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Thirteen years ago…
Blood-curdling howls of pain and fear reverberate in the dark wet tunnels as Sarah hides in the rubble of a fallen wall and squeezes her mother’s hand; the notable silence of rats an omen foretelling the end of her world. She winces and whimpers softly when loud resounding cracks and cruel peals of laughter join the echoing symphony of despair, but kind black eyes urge her to remain quiet, invisible, safe… “Mama… I’m scared…” she begins, pressing her tearful snot-slick face into her mom’s soft wrinkled neck..
“Shhh… Sarah…” Mama whispers, pressing a feeble hand over her mouth to stifle her stuttering cries. “Please, little one. Mama needs you to go hide… you can’t let them find you, sweet thing.” She tenderly caresses a little crumpled face sore with protruding bones. “Go where the dandelions grow, baby… please go…”
Sarah only cries harder, pressure building slowly toward a bestial scream, before stilling as they hear shaky, uneven splashes and pitiful sobs passing in an adjacent tunnel. “H– help me! Help me, please!” her mother screeches suddenly, startling the girl, as a young man with wild terrified eyes rounds the corner, clutching his stomach with shaking, bloody hands.
Her mother sees a frightened wounded child with a good heart; her last shining hope. Sarah sees a dangerous man, an invader, here to take away everything she knows and loves. Both are right.
The man kneels down in the gritty brown water beside them and talks frantically with her mother in a rough, broken voice. She doesn’t hear what they’re saying. She hears only the screams, sees only his eyes… watery black and red pools hiding behind wet strands of copper… darting back and forth between her and Mama… the eyes of a scared animal… breathing fast and heavy as her mother pleads for his help.
He looks over his shoulder, trembling, whimpering sounds in his throat, bloody fingers curling in his shirt… then strong hands grab her; carrying her away from her mother, her rag dolly, her home, her everything... a faltering whispered song in a strange language warming her ear while he holds her tight and she kicks and wails.
When the screams are far far away and she has no tears left to cry, the blood-drenched man says he’s sorry, oh so sorry, as sirens approach; sniveling and crawling away like roadkill on borrowed time. The bright lights of the police car hurt her eyes. She never sees Mama again.
………………..
“You were my big brother,” she tells him; his head resting in her lap, quiet and patiently listening, as she runs her rough fingers through his hair. ”You were so pretty. When you smiled… you looked like a movie star… like a boy next to a perfume bottle… in the shiny magazines from the gutter. That was confusing... Looking at you. Thinking about you when I was by myself. It was hard for me. Cuz I wanted to hate you.”
She sighs and winds a strand of auburn hair around her finger.
“I tried and I tried, but I couldn’t hate you, Rem. You were the only one there… who wasn’t a phony… who wasn’t a damn suck-up… Like all the rest of ‘em. Kissing the ass of that crusy bald fuck Xavier. You were a devil, you were a criminal.” She laughs, a harsh bark. “Well, the devil was the only one I could trust.”
He doesn’t reply.
………………
Two years ago…
The pretty boy with the cards and the long coat from the dusty pictures on the wall is back. In the photos, he looks tasty; a tomcat on the prowl. Confident and shiny… kissed by the sun… arms around his neck pulling him close as the aperture clicks to commemorate a moment.
The man sitting on the pier at night smoking alone is a shadow; a rangy, half-starved dog that’s been kicked too many times. The succulent muscle that filled out that tight suit in the happy photos is gone. The cocky smirk is gone. His eyes stay glued to the dirt. He’s not living, just surviving… stealing again, shivering, hiding in the dark. And those demon eyes… kinda like Mama’s black eyes… stark against pale skin, his thinned face. He’s not an X-man anymore. He’s a Morlock now.
She looks in the boathouse window sometimes at night. The floor is covered in empty bottles. The mirror is shattered and flecked with blood. He hides under too many blankets and whines like a puppy in his sleep. Maybe they can leave this horrible place and go back to the tunnels together.
………………
“No one would tell me why they didn’t want you back. Why they looked at you like a smear of shit on their shoe. Why they wanted you to… freeze. Disappear in the cold and the white… and never, ever come back. Why would the goody-goods, these… heroes… want that?” She sniffles. “It kept me up at night sometimes. Made my stomach hurt. I’d lay there and chew my lips raw. If they did that to a pretty boy they love… the weather witch’s best friend I heard… what hope did I have? They hated me… hate me.”
His wet red hand squeezes hers.
“But I’m used to being kept in the dark. My whole life is the dark. I’ll… die in the dark. And then…” She growls and snaps her fingers and the sound echoes through the underground passage. “Everyone was just magically fucking over it. Like it never happened! It really pissed me off. You pissed me off. Just… you let them forget about it. What they did. Pretended it didn’t happen.”
