him at first, too absorbed in the movie though he knows she’s seen it before. It’s one of those classics that gets played a hundred times this time of year, and she’ll watch every single one if she can. He could carry on, head down to the kitchen to prep for tomorrow’s meal though it’s not much work for two, or to his room where there’s a book he’s left half-finished for weeks. Leave her alone to her movie and drink, because despite everything she’s found a way to celebrate; she always does, somehow. He clears his throat instead. She sits up straighter as she turns, smiles when she sees him.
“Remy!”
“Evening, chère. Gambit not interruptin’, is he?”
“No. Course not.” She shifts, pats the spot on the couch beside her. “Come watch with me. Afraid we’re out of cocoa, but there’s still whiskey.”
It’s the good stuff, the Professor’s personal stash, and Remy pours himself a finger before crossing the room. On the TV, a lawyer is making a case for the existence of Santa Claus as Remy settles on the couch, not too close but close enough that her blanket-covered feet nudge against his thigh. It’s barely anything and the only thing she has, so he brushes his hand over her ankle and watches the screen, sips his drink.
“You ever have Santa?” she asks.
He glances over—she’s watching him, and in the soft light there’s a warmth on her face that reminds him of a home he never had, though maybe it ain’t the tree’s doing.
“Non,” he says. “Was on de streets ‘til…” He shrugs. “Gambit smart enough to know real young dat wasn’t for street rats like him.”
It’s the sort of thing that makes people pity you, but she only nods.
“My daddy… Well, he usually tried. But he wasn’t— He didn’t know what to do with a daughter, ‘specially one like me.”
“Can’t imagine you were dat difficult.”
She laughs. “If you think I got a temper now… No. Christmas wasn’t much. But there were always movies on the television, even if the reception would cut out more often than not. Don’t think I saw the back half of The Sound of Music for three years straight.”
“And after?”
“With Mama, you mean?”
He nods. Try as he might, he can never quite reconcile the woman before him with Mystique’s influence.
“I was too old for Santa by then, Remy,” she says flatly, but the corner of her mouth ticks with amusement. “And even if I wasn’t… well, I’m sure if she’d have seen a trick to it, she’d have ho-ho-hoed her way into a jolly red man. I love her, even now, but… I know what she is. Don’t think she ever gave much thought to what was good for me.”
Sounds about right. It isn’t the biggest reason he dislikes the woman, but about now he thinks it’s real close.
“Well, maybe Santa come tonight, hein? Leave out milk and cookies, see what happens.”
She laughs, sets her mug aside. “What about you? When…”
“When the Guild took me in?”
She nods, then shakes her head. Bites her lip. “Nevermind. I know you don’t like talking about it.”
“Non, it’s… The first year, some of de boys tol’ me it was tradition to try to steal your gifts from pere’s hiding places. I ended up with a face full of ink and a whipping for my troubles, but Bobby got it twice as hard for encouraging it.”
She winces. “I’m sorry.”
“No need. Suspect Jean-Luc knew it was the quickest way to get Bobby and me on the same side, ‘cause we were fast friends after dat.”
The corners of her lips curve up, and it’s just about the prettiest thing he’s seen. “I used to wish I had a brother. Or a sister. I wasn’t fussed, really. Just… someone who’d seen the same things.”
“And now you got de X-Men.”
“And now I got the X-Men,” she agrees. “And Kurt.”
“Ouias. How is the fuzzball?”
“Trying to convince him to come visit. There’s all that talk about Genosha, I think it’s caught his interest. Not that he’ll say that.”
They’ve all heard the rumours. Pretty words, but Remy doubts it’ll come to anything more.
“It would be good to see him. He owe Gambit a round of poker.”
“Don’t corrupt my brother.”
Remy grins. “Chère, Gambit is good, but he can’t corrupt someone who don’t want to be corrupted.”
“You’re incorrigible.”
He waggles his eyebrows until she laughs again. She’s turned fully towards him now, the movie forgotten. Not that Remy minds—there isn’t much he likes as much as he likes these conversations, when the world is quiet and she dares to offer a little more than she usually can.
“Gambit is all Cajun charm,” he says. “N’awlins born and bred, hard to beat.”
She makes a sound that could be agreement, even if she’d probably deny it. “I ever tell you I lived there awhile?”
“Non.”
“With Mystique. Only about three months, not long after I met her. I think she was running some sort of scam, but she was keeping me out of it then. Wanted me to control my powers first. I didn’t— Maybe I should have realised sooner what she was doing, but I was scared and had nowhere else to go. And the city… I’d never seen anything like it.” She pauses, tilts her head. “Maybe that’s why I like you so much.”
“And here I t’ought you liked Gambit for his good looks.”
She rolls her eyes, then glances down to fidget with her gloves.
