Morning came. It was a relief when it did.

Remy pushed himself up in bed, squinting against the light that streamed in through the curtained window. Sitting, and bending to hold his head in his hands, he took a moment to clear his mind, he mentally prepared himself for another day at the X-Mansion. It took him a few moments of laziness before he felt ready to start the day¡¦s events, and then he stood. The room spun for a moment as he got up too fast, before it stabilized. Glancing at the clock as he did so, he crossed to the dresser to grab his robe and venture to the community shower for the men of the X-Men. He winced when he saw the time. Seven in the morning. He was insane to be up this early, especially on a weekend.

The shower helped him relax slightly, and by the time he came out he was in a halfway decent mood. Granted, he still wasn¡¦t smiles and sunshine, but some of the moodiness was slipping away. His muscles were sore, more from not being used than from being overused, and he reached up to stretch them.

His dressing was done rather mechanically, he trying not to remember the dreams.

Trying not to remember the last time he had had dreams like that, with that kind of eerie organization and warning, that ominous presence. Trying not to remember that last time it had come true. Then it had been with Sinister and the nanos he had put in the X-Men¡¦s bodies to play around with their genetic codes.

But now? There were no metaphors this time, no symbolism like there had been in the past. Only glimpses. Only images. And two words.

The Witness.

Remy shook his head to clear his mind, cursing quietly at the dizziness the movement brought his unrested body, and put the thoughts away. Sometimes if he just put things in the back of his mind, just let them sit there and be mulled over by his subconscious, he could have some insight into them. He had to hope that it would work out like that this time.

Maybe it was just nerves. He had been through a lot lately.

He was dressed by now, and he took a handful of cards off the dresser where they sat, sticking them in his pockets. He didn¡¦t bother looking in the mirror. There was no point. He knew what he would see. Red irises on the black of his eyes. Angular, rugged features, now worn. The skin with a sickly glow and a strange tightness from the burns, still a much less consequence of his injuries than should be possible. The bristle left from not shaving for a day. Hair that was too short which he refused to brush for effect.

He¡¦d seen it before. He had no need to see it again. That almost brought a chuckle. He knew he was in a bad mood when he didn¡¦t even want to look in a mirror and arrogantly compliment his reflection.

Walking out the door, he forced himself to shrug off his preoccupations, his worries, his dark manner. He¡¦d get old too quickly staying with that mentality. It wasn¡¦t worth it sometimes. Sometimes it was much better to ignore life, to avenge it¡¦s curses by simply being unwilling to take it seriously.

Sometimes, when he really tried, he could still make himself believe that life was only a game, and he only a player.

He closed the door behind him as he left his room and wandered rather uneventfully down the stairs to the main floor. Stomach grumbling, he aimed for the kitchen.

There was nobody inside when he entered. It was still too early for most of the X-Men to be about, and the kitchen didn¡¦t tend to get busy until about 8:30 or 9 o¡¦clock. Nobody around. Nobody to yell at him if he had a little fun¡¦ He glanced about conspiratorially, checking again to see if the cost was clear, and then his lips formed into a rather evil smirk. Within seconds there was a frying pan, oil, and the basic essentials for pancake batter piled up in his arms¡¦ plus a few extra spices. It didn¡¦t take long to mix everything together, and to season it¡¦Cajun style.

He added some oil to the frying pan, poured several circles of batter in, and never took a step near the stove. Instead he stood over the table, holding the pan up in the air in his good hand, eyes narrowed. It was actually very hard to do¡¦to use his kinetic power to add just enough energy to the pan to cook the pancakes inside. He¡¦d done this as an exercise when he was only a pup, just learning to use his powers. Then the results had often been less than appetizing.

Carefully, he shifted his focus on the kinetic field around him to center on the pan, blocking out all else so that he could monitor his progress. He could feel the molecules of batter speeding up, resulting in a rise in temperature as he converted the potential energy of the pan he was holding into kinetic. There was a potholder between his hand and the pan¡¦just in case¡¦and he had to work extra hard to make his power work through the barrier. Normally, with his present level of power, he needed to touch something to charge it, but he was capable of charging through certain thin barriers, like gloves, without actually charging the gloves.

The pancake batter was starting to bubble and sizzle, cooking to the right consistency. He stopped feeding it kinetic energy, but instead, focussed on changing some of the kinetic energy back to potential. It as hard for him, not as natural as the reverse process, since his powers weren¡¦t really geared to work that way, but he could do it, not on a large scale, but for something like this.

His kinetic field was still drawn around the pan, constricted there for maximum sensing ability, blocking out most of the rest of the room from his spatial sense, but allowing him to feel that the kinetic energy of the pancakes was now at a moderate level. He took a spatula and flipped them onto a nearby plate, tasting one after he did. Warm, fluffy, spicy. Perfect.

