Disclaimer: These characters are the property of Marvel comics, and have been used without the permission of the rights holders for non-profit entertainment purposes only. The lyrics are to the song "The Dance," by Tony Arata, and are reproduced without permission for the same purposes.




The Dance

Mac O'Roni




Looking back
On the memory of
The dance we shared
‘Neath the stars above…

     Logan rode back to the mansion in silence. Storm had come back for them in the Blackbird, but she refused to make any comment on Gambit’s condition and her strained white face told them nothing except that she was worried.
     Once home, he went straight for the MedLab and collared a haggard-looking Jean in the hall. “How is he?” he asked. “Is he gonna be all right?”
     A tear trickled down the woman’s pale cheek and Logan’s heart sank. “I don’t know, Wolverine,” she said. “Hank is doing the best he can, but…it’s bad. It’s very bad.”
     Before Logan could assimilate this, an inarticulate roar of rage and grief erupted from behind the closed emergency room doors. That could only have been Beast, he thought. He felt a strong desire to vomit.
     A few minutes of silence, and then the doors slowly opened. McCoy didn’t even need to say it: the truth was writ large on his open, honest face and in the dejected slope of his broad shoulders.
     “I just couldn’t save him,” he said, shaking his head, tears in his eyes and his voice. “He’s gone.”
     Logan felt the world drop out from under him and everything went gray.

For a moment,
All the world was right.
How could I have known
That you’d ever say goodbye?

     Everyone else was busy consoling Rogue. As if that heartless bitch gave a damn one way or another. Remy had been her little ego-boost, a willing toy to play with, break, and abandon as it suited her. She was playing up the part of the bereaved quite nicely, reveling in all the attention, bursting into fits of melodramatic tears whenever there was a lull in the cooing, sickening sympathy.
     Wolverine was about ready to bone-claw all of them.
     No one could understand how he was acting. None of them had thought he and Remy were particularly close—but they knew he had a wolf-pack mentality, and simply decided without asking that he was reacting only to the loss of a key pack-mate. Scott even trotted out little Discovery channel factoids about wolf pack hierarchies, and how a pack will grieve over a loss like this. He even had the gall to mention a program he’d seen where a pack lost its Omega—the bottom of the pecking order, he said: like Gambit, he implied—and the whole pack was disrupted for days.
     Congratulations, Mr. Slim. You’ve just won the Mr. Compassionate 2004 award, which entitles you to a free bone-clawing in the vital organ of your choice.

And now,
I’m glad I didn’t know
The way it all would end,
The way it all would go.

     The best thing to do, the only thing to do, was to stay away from them. Get off on his own. Run away from it all: the anger, the grief, the pain. Run away from the memories that scratched at his heart like his own adamantium claws turned on himself. He stayed in the woods, living like the animal he felt himself to be.

Our lives
Are better left to chance.
I could have missed the pain,
But I’d’ve had to miss
The dance.

     He hadn’t intended on coming back. Ever. Certainly didn’t think he could stand to go to the funeral. But he broke in through the window of his room the morning of and showered. Dressed himself in his only suit—kept for funerals only, what else did he need a suit for? Damned uncomfortable things, but, he could be uncomfortable for one day. For Remy. Owed him that much, at least.

Holding you,
I held everything.
For a moment,
Wasn’t I the king?

     They were surprised to see him at breakfast, and why? He was, after all, the unpredictable one. They should have come to expect the unexpected by now. He wouldn’t talk to any of them, though, not even Jean. Couldn’t trust himself to stay civil. Couldn’t trust himself to be articulate—he had a feeling anything he tried to say would come out as Neanderthal grunts and animal snarls.

But if I’d only known
How the king would fall,
Hey, who’s to say?
You know, I might have changed it all.

     They were handling the procession New Orleans-style, walking slow behind the hearse while a jazz band played dirges and spirituals. Score one for the X-Men; Remy would have liked that. By the time they made it to the grave site, Logan was actually feeling a little better. Better than at the funeral home, anyway. Closed casket service—the poor kid’d been badly…mangled. Logan would have liked to be able to see him one last time, so he could say goodbye.

And now,
I’m glad I didn’t know
The way it all would end,
The way it all would go.

     Professor Xavier gave the graveside eulogy. He spoke of all the sacrifices Gambit had made for the cause, for the team, for his friends. He quietly outlined all the selfless heroisms that the young man had never asked or taken credit for. He spoke in terms of courage, friendship, and loyalty, and without once accusing anyone of anything he managed to make everyone realize just how little they’d appreciated those qualities in their unfortunate comrade, and how much they had taken for granted.
     “Life is a dance,” he said. “Some of us choose to sit it out. Some of us stumble through it, going through the motions just to keep moving, never once really feeling it. Remy LeBeau danced life. He danced life with grace and dignity. He danced life with joy and abandon. We could all of us stand to take dancing lessons from our memories of Remy—I think we’d all be the better for it, and I can think of no more fitting tribute to our friend and brother than to carry on the dance of life he has left behind. But I know, as I believe we all know, that wherever he has gone, Remy LeBeau is still dancing.”

Our lives
Are better left to chance.
I could have missed the pain,
But I’d’ve had to miss
The dance.

     Logan stayed behind when the procession moved off. He heard the band break into “When the Saints Go Marching In” once they were a respectful distance away, and smiled. He could almost see Remy bopping along to the beat.
     He knelt down beside the headstone and let his fingers trace the inscription. A single tear tracked down his cheek as he outlined the cut of that beautiful name.
     He popped his claws and added another line below the last. Then he stood up, said a final brief prayer for the departed, and walked away. He didn’t know if Remy was in any such place as Heaven—if there even was such a place, he wasn’t sure it would be the kind of hangout that the thief would have appreciated, even if he were allowed in it—but he hoped that, wherever he was, he was happy. And at peace.
     He knew it would be a long time before he could look back on what happened between them without the taint of how it had all ended, but he didn’t regret it. No, he’d been given a rare gift—dancing lessons from a master. He knew that the rest of his life’s dance would be a little more graceful from now on.
     Behind him, on the stone, the single word he had carved stood out sharply, fresh and white against the black marble. The stone now read:
REMY LEBEAU
“GAMBIT”
19?? – 2004
FRIEND – BROTHER
DANCER

It’s my life.
It’s better left to chance.
I could have missed the pain,
But I’d’ve had to miss
The dance.




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