The Hand You're Dealt

15| At the Mansion

The next few days were terrible on Gambit. To make it easier on Lauren, only Jean visited her—both the Professor and Jean agreed it best if Gambit didn't visit her or she'd be overwhelmed with meeting someone other than the woman she bonded with. Plus, Gambit thought it was a kindness on his part: he'd be hurt every day from talking with the person he loved, only for them not to remember him. But he stressed to Jean that she give Lauren the queen of hearts—he knew the card wouldn't trigger a memory, but he wanted her to have something of his. And maybe, just maybe, she would later come to pair it with him, since he was the only one in this mansion with cards.

As he waited for the news that he could visit her, Gambit roamed about the mansion. This was a great place for mutants to go to be safe and feel accepted; he wished he could've had something like this when he was younger. When he wasn't walking the halls or grabbing something to eat, he was in the large living room playing with his cards.

"You're just as Lauren described," a female voice said. He looked up to see two girls: both were petite, but one was a brunette with hazel eyes and the other, a Chinese American.

"Qui es vous? Who are you two?"

"Wow; she said you had an accent to die for. She wasn't lying. I'm Kitty and she's Jubilee."

He fought from grinning; he didn't do so well. "She said that about me?"

She sat down in a chair. "Well, not exactly; I just added a little bit."

"Kitty tends to do that," Jubilee said, then propped her arm on the back of her friend's chair. "But you; I pictured you as being cute because of Lauren's descriptions, not hot. She left out that bit."

"Probably on purpose." Kitty looked back at her friend. "You better be careful. Iceman might not like hearing you talk about another guy."

She waved off her concern. "I can still look; I just can't touch. Besides, we know Gambit is Lauren's."

Kitty turned back to him. "Jean told us about Lauren. She doesn't remember you at all?"

He shook his head and elaborated on her condition when they asked.

"Oh, that's so sad," Jubilee said.

"This is like our own Romeo and Juliet story, except it's far more painful," Kitty began. "Instead of being kept apart by your families, your memories are doing that. First, she received you not remembering her, and now it's switched."

She continued to talk, but what she said about families caught his attention. Gambit would have to contact Lauren's parents to tell them what had happened. He dreaded making that call. If they didn't already hate him for being a mutant, they'd surely hate him now for getting their daughter hurt, and for wrecking Eva's Camry.

Jubilee's squeal snapped him back to. "Talk about a Hallmark movie! This has all the drama, heartbreak, and romance that makes one. It just has mutants thrown in!"

Kitty nodded vigorously. "Yeah! Their trip to get here, their separation, Gambit's retrieval of his memories with Lauren and her complete loss of them. He'll help teach her how to read and write, introduce her to her parents again, and basically just explain the world, and during all of this, he'll make her fall in love with him again!"

The Chinese American girl squealed again. "Oh my gosh; what a love story! We gotta go write this down!"

The girls seemingly forgot about Gambit and ran off to their room. He just sat there, stunned. Leave it up to teenage girls to see his future plans as romantic, when all he could focus on was the pain that would be paired with it.

He desperately hoped he and Lauren would play out that easily like a romance movie.

***

It was a few days later when he finally saw her again. He asked Jean every day for updates; she had told him Lauren was starting to walk around the mansion, becoming used to seeing the variety of mutants. He walked the halls now on purpose, hoping he could run into her or at least see her from afar.

With his thoughts on what he would have to do soon—call Lauren's parents—he rounded a corner and a slim figure walked toward him. Gambit looked up and was struck dumb. That red-headed beauty with gray eyes was headed his way with three books in her arms—it looked like she had visited the library.

Lauren slowed to a stop before him, frozen in the middle of the hallway. He didn't know what to say.

"You're Remy LeBeau, right?" she asked.

He nodded.

"I remember you when I woke, but I mainly remember your eyes, and Jean told me about you." Lauren shifted the books over to one hand and reached into her jacket pocket to pull out the bent queen of hearts. "She said you're the one who gave me this card. Thank you for doing that."

Gambit finally found his voice. "Je vous en prie, chérie."

Her forehead scrunched. "What does that mean?"

"You're welcome."

"And, chérie... You called me that before, along with amour; what do they mean?"

He felt a thrill go through him at hearing that she remembered that. "Chérie means 'dear' and amour: 'love'. They are nicknames; we Cajuns tend to like them."

"Cajun? Jean doesn't have your accent, but I like it. Where are you from?"

"New Orleans. We're not French, we're known as Cajuns, but we speak it down there." He gestured at the books in her hand. "You're going to read those?" Jean hadn't told him she knew how to read again—he wanted to teach her.

Lauren looked down at them. "I'm going to try. Jean said she would show me how to read. She told me just to grab whatever caught my eye; a lot of them did, but I restrained myself to three."

"Would you like me to teach you?"

She looked up at him. "You don't mind it?"

He smiled like a fool. "Of course not. Anything for you, amour."

***

From then on, Gambit and Lauren would meet up in the study hall so he could teach her how to read. After struggling some at the beginning, he had the idea to learn writing; when she grasped that fairly quickly, reading became easy. Mastering the basics, he turned to just telling her history and about the world.

Days passed and their routine continued; sometimes they went outside so he could show her things out there. He even taught her how to play tennis, played some basketball with her, and how to ride a bike. Lauren seemed to keep a smile on her face; Gambit just loved having her with him again.

She eventually grew comfortable enough where she moved back into Kitty and Jubilee's room. When she did that, the two girls took her under their wing and practically introduced her to everyone. Her list of people she knew exploded—Gambit was worried it would overwhelm her, but she handled it just fine.

One day, when they were just sitting in the living room on the couch, she asked him about his powers. Gambit pulled out some cards to show her, and then she asked if he knew any tricks; when he did a simple one, she wanted him to teach her. So, he became a teacher again, but over something he was an expert at.

The problem, though, was that Lauren had scooted extremely close to watch his hand movements. Having her this close to him again put a strain on his control. It was all he could do to instruct her on how to perform the basic card tricks he showed her, and not run his hand through her hair and pull her lips to his.

Later, he kept telling himself, but later was too far away.