He started the process all over again, ignoring the slight fatigue he felt from the concentration he was exerting and the controlled use of his powers. Just like anything else, his powers needed to be exercised, and he hadn¡¦t been using them too much in the last few weeks after he¡¦d blown up Sinister¡¦s lab. He needed this. And if he felt fatigued, it only meant he was getting a good work out.

The batter was sizzling again, slow bubbles rising to the surface. He flipped the pancakes with a spatula and let them cook some more. The heat rose from the pan and hit his face, irritating his still-tender skin slightly. His control was so careful, so exact, even the smallest distraction could mean its loss.

"Remy? What are ya doin¡¦?" The Southern drawl rang out from the kitchen¡¦s entrance.

He jumped at the unexpected sound, not having felt her approach because of his focus. The tenuous balance of his powers was lost, and the flow of kinetic energy turned into a surprised burst that overran the pan¡¦s capacity. He felt what was going to happen a moment before it did, and threw the pan away from him and towards the window with all his strength. It flew away at a high speed and blew up right before it hit the pane.

If the explosion didn¡¦t wake the rest of the X-Men up, the shattering of glass and the crumbling of sheet rock did. A big cloud of smoke filled what was once a wall of the room. Slowly, Remy turned to look at the source of his distraction, and the reason he had just blown a hole in the X-Mansion.

Rogue stood staring quietly at the cloud of smoke, green eyes wide. Her hair was up in a messy pony tale and she was dressed in sweat pants and an old ratty t-shirt with the name of a school and picture of a mascot printed across its front. He wondered distantly if that had been her high school. After a moment she turned to face him, expression still drawn in disbelief.

"Rogue?" he asked carefully.

"Yeah?" she said slowly.

He looked back at the hole that was slowly taking shape as the smoke settled. The window was gone, as was some of the surrounding wall. The cold air from outside was starting to fill the room and he almost shivered. "Dis ain¡¦t good, is it?"

"No Remy, it¡¦s not."

He nodded distantly, trying to figure out how he was going to explain this one.

"Remy?"

"Yah, chere?"

"It was nice knowin¡¦ ya, sugah, ¡¦cause Scott is gonna kill ya." Her tone wasn¡¦t joking.

He glanced at her briefly, thinking. He looked back at the hole, and then suddenly found an idea. Granted, it was more to lighten the situation than to really solve the problem, but it was something nonetheless. He ran over to the cabinet where they kept the extra tablecloths and found some tape in a draw. Making his way over to the big, gaping, empty space in the wall, and this time shivering as he approached it, he taped the tablecloth over it. The opening started at his waist and extended maybe a meter up, being maybe a meter and a half wide. He stepped back to look at his handwork, bumping into the warped, burnt remnants of the frying pan as he did. Kicking the remains of the pan, he watched it crumble into a course pile of ashes under the contact. There was no sign of the pancakes that had been in it. All that for nothing.

"Remy?" Rogue said tentatively.

"Yah?" He took a few steps back, staring at the wall with a big white tablecloth hanging on it and blowing slightly from the breeze outside. At least it matched the color of the room.

"Somehow, Ah don¡¦t think that¡¦s gonna help much."

He glanced at her. She took her eyes away from the tablecloth and met his gaze, raising her eyebrows.

"Non chere, but it may jus¡¦ give m¡¦ some extra time t¡¦ run." He turned to face her and began moving her direction, stepping more quickly as he approached. He was running by the time he made it past her and out of the kitchen entrance.

"Buh-bye, mah cherie!" he threw over his shoulder. Behind him he heard her finally crack and erupt into an uncontrolled burst of laughter.

¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨

It was less than a half an hour later when Remy heard Jean psychically scream his name, it was a random, not very focused yell, as if she hadn¡¦t exactly pinpointed his location. He winced, but kept his mental shields up at a maximum. He hadn¡¦t realized how quiet it had been with her and Scott in Alaska. Well, if you could call being attacked by Sinister quiet. But at least he hadn¡¦t had Jean in his head and Scott on his back.

*REMY LEBEAU! If you value your life you will come back right now!* She yelled in his head, and this time the words were focused directly on his mind. There was a slight hesitation as he thought it registered in her brain where he was, and then, in a secretive whisper that he knew she was blocking Scott from hearing through his psychic rampart with her: *Scott is livid about the wall already, get over here before he decides to slit your little Cajun neck!*

He gave her the mental equivalent of a raspberry.

She gave him the mental equivalent of slamming the door, and then the short exchange was over. He knew she knew where he was. He wondered if she would tell Scott so he could come and drag him back to the mansion.