“Do you miss it?”
“N’awlins?”
“Yeah. Or your family.”
The evasive non-answers are at his fingertips, and he knows if he gives one she’ll take it without complaint. But the world is quiet and the lights are low, and he wonders.
“De first year, Gambit missed it something awful,” he admits. “He was in Paris and surrounded by champagne and belle filles happy to see him, and all he wanted was Tante Mattie’s jambalaya. Ain’t no Cajun food in Paris, chère. But after dat…” He shrugs. Truth of the matter is, if he had that he wouldn’t be the man he is now. “Still love ‘em, dey were my first family and Gambit don’t know what he’d be wit’out dem, but they ain’t been home for a long time.”
“Yeah,” she agrees softly. She turns back to the TV, watches for a few more minutes. Remy wonders if he’s said the wrong thing, pushed on some sore spot he didn’t know, but then she bites her lip, deliberately doesn’t look at him. “Think the professor is missing us?”
Ah. He finishes his whiskey, sets it aside.
“Course he is.”
“It’s so quiet this year.”
“The team needs time. T’ings change, but dat isn’t always a bad t’ing.”
She nods, and sighs. On the TV, the movie credits are playing.
“Guess that’s that,” she says. A little too quiet, a little too brittle to be the truth. “Should head to bed. Thanks for watching with me.”
She doesn’t go to move. With another woman he would know what to do; how to tilt his head, lean in close, kiss her so softly that she’d wonder if he’d kissed her at all. He’d know how to wait until she made up her mind to kiss him back, invite him to bed. But with Rogue… She doesn’t want the night to end, he knows that much. An impulse has him rising from the couch.
“Stay there,” he says, and crosses the room to the CD player. There’s a jumble of Christmas themed CDs out beside it, and he rifles through them until he finds one he knows belongs to her. Ain’t nobody else in the mansion who loves Dolly the way his chère does, and as the music starts he knows he’s got it right from the smile on her face.
“Gotta stay up, see if we don’t see Santa,” he says easily, loping back to the couch.
Rogue rolls her eyes again. “Don’t think that’s how it works, Remy.”
“Trust dis t’ief, chère. Santa won’t even know we here.”
She’s still smiling as she nestles back into her seat, leaning her chin against her hand and green eyes wide.
“Where else you been for Christmas then?” she asks.
He tells her about a Christmas market in Bruges, and a New Year in Stockholm. Leaves out the jobs he’d been there to do—she isn’t gonna judge him for it now, but he ain’t proud of them—but tries to recall all the vivid details, paint a picture bright enough for her to imagine she was there too. She leans forward as the conversation drifts, and he could stay in this room forever for a moment like this. For all the rest of their troubles and cannots, there ain’t nobody he likes talking to more. It’s so simple, really, and he doubts she will believe him if he told her so. But here in this moment….
He stands up, extends a hand.
“T’ink they playing our song, chère.”
She raises an eyebrow. “I don’t think you know what song this is, sugah.”
“Don’t matter, so long as you’re de one dancing wit’ me.”
She laughs, unfolds herself from beneath the blanket. Checks her gloves before taking his hand, but she lets him take her into his embrace. Holds herself stiffly, at least until he’s cracked three jokes and drawn them far from the couch. On the stereo, Dolly is singing about getting through tomorrow and Rogue is swaying in his arms, eyes closed as she moves.
He watches her expression in the Christmas lights, memorises the easiness in her expression: the sweep of eyelashes against her cheek, the curve of her contented smile. The song is already coming to an end, too short a time though he’s not sure anything would be long enough, and he expects her to move away. She’s always the first to do so, the first to remember why she should, but to his surprise she remains in his arms.
“Bet Westchester ain’t half so interesting as Paris,” she says softly, opening her eyes. They really are stunningly green.
Remy shrugs. “If Gambit wanted Paris, he’d be in Paris. Westchester suits him jus’ fine.”
She nods, quietly pleased, and then she glances upwards.
“Remy,” she says slowly. “You know you’ve gone and danced us under the mistletoe, right?”
The danged thing is right above them, green and lush. It is, genuinely, an unintentional thing, but he grins all the same.
“Gambit always gonna wish for a Christmas miracle.”
She shakes her head, her expression so fond that his heart actually tries to skip a beat, like some youthful couillon that ain’t never known a girl. Then she raises a hand to his mouth, presses her own on the other side. It’s their own kind of kiss, and that’s a Christmas miracle in itself. Her palm lingers against his lips for a moment, and when she drops her hand away it is to hug him, head tucked against his shoulder and her body solid in his arms, her breath warm against his neck when she exhales.
“Merry Christmas, Remy,” she says softly.
He holds her close, breathes her in.
“Merry Christmas.”