“But you were looking strong again, like you were eating your Wheaties again, happy again. And you had those movieboy smiles and gooey eyes for her again. Skunkhead Cutie-Pie. For me, you still always looked so sad. Even when you smiled at me big with the white TV teeth. Your eyes looked like a funeral.”
He coughs and she wraps her arm around him and pulls him a little closer.
“But you were there. You helped me so much. Listened to me. Made my pain go away… something no one else ever did for me… and I hurt, Rem.” A sob erupts, unbidden, from her chest. “I was hurting so fucking bad. All the time.” Her tears fall on his face. “All the time. I didn’t know what it felt like to not hurt. And you made that go away. Changed my life. Made me feel special, like I mattered.”
………………
Sarah curls into his side, huddling under his coat, looking into a hand mirror as they travel back home. She can’t make sense of what she’s seeing. It scares her more than anything has scared her in a long time. Since…
It scares her.
It’s confusing, it’s horrible, it’s wonderful. She feels her lips stretch unnaturally and the girl in the mirror smiles… smiles so big. TV big. She sticks out her tongue and the pretty girl does the same. In the glass, the girl's lower lip trembles and tears stream down her face. Her own cheeks are wet.
It... really is her. Looking back at her. She cries harder. So hard she can’t breathe as he rubs her back and sings her a lullaby in French. She’s beautiful.
She looks up at him, beaming, and he looks back at her. He’s smiling, but his eyes are so so sad. Because he accidentally hurt her? Or because she’s crying? She hugs him as hard as she can, squeezing the breath out of him, and listens to his heart as a surprised laugh rumbles in his chest. Soon, his arms wrap around her and he doesn’t let go for a long long time.
………………
“But I found out, you know… Later. What you did. That you…” she swallows hard and the noise of a dying animal rises from her throat. “... helped kill everyone I loved…” She watches the hypnotic reflections of water on the curved ceiling of the sewer tunnel and swallows hard, chest burning. “Everyone,” she adds, violently swiping the snot from her face. “That you led them in. That you were that bloody man. That took me away from Mama and left me for pigs to find. Found out a couple months ago. Looking back, I don’t know why I didn’t recognize you. Because I remember your eyes. Maybe I just didn’t want to.”
“And I cried, Rem. Cried so fuckin’ hard. Cut up that picture of us smiling like idiots at the circus with scissors til it was just little tiny pieces. An’ stepped on ‘em. An’ burned ‘em. Chewed my new pretty lips bloody. I didn’t come out of the dark ‘til my cheeks dried up and I knew how to wear a happy mask and hide it from you. Because I still… I still… Fuck.”
“And you know what was really scary? That’s not me. Again. Hiding. Not the me I know. Did I learn it from you? From my big brother?” He closes his dark eyes and a bloody cheek rests on her thigh.
“Did you know I found out?”
He finally rasps a reply. “Non.”
………………
Two days ago…
Gambit is furious and ready to walk; duffel bag over his shoulder, leather jacket zipped, motorcycle keys in hand. A group of frustrated X-men surround him, trying to urge calm… get him to make nice and behave… but the Professor has pushed him too far.
“I’m done talkin’ bout it, Storm! Done wit’ him altogether now… Done and gone!”
Hellfire glows in his eyes as he turns away. Half of them feel the same way, but they let him be the asshole, the Judas as always; opening the door for them by storming out first. ”Right behind y’, Rem,” Sarah pipes in frantically; terrified of being left behind.
”Sorry, Sarah, but…” he begins, red eyes flashing to her guiltily, as the bones in her forehead shift and throb.
”Ears up, Cajun! There’s no way you’re leaving me alone with that old ba-“
Piotr interrupts, reciting schoolboy platitudes, while Remy spins to confront Jean and Scott, but she’s tuning it all out now… already spiraling. No fucking way, no fucking way is he leaving her here with these people. He can’t do this. He can’t fucking do this to her... then he’s stomping to the door and her heart is pounding. She’s running to keep up.
”We’re outta here!” she screams, grabbing his sleeve, but he stops short and looks over his shoulder; eyes on the floor. Like when he came back from the ice.
”Not “We,” Kiddo. Not this time.”
”Remy, please…” she begs. Her stomach aches. Her ribs twist and pulse. He can’t do this! Not after what he did to her. What she forgave…
”…I’ll be in touch as soon as I get settled. Promise.”
And then he’s gone.
………………
“Were you ever gonna tell me?” She asks, twisting the bone in his gut. He arches with a shuddering gasp and then stills again, head snapping back over her knee, breathing shallow and labored. There’s no more time for lies.
