A Mother's Last Gift
part 1

A drizzling rain was falling outside of the mansion as Remy Lebeau groggily rose from his bed. He glanced over at the clock by his bedside: 6:30am. The Cajun shook his head. What on earth was he doing getting up this early. He looked out the window and decided that it was one of those mornings that merited sleeping until at least noon.

Remy was about to act on that impulse when he remembered that he had an early morning danger room session with Sam and Betsy. His still drowsy mind grumpily conceded that the training session was probably the reason he had set his mental alarms to wake him up this early. It didn t make him any happier about the fact however. His head was still ringing from a massive hangover and the strain of over exertion from two nights before.

Head still screaming in defiance and protest, Remy made his way slowly to the shower. The rain outside was beginning to clear up marginally and sunlight was leaking through the windows. Remy used a hand to shade his sight from the sunlight as it stabbed into his painfully sensitive eyes. That was one of the problems with having mostly black eyes. The entire eye absorbed light instead of just the pupil. The result was a broader field of vision than a normal human and increased night vision with infared capabilities, as well as extreme sensitivity even faint light sources.

The Cajun finally made it to the bathroom and managed to stumble inside the shower stall. The hot water managed to help clear his senses somewhat, yet, still left him feeling like his head was stuffed full of hay. He leaned against the shower wall and slowly let the warm water cover him. He wished that he could wash away his past this easily. Every time he tried though, it kept coming back to haunt him. He had long thought Sinister to be a buried part of his life, yet the man claimed that he was not yet through with him. It bothered Remy to know that someone like Sinister could still be using him whether he knew it or not. He had thought that his time with the X-Men could make up for his past sins. Obviously, he had only been fooling himself.

Gambit finally reached out to turn the facet off. He allowed the rest of the water to drip from his hair onto the basin of the shower. A towel was waiting for him on the rack as he stepped out of the shower and began to dry himself off. His uniform was stuffed in the closet along with all of his trench coats. He had received several curious comments on how it was that he was able to move so quickly in such a bulky overcoat. Remy smiled grimly. If they only knew the truth he was sure that Hank McCoy would have him in his laboratory for observation in two minutes flat. Jean had managed to uncover his empathic powers. She and Betsy, he reminded himself. But so far no one else more than suspected his other abilities. Remy shook his head. A mutant with four distinct and different abilities. He had once heard the professor comment that he believed that in the future mutants might begin to evolve again to the point where each one would possess more than one power. Hank had been supportive of the theory as well, but so far had been unable to find any evidence besides Legion to support the theory. If Hank even suspected the truth about Gambit's abilities, he would insist on a lengthy examination for future posterity. Remy grimaced at the thought of spending more than ten minutes in Hank's lab. His time with Sinister had made him very wary of labs.

Gambit selected and overcoat and shrugged into it. He was about to read for his communicator when it gave the tell-tale beep of an incoming call. Remy sighed. It was probably Cyclops calling to reprimand him for not yet arriving at the danger room. He picked up the little plastic device and switch it one.

"Gambit, if you don t mind some of us would actually like to get something accomplished this morning." Cyclops s stern voice was starkly disapproving.

"I be on m way now homme." The X-men s leader s voice was not one of the things that he needed to hear first thing in the morning.

"Well, hurry up. You re scheduled to train with Cannonball and Psylocke this morning. You haven t had much experience working with either on as of late. So we need to determine how well your abilities will mesh together in combat situations."

Gambit slowly massaged his throbbing head. "Right, right . I know. I be down in a few moments. T at okay."

"Just make it fast. We re already waiting on you. Cyclops out."

Gambit glared at the small piece of plastic and metal and not for the first time considered charging it with his mutant ability and letting it fly out the window. Remy sighed again. Cyclops would just see that he got another along with a lengthy lecture on maturity and responsibility. The Cajun stared in the mirror for a moment and tried to recognize the man staring back for a moment before he stuffed the communicator in his pocket and began to walk towards the danger room.

Scott Summers studied the scene below him with no small amount of concern. From his vantage point in the Danger Room control booth he could study in detail the three individuals below him. The danger room had constructed a New York City landscape in which the tree mutants combated a series of battle droids. Samuel Gunthrie seemed to be doing fine as he used his kinetic force field to fly directly into the exposed joints of one of the battle droids legs. The droid dropped to the ground, effectively disabled.

