By Raven Adams

Lizzie lay sleeping on the med-bed.

She look like an angle. Gambit thought as he smiled gently down at her and reached out to move a lock of the blue hair off her face. He had been sitting at her side since he himself had awakened three hours ago. Henry said she would wake up soon and Gambit wanted to be beside her when she did.

He was alone in the med-lab, although Henry walked in every once and a while to quickly grab something, and that was the way he wanted it. No one to ask him questions about Lizzie. He didn't think anyone, other then Jean and the Professor, knew yet that Lizzie was his daughter. He wasn't sure he wanted anyone to know.

But when Rogue had come in an hour ago with food, he thought maybe some of the memories he had of Lizzie growing up had gone to her when she had kissed him. She had stayed a moment and looked down at the girl. When she was done, she looked up at Remy with mixed emotions in her eyes. But she didn't say a word, just touched his cheek with the back of her gloved hand and walked out. That touch was her was of telling him that she would wait until he felt like talking about it and that she would be there when he was ready. But for now, he just wanted to be alone to think.

******

Lizzie's mother and he had met in an illegal gambling hall. He smiled. She had been so beautiful that night, in an emerald-green sequined gown that matched her eyes perfectly. She was standing on the stage singing, her voice was like the tinkling of bells, which Remy had never heard the likes of before and never had since. Everyone in the room was mesmerized, Gambit included. He lost seven hands of poker and four of bourre by paying more attention to the woman on stage then to the games. He'd lost a lot of money that night, but it was worth it just to hear that sweet voice.

After she was done, Remy left the gambling hall and started for the back of the building where the dressing rooms were held. He had to meet the woman that had captured his heart so.

As he pushed back the certain that separated the two parts of the building, he was bombarded with women in various stages of dress and undress, as they were running away from something. Noting that the one woman he wanted to see wasn't among the ones who had almost stampeded him, he continued behind the certain and into the dressing rooms.

He stopped at one of the doors, the one marked with a gold star and the name Juliet DePray panted in silver letters underneath. He had had his hand positioned for a knock when he heard a THUMP and a cry of pain from the other side of the door. Trying to open it found it locked, so he did the next best thing: he kicked it down.

"What the-" He had startled a heavyset man who had his fist raised to hit at the woman who was cowering on the floor.

Remy had grabbed the man's arm before it could finish it's blow toward the woman. "Dat's no way to treat a lady, mon ami." The man had taken one look at Remy's eyes and bolted out the door, not wanting to mess with anyone with "Devil eyes."

Remy had then turned his gaze to the girl on the floor, who was trying to hold her torn dress together. He bent down and gave his hand to help her up, witch she had gladly taken. She was very beautiful, with jet black hair that flowed softly halfway down her back, and her striking emerald-green eyes, one of witch was beginning to swell shut and by the next day was black. "He do dat t' you, chere?" He had asked pointing to her eye.

She looked then into a mirror and drew a breath. "He usually doesn't leave any marks where it'll be seen." She gave herself a pathetic look as she gingerly touched the place around her eye. This had been one of many times she had been hit, only before, the marks had been lower on her person.

Before Remy had been able to say anything else, she had spoken. "I want to thank you, Mr...."

"Remy. Remy LeBeau."

"Mr. LeBeau, I thank you for showing up like a guardian angel, but it would seem that I was once again out of work." She sank down into her make-up chair and covered her face in her hands. After a moment of silences she looked back up and gave Remy a tight smile. "Mr. LeBeau, if I were you I would be finding myself somewhere else. Peri will undoubtedly be coming back, only this time with some help. I will stay here. I doubt Peri will kill me, and I just might not lose my job."

"Non, lady. I take you home." He had grabbed her arm and gently pulled her out of the seat so they were staring each other in the eye.

She just shook her head. "Home ... if I leave, then Peri will kill me. No, I shall stay here to face his wrath. The beating I will get shouldn't be too sever... Oh God, who am I kidding?" She started to cry, witch had to be painful with the swollen eye. Remy had let her cry, then had walked her out the back door just before Peri and his men came back like she predicted. He had taken her back to his place and helped her with her eye, and the other injuries he found ... including the broken heart she'd had for a long time.

Juliet was born in Paris, but had come to the states with her family when she was young. When she was fifteen, her mother, father, and younger brother had died in a plane crash. In order to have food in her stomach, a roof over her head, and money in her pocket, she had to get a job. For a girl her age in New Orleans, she really had only one choice, to sell herself. But deciding she would never do that, she started to pick pockets, held drugs for people and even sold them.

A cop caught her selling drugs, and took pity on her. He owned a bar and gave her a job. It wasn't to long before she changed from the waitress to the entertainment. She sang for the people at the bar, and made more money then she ever really did stealing and selling drugs.

Her cop and she were going to be married, when he was killed. The bar was sold, and Juliet was forced to work for Peri at that illegal gambling hall where Remy had met her.

Latter, he helped her find a new job, and a home. He had fallen in love with Miss. Juliet DePray, and she, him. He was with her almost every night, and was always out in the audience when she sang. It wasn't long before he found out she was pregnant, with his baby. He remembered that day perfectly.

Juliet had been crying when he got there, and it had taken him an hour to find out what was wrong. But when he did ... oh he had never been so happy in his life. A baby. His baby. He had picked her up and swung her around, kissing her, and telling her they'd get married. But his poppa had other plains.