“Non,” he whispers.
A red bubble appears at his lips and pops, accompanied by a gurgling sound. A tear falls down his pretty face. Bleeding from the gut and crying in the sewer, just like when they first met. Full circle on a merry-go-round of pain.
His voice is like broken glass. “Glad it was you, petite. Wanted to live, wanted to love… but…” He seizes and coughs up more blood and she holds him tight until the convulsions pass. Then the ghost of a smile. “Ain’t a good man... Never was. I had it comin.” He blinks slowly and her breath catches until his eyes open again. “But don’ you get caught now, girl… end it here and live. Go to school. Let de nightmares go, Sarah. I’ll take dem wit me… to hell.”
He reaches up with a trembling red thumb to wipe away a tear as they begin to flood her vision. She’s glad she can’t see his face as she grasps his wrist and presses his hand down to his chest.
………………
Three hours ago…
When she finds Remy in the city, he’s scratching the jaw of a fat orange cat and leaving a quiet bodega at 1 am with a gyro and a six-pack. He’s wearing a rumpled suit and a sour expression, but his face lights up like Christmas when his red eyes glance over and catch her. “Petite!”
He jogs across the road to meet her and she pulls him into an alley where they can be alone. “What in de world you doin’ out here, girl?” A big honest movie star grin. He’s clearly been drinking. His words are slurred and his gait is sloppy; eyes shining as he affectionately pushes a strand of pink hair behind her ear.
“I’m actually damn glad to see ya, Sarah. I’m awful sorry for how we left tings yesterday.” He clumsily stashes his beer and food on top of a dumpster and staggers over to give her a big genuine hug. She loves his hugs. His arms are strong and he always smells nice. He rests his chin on top of her head and a cheerful chuckle rumbles against her cheek as he pulls her close.
Her fingers curl into his jacket and she cries into his shirt as she pushes the long shard of bone inside him.
………………
“I think… you bastard.” She sobs. “I think I love you. I hate that I love you. I’m such an idiot. Just another fool falling for that stupid pretty face.” She rubs her thumb along his sculpted cheekbone, smearing a red line of blood, and swallows a sob. “You aren’t a pedo creep and you’re hung up on Skunk Girl, but…” she sniffles loudly. “Yeah. I loved you. I guess I just needed you to know that.”
He’s smiling at her, but his eyes are empty. His chest is still. He looks as beautiful, his eyes as kind, as always. Her throat starts to burn with acid. She felt a desperate need to punish him, to make him hurt, but wasn’t ready for this moment. When he was an empty shell. Really gone.
“No no no no no no, Rem…” She slaps him and his face whips to the side but he doesn’t move. “Remy.” She pulls the sharp spike out of him and her hands dance over his torn ruined torso. “Wait… no.”
No more winking and teaching her how to cheat at cards. No more dancing to Cajun folk songs spinning in the record player. No more swearing in French after she trips him and laughs.
“Remy. Stop it.”
No more beignets with extra powdered sugar and chocolate syrup. No more stargazing on the roof while he presses a finger to his lips and sneaks her a beer. No more stories about jewel heists and alligators.
He's not coming back. Sarah pulls his face to her chest and she cries.
………………
Fourteen years ago…
There’s a secret corner in the Morlock tunnels. No one knows about it, just Sarah and her Mama. An unlikely ray of sun filters down through a warped unused grate; rusted shut, half-buried in bricks, and forgotten by time. The light warms cracks in the concrete underground filled with glass, dirt, and sand and a wild riot of dandelions grows there every summer. Beautiful yellow flowers twisting upward from the refuse, fostered by a drop of sun but shining for eyes hidden in the dark.
She loves to pick the bright dandelions and knot them into a crown. Mama tells her to make a wish when they go weird and puffy like the upworlders do, and she does. She wishes for a place in the sunshine where all her family and friends can be safe and happy. She watches the seeds dance in the dark tunnels and she laughs.
………………
Sarah drags Remy into the dandelion patch; pulling, cradling and angling his head, until his face is bathed with golden light, framed by flowers.
She gently closes his vacant eyes and wipes the blood from his jaw with a wetted handkerchief from his pocket before pushing a flower behind his ear. She threads more of the dandelions into his soft hair with a lump in her throat; arranging bursts of vibrant yellow and spires of verdant leaves around his beautiful face. Washes his red hands carefully and places them on his chest before slipping a bouquet of sunny wildflowers into his cold still fingers.
She lights candles and arranges them around his body; kissing him softly, reverently, on the forehead and leaving him to sleep peacefully in the sun.