All characters owned by Marvel Comics

Author's note: Last chapter! Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed my little story! And, I swear, for any of you who have read my Rogan story Coming Home, I am not obsessed with this kind of…conclusion for our girl Rogue, I just wanted a story where Remy had his chance. You know how I love my happy endings…Thanks again!

Chapter 8

A contented Cajun woke me shortly after dawn, nuzzling affectionately against the side of my neck. We had eventually fallen asleep in a gratified tangle of limbs while the storms rained themselves out last night, giving way to what looked to be a peaceful sunrise, the weather a reflection of what had transpired between us.

"Good morning, sugar," I smiled drowsily, enjoying the warmth of his body against my backside, the strength of his muscular arms around me.

"That it is, mon amour, that it is." He nibbled his way from my earlobe to my collarbone, his breath tickling something fierce. I turned around to swat him and kiss him proper, but when I did his face fell. "Oh, Anna…" he murmured and touched his elegantly honed fingertips lightly to the side of my face. I winced, nearly forgetting the beating I had taken yesterday courtesy of Bella Donna's cronies. I had to have looked like hell, even Tante had said her miracle brew wouldn't take all the bruising away, though it had certainly made me feel better. "Chere, I'm so sorry…" I put a hand over his mouth. I knew he would try to take all this on himself, Remy the martyr couldn't resist a whole heaping plate of guilt, but the start and finish of this mess rested on Irene Adler, not on him.

"This ain't your fault, Remy." He took hold of my hand and kissed it fiercely, his red on black eyes a brutal sea of melancholy.

"How can you say that? My ex-wife kidnapped you, tried to kill you. She hates you because of your involvement with me, why else would she come after you?"

"Oh, you know Bella Donna. Woman just can't help being a cun…" I swallowed the last 't' at the expression on his face "…cerned citizen." He clenched his jaw like he did when he was burying himself in misdirected misery, but I just wasn't having it this morning. We had come so far last night, but we still had way too much to deal with for us to fall into old routines. On the rare occasions we had been able to touch each other without the limitations of my power, the physical side of our relationship had been truly amazing, as natural as breathing. It was the emotional side where things were too complicated for our own good. We had what I hoped was a breakthrough last night in each other's arms, had found each other again, and I wanted to keep the pendulum swinging. "Sides…" I continued, "…not entirely sure we can pin this one on you two's unfinished business." He stared at me with an intensity that made my heart skip a beat.

"Why's that?" So, I told him. About the break in and the tarot card, about Phillip and Angelique, about Irene's last diary with me as the star, about its missing pages. When I was done, he ripped the sheet off himself and stood, running his hands anxiously through his disheveled chin-length hair. I sat up and tucked the sheet around me, admiring that gorgeous butt of his, watched as that tanned and toned body stooped to recover his discarded blue jeans. He grinned wickedly at me, eyes twinkling when he caught sight of me ogling his nether regions. Pulling folded pieces of paper from his pants pocket, he came back around the bed and sat next to me, staring down at the yellowed sheets of parchment.

"Thought I recognized the handwriting," he said softly and handed them to me. Panic gripped me, fear, but I opened them, the missing pages of the diary Irene had given me by way of Angelique, at least two of them anyway. Crinkling between my fingers was the image I had pulled from Phillip's memory, front and center. "These were all Jean-Luc's people could recover," Remy continued. "She was burning them in the fireplace when they got to her." The drawing was even more disturbing in person, the expression on the face of the me on the page gleefully murderous. Only two pages were left, she had burnt the rest. I didn't know whether to scream or laugh or both. Knowing my own future could have driven me as crazy as Bella Donna or my momma Mystique. Better to be surprised, made the ride more fun. A strange sense of relief settled over me, but I couldn't stop myself from looking at the other page, after all, Remy had seen it, it only seemed fair. With a trembling hand, I flipped to it.

"Oh, my…" I sucked in a shaky breath. The drawing was a mirror image of the last, only instead of me and Belle, it was me and Remy. Instead of me choking the life out of him, one hand lovingly rested on his face, the other over his heart. It was a beautiful image, the details a photo-realistic impossibility from the pen of a blind woman. At the bottom, in Irene's elegant scrawl, the caption read 'Love conquers all, even the cold hand of Death'. My eyes blurred, tears running down my chin to rain drop onto the aging paper.

"Anna, chere, don't…" Remy wiped the tears from my face and kissed me sweetly, deeply. He pulled the pages from my hands and smiled that LeBeau smile stolen from the devil himself. "How 'bout some breakfast?"

"What? Remy, we need to talk about this!" I was a bewildered emotional wreck and he was suggesting pancakes? My damned traitor stomach growled loudly, but in its defense it had been a couple of days since it had a decent meal. He laughed and helped me to my feet.

