The Narrow Walk

By JF Jackson

Part Two

Remy walked into the kitchen, carrying a plastic bag. "Okay, Jeanie, I t'ink I got ever'ting you ask for." He placed the bag on the counter.

Jean looked at the bag and frowned. "Plastic? Remy, do you know how long this bag will be around, clogging up valuable space on this planet?"

"Yeah, but I save a tree by not getting paper," he pointed out grinning. He loved Jean, with something akin to an older, wiser, sister, but he didn't always agree with her politically correct views on things.

"Hmmm," was Jean's only comment as she unpacked the bag. "Ham, cheese, salami, baloney, bulky rolls..." She nodded. "I think you got it all."

"I tole' you I would," He responded, opening the refrigerator and taking out a bottle of orange juice.

"Yeah, thanks." She busied herself removing knives from one of the drawers. "Nothing is more frustrating than volunteering to make lunch for everyone and finding the frige almost empty. You saved my butt, Remy."

"Anyt'ing for you, beautiful lady." He opened up the bottle and raised it to his lips.

"Gambit! Other people might want to drink some of that, and now you've got your lips all over it," Jean half scolded, half teased.

"Non, I'm going to finish it," He replied.

"Then you'd better put a new bottle in the refrigerator," she reminded him. "And since we're reminding each other of things, where is my change?"

He reached into his coat pocket, pulling out a handful of loose bills and a cassette tape, which he placed on the counter.

"Thanks," she scooped up the money and looked at the tape. "What's that?"

He frowned. "I got it last night from a woman."

"Interesting token of affection."

The corners of his mouth tipped upward slightly as he picked up the tape. "Non, she gave dis to me because..." Because she thought I was accusing her of using a mutant ability to make people like her music. "...Because she's a singer... and she wanted me to listen to it."

"No time like the present." She picked up the tape and walked over to the radio/tape player mounted under one of the cabinets. "Mind?"

He shook his head. It would be interesting to get Jeanie's reaction to Darkstar's singing, if she was indeed half as good on tape as she'd been in person.

Jean put the tape into the machine and pressed play. There was a moment of silence as the tape rolled to the beginning, then music started, just a piano, playing a slow, gentle song, which they both knew they had never heard before.

The tape player/radio wasn't really designed to take the place of a stereo system, the speakers were small and more suited to speaking than music. However, when the voice on the tape began to sing, it carried across the room:

Walking around, with my eyes on the ground
It's raining and I don't even care.
Shadows of memories flash in my mind
I see faces everywhere.

People who knew me, now never can know me
A smile can't always hide fear
I see in their eyes, as they pass me by
They know when a predator's near.

He looked over at Jean to see how she was reacting. She stood by the counter, not moving, her head tipped to one side, listening intently. Their eyes met for a moment and locked, neither of them saying a word, just listening as the song moved into the chorus, Darkstar's voice rising steadily, powerfully, yet still sweet and sad:

Where do I go from here?
Who do I know from here?
Did I end or did I begin?
No one's opening doors for me,
No one paces the floor for me
I'm on the outside looking in.

She's good! Jean communicated telepathically.

Gambit nodded. Yeah, as good as she was last night in de bar.

Neither of them noticed Scott and Bobby coming in to the kitchen. "Hey Jeanie," Bobby called out cheerfully, "How about that..." his voice trailed off abruptly as he heard the music. "What the..."

Remy's head swiveled, looking in his direction. Bobby's face was totally blank, as if his body were here, but his mind a million miles away.

No one spoke, they all just listened:

Memories of smiles can help for awhile
Can keep me from falling apart
I no longer know her name, and her face stays the same
And she'll always be close to my heart.

So many lights, get lost in the night
To hold them, too often I tried
But humanity's place where I can't show my face
They'll never allow me inside.

Where do I go from here?
Who do I know from here..."

"Scott, are you all right?"

It was Jean speaking. Gambit looked over at Cyclops, who, unlike Bobby, looked very much there, body and mind, and didn't want to be. "You okay Cyke?"

"Who is this?" Scott asked, looking pale.

"A woman whom Remy met last night." Jean supplied.

Remy nodded. "I saw her in a bar, singing an' met her later. She gave me dis tape."

"Does she have a name?"

Scott's tone was so demanding that Gambit was tempted to flip him the bird. "Her stage name is Darkstar."

"She's good, isn't she?" Jean commented. "So many singers today are-"

"No, she's not half as good as she thinks she is," Scott snappingly interrupted He turned on his heal and abruptly walked from the room

"Now what could this be about?" Although she murmured it out loud, she wasn't really expecting an answer. She turned and followed after her husband.