Maybe Scott wouldn¡¦t believe her even if she did tell him.

The tunnels were dark and damp and he wrapped his trenchcoat tightly around his body. The walls glistened, reflecting the red light of his glowing eyes. He glanced warily around him, moving quickly, not wasting time staring at the various rodents that chattered across the ground. He remembered a similar journey many years ago, when he was younger, desperate, terrified, his heart had been beating rapid fire through his chest and his nerves had been so tightly wound that even the squeaking of a mouse had made him jump. He had known something bad was about to happen, if not exactly what.

His steps were silent now, and he moved with the fluid motion of a thief. That was what he had always been. There was a time when he had though he couldn¡¦t be both a thief and an X-Man, that they were polar opposites¡¦one helped people, one hurt people. He would always be a scoundrel, a brigand at heart, but there was also something else. As hard as he found it to believe, he wanted to help people, to change things, maybe not to make the world the idealist dream of Xavier, but to do something worthwhile to improve it. He would always be both. Just not at the same time. In the past he had been just a thief. But now he was something else.

He stopped walking, having arrived where he had intended to go. He really wasn¡¦t sure what had brought him here, but he had felt the need to come. Maybe the destruction he¡¦d just brought to the X-Mansion had actually done some good after all. He¡¦d done something bad, made a mistake, and for once he wasn¡¦t afraid that he would be kicked off the team for it. He knew that he wouldn¡¦t be disowned for a missing wall. There were still the X-Men that disliked him, the ones that avoided him, the ones that wished he weren¡¦t around. But he had been willing to give his life for them. And knowing that had changed something for him.

He felt like he was one of the X-Men. And now it was time to put what he had been behind him.

The Morlock tunnels were eerily quiet, and he thought he could feel the empathic echo from the mass of pain and sorrow that had befallen this place years ago. He closed his eyes, let it come. Felt the tears, the blood, the screams, in bright colorful bursts of agony. He saw the dying, relived it in his mind. Saw himself trying to stop the massacre, failing, falling, grabbing one tiny child to try and do something to make it all better. Felt her bones protruding against his chest as he carried her. Heard her quiet crying, muffled by the blanket of her shock. He saw himself tell her he was sorry as he left her somewhere safe, with a few refugees. He saw himself crying. Felt the phantom tears slide down his cheeks now.

He took it all, sucked in all the empathic signatures left resonating from the violent deaths that had taken place here. Took every single ghostly death-cry, every faded memory, every echoing personality that his empathy could find, and grabbed them up with his mind. Felt them almost overwhelm his weak, untrained abilities. And then¡¦ he let it all go. He let every single ghost die. He let the screams fade into nothing. He finally told himself that it was over¡¦ and he finally believed it.

Opening his eyes, he saw the tunnels again. The guilt and regret wasn¡¦t gone, and in a way he was glad that it wasn¡¦t. He¡¦d come to depend on it to stop him from ever doing such a thing again. But the self-hate was gone. The fear that maybe he was still the man that had helped make the Morlock Massacre possible finally subdued. The events that took place here would always be a part of his past, but the present, the future¡¦they were free to form their own course.

He was trembling. Several slow breaths of rotten air found their way in and out of his lungs. His eyes overlooked the cavern in the tunnels before him, watched the ghosts of his memory slowly fade, and he noticed something he had never seen before. Spray painted in faded red on one of the walls was a lopsided diamond, probably done by one of the Marauders as a special assignment from Sinister. His stomach twisted as he wondered whether it was really paint or blood.

His hand rose shakily. He looked down. Stared at the diamond-like scar there. Stared back at the wall. He would never forget. Turning away suddenly, he began the careful journey back to the mansion.

¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨

When Remy came up from the tunnels it was midday. He had half expected to see Marrow waiting for him the whole way back, her gleaming white bones positioned in her hands and ready for a death strike. He almost hoped she would be, that she would finally face him, look into his eyes and show him what she was feeling, even if it was hate. That was better than her avoidance of him, her unwillingness to acknowledge him in anyway, even to show how much she disliked him.

There weren¡¦t many people whose opinions he cared much about. He¡¦d spent his youngest years growing up on the streets alone, not having anybody to care about him. The result was a very acute sense of independence. But still, there were always the few that mattered. Something in him had never allowed him to be completely and totally alone. Maybe he was simply human. Maybe he was simply a mutant empath. Maybe he was simply both.

Marrow wasn¡¦t waiting for him when he entered the mansion. But somebody else was. Storm stood, tall and proud, radiating a kind of translucent beauty that hung around her long white hair and deep cocoa eyes in a chocolate face. He met her when he came up to the main level in the lift; she was waiting there for him and smiled a welcome, though a bit uncertain.