He had brought her to his poppa and asked him if he could marry her. His poppa had said no. Had said he was to marry Belladonna Beudreaux, and at the time Remy was torn. On one hand he was deeply in love with the woman who was about to give him a baby, and on the other he loved the woman, or so he thought at the time, that he was supposed to marry.

His poppa had forbidden him to ever see Juliet again. But while he obeyed him about not marrying her, he couldn't not see her again, he had promised Juliet he wouldn't let their child grow up without a father. So he moved her to a house just outside the New Orleans city limits in the bayou, and he visited every day.

When the baby was born he was at her side looking proudly at the wrinkled red-faced bundle in her arms, and knew he had fallen in love again, this time with his own daughter.

"What her name?" He had asked softly when he was aloud to hold her in his arms. He had to sit in the rocker that was in the room for fear of dropping the precious bundle.

"Elizabeth Michelle ... and I thought she would have her father's name."

"Elizabeth Michelle LeBeau." He had tried the new name out and liked it. It sounded right. "Lizzie. My Lizzie." He had whispered to the infant as she yawned and fell asleep in his arms.

She had grown up wild and free in the bayou. She was like one of the wood sprites the old one's talked about. She was a child who always laughed, and found adventure in even the littlest of things. And she was smart too, took after her mother in that. She looked just like her mother, same jet black hair, same face, but she was Remy's daughter too. She was daddy's girl. She would get the same mischievous grin he had, and when she was mad, she showed it by the change of the color of her eyes to red on black, and you were in trouble if she was mad at you.

She followed him every where wanting to know everything he knew. They would go into the bayou and watch the alligators fight, or go fishing, when she had gotten big enough he had let her pole the pirogue, even though she could just barely push the stick in the mud.

Lizzie was about seven when he began showing her the "family business." She could open a lock in thirty-seconds flat, lift a wallet in ten. And it was about this time that she began to show her powers, to make herself and anyone or anything she touched invisible, or she could go into an empty dimension of her own making.

Then when she was eight, she and her mother had left. Remy had long since thought that they were living a better life somewhere, and that Juliet was doing as she loved, singing.

Often times he thought about them both. There were few nights when he didn't lay awake picturing Lizzie's first steps in his mind, of hear her first word in her ears. Once, when he had been left alone in the mansion, he had the computer make a pitcher of what she might have looked like. The image it had made didn't do his girl justice.

He had come to the X-Men and fallen in love with Rogue. He felt more for her then he did for Belle or even Juliet. But he would give up Rogue to have his daughter back, or just to see her once. And now it seemed he didn't have too. She had showed up on his front step.

******

Kurt stretched and yawned as he sat up in the med-bed. "You know," he said to his "Sinister," "I think it would be better for you to give Liz-Biz the shot though me. She always gets those big bruises that looks like someone's been beating up on her."

The lady laughed. "I doubt Lizzie would like that much, Kurt. No matter how afraid she is of the needles, she has her standards." She walked over to him and pulled a small square computer-like thing out of the breast pocket of her lab coat, and ran it over his body.

"You know, Nina, I always feel like I'm on Star Trek when you use that thing on me."

"Oh? What, do you think I look like Beverly Crusher?" She asked raising a blond eyebrow but not looking away from the tricorder-like thing.

"No. I think you look like Dr. McCoy from the old shows." He grinned back at her.

She gave him a little telepathic kick before saying, "Well, your since of humor's back, albeit misplaced as always-"

"You can thank Liz for that."

"-but you both have reasons for the bad humor, so, as always, I'll let it slip. You don't see anymore Sinisters around do you?" She asked putting the box back into her pocket. He shook his head. "Good. Then you can go. But tell Conrad not to try and contact your partner for another hour. We don't know how well exactly your links are this far apart. She might not be awake yet."

"Well do. Nina-Lady."

"Wait."

"Yea?" he turned slightly.

"Can... can you feel anything from her?" Nina asked worried.

Kurt shook his head. "Not now. But if I am going to feel anything, it won't be long, but I'll tell you if I do."

"It surprises me that you felt anything at all, but you links are then any of the others'. Okay, you can go now ... and Kurt, thank you"

He nodded and walked out of the infirmary only to run into his sparing partner. "Hilo Timofee." He said as the teen took in step with him.

"Hilo yourself. Um ... is ... is she all right?"

They aren't even a real family, but they love each other like they are. I wish my family could have been like this. He thought to himself. "As far as I know. I can't feel anything right now. Nina's surprised I felt anything at all, us being so far from one and other."

The blind boy stopped and grabbed hold of Kurt's arm. "Was it bad?" concern cheeping into his voice.

Kurt smiled slightly, and knew that Timofee could see the smile. They were alike, this boy and Kurt's partner, brother and sister in soul and heart if not in blood. "It was bad. I kept feeling like I was gonna fall or something. But your mom said she'll be fine in an hour or so."

"I'd like to know who brought on this attack. I'd wring their neck."

******

Scott Summers dropped the wrench and started to work out the kinks in his neck that had been there since he woke up this morning ... on the couch. He didn't know what he'd done to the kid, but Jean was so angry with him, that he had volunteered to sleep on the couch, at least until she wasn't so angry anymore. He figured that would be along time from now.

She hadn't said more then two words to him all day, and he had to escape to the Black Bird to get away from her angry glares.

The Professor wasn't happy with him ether. He had actually scolded him, telling him he should have handled the situation better, that what he'd done was in no way the co-leader of the X-Men should act.

Oh well. Jean was mad at him, and the Professor was disappointed with him, but he knew one thing: If that girl and Remy know each other, then she's trouble.

Onto Part Four | Back to the Archive | Main