Remy frowned, not at all understanding. Guess it's juss a matter of different tastes. He started working on Jean's lunch project, trying to finish it.

"Remy?"

He turned. In the exchange between Scott and Jean he'd completely forgotten Bobby was still in the room. "Oui?"

Bobby still looked like part of him was far away. "Do you have any aspirin?" he asked, his voice almost dreamy. "I feel a headache coming on."

It was seven-thirty that evening when Remy pulled his bike up to the front of Darkstar's cabin. She'd been right about it being at the end of Windsor road. The pavement had ended abruptly, turning into a narrow dirt path, which he followed for almost three miles before he got to the clearing with the cabin at the very end.

He parked the bike and looked at the place. It was a small but neat looking log cabin, the wood aged to the point where it almost blended into the surrounding pine and birch trees. Three steps lead up to a screened in porch which ran the whole front of the place. Facing the cabin was a small body of water, a bit larger than a pond, but a bit too small to be considered a lake. There was a dock extending over the water, the wood faded to a silvery grey which almost seemed to gleam in the pale moonlight.

Standing on the dock was Darkstar. She wore a pair of suede leather pants that laced up the sides, hugging her hips and legs tightly, and a loose, oversized, black blouse that tied at the waist. Her feet were bare, her hair hanging long and straight. Her arms were outstretched as if trying to reach up to the moon.

He watched for several minutes as she held the pose perfectly, standing on her tiptoes, looking almost like a statue. Finally, he moved towards her, trying to be as quiet as possible, trying to figure out what she was doing. It was obvious if she'd heard his bike approaching, she was ignoring it.

The ground leading up to the water was heavily covered with damp pine needles and leaves, which silenced his footsteps. He moved closer.

When he was about ten feet from the shoreline, she lowered her arms to her sides in a swift, yet graceful motion and turned on her toes. "Don't even try it, Cajun man," she called out.

He stopped and grinned. "Good ears, Darkstar,"

She drew in a deep breath, her breasts rising in the oversized shirt. She seemed to be studying him, then finally, smiled, as if bestowing a great gift upon him. "I heard your bike, mere minutes ago."

"But you heard me creeping up on you, too," he countered.

She shrugged, walking slowly off the dock, her steps sure and delicate as if she were dancing. "It's amazing how acute one's hearing gets when they live in the middle of nowhere," she swept her hand outward, indicating the cabin and the woods.

"I suppose." As she drew nearer, he realized he could smell her, and her scent reminded him of cinnamon and vanilla and something he couldn't put his finger on. It wasn't unpleasant, just the opposite. It was, instead, distracting. "I need t'talk t'you," he said.

She nodded. "So you said last night. Although I thought we'd covered all the bases."

"Well I didn'" he replied. "An' now I've got some other questions too,"

She sighed. "It figures. Well, why don't we go inside." She headed to the cabin, completely confident that he would follow. He did.

The inside of the cabin was as rustic looking as the outside. The kitchen, dining and living area were all one large room. There was an overhead loft that covered about half of the room, obviously where she slept. The furniture looked like typical summer place furniture, worn and faded. There was a large stone fire place along one wall, where a fire crackled brightly. The fire was the only source of light in the room until Darkstar lit a couple of oil lamps.

"Would you like a beer?" she asked.

He nodded. As she walked into the kitchen area, he sat down on an overstuffed green sofa, looking around the place. "Don' have electricity?" he asked.

"Don't need it," she responded. "I have propane for the refrigerator and the stove, and I have batteries if I want to listen to music." She returned, holding two bottles, one of which she handed to him. She sat down in a cracked, blue imitation leather recliner which faced the sofa and took a long swallow of her beer. "So, is that what you want to discuss? My lack of modern conveniences?"

He shook his head. "Non, I've lived in places as primitive as dis before, maybe more so." He shivered, involuntarily, getting the same feeling he had last night when waiting for her outside the club, the feeling he was being watched. "Do you live alone?"

"No one sleeps here but me," she answered.

He looked towards the windows, trying to peer outside. As far as he could tell, there was no one for at least three miles but him and her. Gettin' spooked in de woods now.

"So, did you listen to the tape?" she asked, her fingers pealing at the label on her bottle.

"Oui. You sound very good on tape too," he admitted.

She looked up and smiled. "You really think so?"

He didn't know what to make of her. Anyone who was able to enthrall a crowd the way she had last night must realize they were good. So, why did she act almost surprised whenever he told her? "Oui, I still t'ink you're wastin' your time at de bar. Wit' de right help, you could be big."

"Then you could say, 'I knew her when.'" Her smile downplayed into more of a wry grin. "So, is that why you came here? To tell me you believe it was really me singing last night and not some mutant spell?"