Cyclops grinned in spite of himself. Sam was still so young in many ways. His youthful exuberance always kept him on his toes, alert and eager to prove himself. Scott had to stifle a laugh as the young man performed a barrel roll all the while shouting in defiance and joy.

Almost unnoticed in the shadows, Psylocke lept for the damaged battle droid. Her telepathic knife flared brightly before she plunged it into the droid s head. Scott winced at the sound of electric circuits frying as the massive droid crashed to the floor. He knew the object of the exercise was to disable the robots but when Psylocke fried out the circuitry like that it made them nearly impossible to repair for future use. Still, at least she was doing her best to work with the other members of the team. Her exposure to the Crimson Dawn had wrought many changes in her. She was obviously very eager to test out those changes. He watched as she slipped back into the shadows to await her next victim.

Scott turned his attention to the final member of the group and all signs of amusement were immediately removed from his features. Gambit was idly leaning against a concrete support pillar while he watched the other two X-men effectively remove the other battle androids. Scott then noticed a lone robot advancing on the unwary Cajun. Scott checked the safeties to make sure that they were still on and sat back to watch the inevitable confrontation. Maybe being tagged by a lone battle droid would remind him to keep his eyes open.

The droid was leveling its cannon at the lone mutant s back when a sudden flick of the Cajun s wrist sent a spray of five charged cards at the robot. The fist card took out the robot s cannon, the second its leg, the third and fourth blew out the robots torso as the fifth ripped through its optical scanners. The droid fell to the earth, a smoldering pile of scrap metal. Gambit didn t even spare the downed robot a backwards glance as he casually lit a cigarette and began to puff away contentedly.

Scott tried his best to keep the anger out of his voice as he activated the intercom. "Gambit, would you please come up here. Sam, you and Betsy continue with continue with the exercise." He flipped off the intercom and watched as Gambit deliberately finished his cigarette before he even mad a motion to head towards the door. Scott was fairly certain that the man was hung over and in all probability wanted nothing more than to crawl back into bed. The last thing he had been concentrating on this morning was the training session. That just wasn t fair to the other members of the team who were so obviously making a genuine effort.

The door slid open with a quiet hydrolic hiss as Gambit walked into the control room. Scott swiveled his chair around to glare at the young man.

"Would you mind telling me what was going on down there, Gambit." Scott could see that his tone had already but the other man on the defensive.

"Not ing is goin on homme. Jus doing my job." Those red on black eyes glowed with defiance.

"Then would you please explain to me why that your performance today had been down twenty percent from your usual." Scott waited for a moment and continued when he didn t received a response. "I saw you out there. You weren t even trying to make this exercise productive and that is not fair to Sam and Betsy who are."

Gambit sneered, "Y bout done tellin me what I done wrong today teacher, or y gonna give me detention too."

Scott s anger surged for a brief moment before he was able to bring it back in check. Right now a shouting match was not going to accomplish anything. Gambit was obviously hurting right now and as he always did when he was in pain he was trying his best to push everyone else away from him. Cyclops held in a sigh. He supposed that Gambit s relationship difficulties with Rogue were at the root of the man s problems. If Gambit was going to be an effective member of the team he was going to have to get his problems resolved somehow.

Scott tried to soften his voice into what he hoped sounded like brotherly concern. "Listen, Gambit, I know that you have been through fairly difficult circumstances lately. If you want to talk about it you can always ....."

"Dere ain t not in that need to be talked about." Gambit cut him off.

"Gambit, please. I m your friend. I only want to help."

Gambit s eyes glowed dangerously. "Y really t ink you re m friend heh."

Scott resisted the urge to turn his face away from those suddenly demanding eyes. "Of course I m your friend Gambit."

"Den why I never here you call me by my real name, only Gambit. Real friends don do dat."

Scott faltered for a moment, suddenly at a loss for words. He finally had to concede that Gambit was right. The two of them had never been on good terms with one another so it was pointless to but forth a false venere of friendship. "All right Gambit. I ll admit that we probably aren t what you would call friends. But that doesn t change the fact that as team leader I am responsible for the well being of all those on my team." Scott paused for a moment to carefully consider his next words. "As such, I feel it would be best to put you on a temporary inactive status until you can get your problems resolved."

Scott leaned back in his chair to await the coming eruption. Gambit simply stood there for a few minutes glaring at him with a malevolent look in his eyes before he turned abruptly and left the room.

End part 1