"We will, but I happen to know you think better when your belly's full." Shimmying into his jeans, he headed downstairs, and I excused myself to the little girl's room, wrapping my robe around myself when I was finished. I made the mistake of looking into the mirror above the sink. No wonder Remy had winced, the bruises had blossomed overnight, one side of my face from temple to jaw was a mottled mess of swollen purples, and my wrists and ankles sported similarly painful paintjobs.

Determined to at least look presentable, I dug into my toiletry bag for my brush, intent on tackling the tangled disaster on top of my head, but it had scooted to the bottom of the bag. Irritated, I started pulling out the contents: lotions, deodorant, my birth control pills. My fingertips froze as I sat those pills on the marble countertop, and I regarded them cautiously. I picked the palm-sized plastic compact back up, and flipped it open to reveal the colorful concentric circles inside. The last pill I had popped had been Tuesday. Jesus H. Christ, what day was it? My heart fluttered and my knees wobbled, I had to grab the counter for support. Surely not. People missed pills all the time, right? I shook my head and slammed the pack shut onto the counter. I was being ridiculous, and I was as presentable as I was gonna get for my date with a heaping plate of pancakes. And bacon. He had better found the bacon. I hobbled from the bathroom and pushed that little nagging doubt all the way down into the pit of my stomach. I was a little sore navigating the staircase and took it slowly, sniffing at the air in search of the beginnings of breakfast.

"Remy?" I called when I hit the ground floor.

"In here, chere." He wasn't in the kitchen, but in the sitting room, admiring the view of the garden. Calvin had done a wonderful job installing the new window, I'd have to stop and drop off his check, thank him and Zoe for all their help. Remy turned and smiled broadly.

"Just taking a stroll down memory lane, Anna." I stepped next to him and he put one arm around me and pulled me into his side. He kissed the top of my head, and in that moment there was so much I wanted to say to him, how I was wrong, how we belonged together, how nothing else mattered to me, but I couldn't get it past the tip of my tongue. He sighed noisily and I got the impression his thoughts were walking the same road as mine. It was all right, we had plenty of time…

"Pancakes?" he asked, and turned us towards the kitchen.

"And bacon." We barely took two steps when he halted.

"What is this?" He snatched the forgotten family photograph that had gotten me into this mess from the antique side table. "Look what a cutie you are!" he cried, delighted. I tried to snag it from his hands, but he darted away from me. "Mystique actually don't look like she fixin' to murder somebody…"

"She had her moments." I smiled warmly, but my face froze in horror. In the streaming light of the morning sun, it was now clear that the back of the photograph was decorated with several lines of Irene's scrawling handwriting. My stomach dropped, and I had to grab the edge of the table to stop a full-on swoon. Dismayed, I reached for the picture, and Remy reached for me, alarmed.

"What is it, chere?"

"The back…" was all I could choke out. He flipped it and I shoved myself underneath the circle of his arms to take a look.

'My darling Anna and her darling Remy…" Irene had written.

"You gotta be fucking kidding me," Remy muttered, but my eyes frantically followed each loop and whorl as it continued:

'Every so often, my powers presented me with the opportunity to orchestrate wonderfully happy accidents. Love is precious, true love rare. Grab tightly to one another with both hands and do not let go.

My love, always, Irene

P.S. I find the name Olivier quite perfect, wouldn't you agree?'

I was shaking and left Remy holding the picture, moving for the sofa, trying to control the quaking, panicked gasps of breath coming from my mouth. Oh, Irene. You didn't. You couldn't. We didn't. I groaned and held my head in my hands. But we did. My mind spun itself in disbelieving circles. Tuesday. The last pill I had taken was Tuesday. Remy still stood turning the photograph over and over as if searching for more of Irene's words.

"'Happy accident'? What you think that means?" Irene Adler, Destiny, was the greatest precog that had ever lived. All through this ridiculousness, I had wondered how someone so good hadn't foreseen the diary pages getting to Bella Donna, how she had not predicted the danger it placed me in, why she would put me in such a bind, but that was just it. She had not only predicted it, she had expected it, counted on Bella Donna's fury and my reaction, had seen my rescue, had known Remy would come to me in the dark of night. Watching the events as they unfolded in the depths of her mind decades ago, my future foster mother must have seen a chance to twist things just a little, to tug on the chains of fate and tweak it to her liking. I covered my mouth with a hand, but couldn't stifle the laughing sob that escaped it. Remy hurriedly knelt in front of me.

"Anna, what is it?" His worried eyes tried to catch mine, and his strong hands gripped my knees forcefully. Two days of missed pills and a marathon night of unprotected love-making? I knew it was completely preposterous to assume what I was assuming, and it was much too early to find out anything definitively, but when Irene had put her mind to something…

"Today's Friday," I laughed through my tears and kissed his beautifully bewildered face soundly on the mouth.

My foster mother. What can I say? She was the best.

The End