"Jean told me I would find you here if I waited a few minutes."

He walked out of the elevator doors and listened to them swish closed behind him. His mind tried to feel out Ororo¡¦s emotions against his will, to see how much she knew of where he¡¦d been. All he found was uncertainty and curiosity, winning himself a sense of guilt for invading her privacy in the process.

"Well, Stormy, y¡¦ found me."

She nodded in agreement, smiling slightly at his use of his pet name for her. "She didn¡¦t say where you were." There was question in her eyes, but no pressure. She wouldn¡¦t force an explanation out of him.

He tilted his head slightly, thinking of what his answer should be. He finally decided. "Burying the past, ¡¦Roro."

She waited a moment for more elaboration and when it didn¡¦t come she simply nodded. Ororo Monroe was perhaps his closest friend, having been the first X-Man he had met, having been the reason he came to the X-Men. There had never been a time when she hadn¡¦t been there for him, and he loved her for that. She also knew how to leave him the space he needed. Being a private person herself, and a former thief to boot, there was a certain common ground and understanding of each other that they shared. He couldn¡¦t put it into words exactly, but it was invaluable to him.

They were still standing outside the elevator doors, and Remy was about to walk on and assume the conversation was over when Storm spoke again. "Scott wants to see you. He is quite mad." She tried to hold a stern expression on her face but he saw through it from years of experience.

"I¡¦ll bet. How¡¦s he enjoyin¡¦ his new view o¡¦ de outdoors?" Remy gave her a charming grin, remembering the morning¡¦s events. Looking back on it, the situation was quite funny.

The smile broke through slightly on her features. "Not very much. I suggest you see him as soon as possible."

He nodded. "Well, in dat case, I¡¦ll take m¡¦ time." He gave her a roguish wink and turned to go up the stairs to his room. He was halfway there when he heard her voice again.

"Oh, and Remy?" she said.

He smiled where he was, knowing from the tone of her voice what was coming next. "Yes, cherie?"

"My name is not Stormy."

He chuckled and continued his walk to his room.

¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨

Though his room looked undisturbed when he entered it, the note on his dresser told him otherwise. He saw it right away, picking out the unexpected white paper from the other normal and mundane objects that filled his living space. It wasn¡¦t a whole sheet of paper, but a small square written on with a black marker. He stared at the words thinking: "Meet me 9:30 at the bar, details will come."

It was obvious that the note was from Courier, or another of New Son¡¦s messengers, adding the context of recent events. How whoever-it-was had gotten into his room and through mansion defenses undetected, he didn¡¦t know, but he couldn¡¦t say he was surprised. People like New Son had their ways. It was best not to underestimate them.

He took the paper, crumbled it in his hand, noticing that it was still warm, as if it had been held recently. Fishing into his dresser draw, he pulled out the lighter he kept in case he decided to go back to smoking one day, and lighting the small flame, ignited the crumbled sheet. The paper burned with the smell of chemicals, and he held it as long as he could without being burnt himself, before he blew out the fire and shook the disintegrating material vigorously in the air. When he was done it was a charred black remnant of its former self, the words indistinguishable. He threw it in the trashcan in the corner, next to his dresser, wiping his hands on his pants as he turned away, leaving a puddle of ashes on the floor.

The door was his destination, the plan being to go face Scott now and get it over with so he could be done before he had to sneak out of the mansion at night. As far as the meeting went with New Son¡¦s representative, he didn¡¦t have much choice but to go. He was stuck, and his refusal wouldn¡¦t be met kindly.

He walked passed the dresser. Reached out for the doorknob. He never touched the brass metal.

The world flashed out around him and he was in a different place, somewhere, somewhen, far away¡¦

When the sound is done he is lying on the floor of his room, shaking violently.

¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨

She sat in the corner of the mind she shared, arms wrapped around herself, her emotions wound up and tired. That was the only fatigue she felt these days, hard to have anything else without your own body.

The memories hadn¡¦t died, but remained as shadows playing in her intangible brain. They had been hard to share, but necessary. She had a job to do, a world to save. She¡¦d already been foolish, let her emotions dictate her actions, had shown some possibly disastrous mercy, in favor of finding another way.

But that didn¡¦t mean that desperate measures weren¡¦t still necessary, that she should be nice to her host, forget what he had done¡¦would do, ignore what he would become. He deserved everything she gave him and more, and if it helped him see, helped him not play the part he would in the future, then it was all worth it. And if her plans didn¡¦t work? She was still in control, she could always end it. His life wasn¡¦t priceless. By far.

The players were coming together, and she knew who they were, even if she didn¡¦t know what the exact turn of events would be. She had control of the key.

The rest would come.