"Well, in part." He took a swallow of the beer. "Also.. you have me curious."

"Why?"

He put the bottle on to the coffee table, which was actually two milk crates with a plank of wood on top of it. "Okay, last night you figured out who I am. But, you say it's because I'm easy to recognized because of my eyes. Okay, I'll give you dat. But at one point your tongue slipped. You were sayin' dat I don' get out of the house a lot. But before you say house, you started t'say somet'in else. Somet'in dat start with 'ma-'." "Slip of the tongue," she countered, sitting straighter in the chair.

"Hit too close t'just be a slip of de tongue," he disagreed. "An' I might not have worried about dat, but today, some friends of mine heard your tape... an two of dem acted very... strange."

"Who?" she asked.

"Why don' you tell me? I'm having a feelin' you can."

She turned away, looking out the window. "I don't know what you're talking about."

A feeling of anger rose in him. He hadn't tried to hurt her, only befriend her and all she met him with were mysteries, if not lies. "You won't even give me your real name!" he snapped.

"You haven't given me yours, either!"

Good point. "Remy."

She turned her gaze from the window and looked at him. "Rh-Rhiannon."

"Nice t'meet you Rhiannon." He smiled, hoping to ease some of the tension.

It didn't work. "What do you want from me?" she asked, her voice rising steadily. "I'm not the one who wanted to talk after the show, you are. I'm not the one who insisted on knowing where the other lived, you are. Who do you think you are, Remy, that I should lay my life out before you like a goddamed book for you to read!"

"Maybe I'm someone who would like to be your friend," he said, keeping his own voice steady. "I get the feelin' you're lonely Chere."

"I have friends!" Her voice did not sound nearly as confident as the actual spoken words.

"Non, not many, I think." He stared at her, trying to get her to look at him. "I know how you must feel, Rhiannon. I been a loner most of my life too. Loners can always find other loners. We pick em' out from de crowd. Dat's why you sang dat last song to me last night. Cause you knew I was more like you dan you wanted to admit."

"Oh, I only wish I were like you!" She rose from the chair, storming over to the window and looking out. "Remy, you don't know anything about me. And, God willing, you never will."

"Why would dat be so bad?" he asked. "And how do you know we're not more alike dan you t'ink? We're both mutants, we're both loners..."

Her fingers clenched her nails digging into her palms. "First of all, there is a lot more, more than you want to know. Second, the difference between us is that you have your 'family,' your X-Men. You're not a loner anymore!"

"How do you know how t'ings run wit' de X-Men?" he asked, getting up from the sofa and walking up behind her. "How do you know we can even stand one another when we're not fightin' together."

"Cause no one can operate as a team that well, unless there is trust, even friendship between the members." She watched him approaching through the reflection in the window glass.

"Trust often has not'ing to do wit' friendship," he disagreed. "You can trust someone wit' out liking them."

"Bullshit!" She whirled around, facing him, her fists still clenched. "There is no way in Hell Scott Summers would have let you stick around if he'd hated you!"

His mind reeled from the emotion of her words as well as the meanings. "Hate is a far cry from like, Rhiannon. And how do you know Scott Summers anyway?"

"Why don't you ask him that?" she shouted. "Why come to me? Tell me, Remy, he was one of the ones who acted strange, wasn't he?"

"Oui," he whispered.

She nodded. "I thought so." Her eyes were brown again, a deep, sad brown. "Nothing changes, nothing ever will," she sighed.

"Why do you talk dis way?" he asked. "You tell me some'tin, but you hold de rest back. I don' want t'hurt you, Rhiannon, but you gotta trust me!"

"No I don't." Her voice was flat, cold. "I learned a long time ago, I don't have to trust anyone but myself. That being said, I think it's time you left."

"Why?" He wasn't just asking why to the leaving, he was asking why to everything.

"Because I'm in a very rough spot right now," she admitted. "There are two sides to me, looking at you right now."

"And what are those two sides sayin'"

"One side wants to fuck you up." She crossed her arms over her chest.

There was something in the way she said it that almost convinced him she could do it. "A-and de other side?"

"Just wants to fuck you," she finished.

"If it comes down to an absolute choice between dat, can I take option two?"

End of Part Two.

Yes, MORE author notes:

1: Outside Looking In is a real song, but don't go look for it, cause you'll never find it. The music was written by a friend, the words were written and later altered slightly for this story by Darqstar.

2: To make this story easier to understand, try to think of it all as an alternate universe. In the real-Marvel universe we all know that Rogue really loves Remy and Bobby wasn't a member of the X-Team for quite awhile when the group reformed as the All New All Different X-Men. However, in this version of reality he never left the X-Men. This is a good thing to know as you read this story.

Sincerely
JF Jackson