Disclaimer: Fentry and all related characters are mine. All recognizable characters (Gambit, Angel,
X-Men, etc...) belong to Marvel comics and are being used without permission or profit.

The Boundary
Part III
by Spade

Warren walked doen the sub-levels of Xavier's mansion, stopping in the doorway of the War Room. It was odd to see the place looking so bare. All the equipment was gone. The table that had also served as a computer console had been taken. The metal floor was bright and unmarred where it had once been compared to the floor where people had frequently walked. A panel on the far wall had been pulled out, a few bare wires snaking outward, searching for connections that were no longer there. The only signs of life were the large blue furred figure hunched over a single computer panel and an empty chair.

Warren used to talk to Hank when they had been younger. They had confided in each other. But after the loss of his first wings, after Apocalypse, Warren had drifted apart from everyone. So much has changed... Hank had gone through his own metamorphisis. He hadn't always been covered in blue fur. That had been the result of an accident from when Hank had tried to reverse his mutation. But he hadn't cut everyone off. He had aceppted who he was and was still the good-hearted Hank McCoy Warren remembered.

That was the reason Warren had returned to the mansion. He wanted to talk to Hank and maybe set himself straight. Warren cleared his throat and Hank jumped.

"Is this an angel I see before me?" Hank smiled as he turned around. "How do you, Warren?"

"Hi Hank."

"I didn't expect to see you here. I had assumed you the lovely Ms. Braddock would be staying at your apartment for a while longer."

"Actually, that's why I came." Warren snagged the empty chair with his foot and sank into it. "We don't talk like we used to, do we?"

Hank removed his glasses, turning in his chair to face Warren. "No. No we don't. Feeling the need to divulge your inner most thoughts with a friendly ear?"

"Yeah." Warren crossed his arms.

Hank made a grand gesture with his arms. "The platforms all yours, Mr.Worthington."

Warren smiled breifly, then sobered. "Betts and I had a fight the other day. About everything."

"Everything?"

"Yeah. About some of the things we've been avoiding. The Crimson Dawn, Apocalypse, the X-Men. She keeps talking about moving ahead of the past but she keeps bringing it up."

Hank nodded thoughtfully, speaking caustiously. "Maybe because she believes you need to deal with the past beofre you have a future."

"Deal with it?" Warren burst out. "Hank, I've dealt with it, how much brooding does she want me to do before she thinks its out of the way?"

"That's just it, my friend," Hank said. "You've brooded. That's not the same thing as facing it."

"... Fine. I don't want to face it Hank. I betrayed my friends and I don't want to look at that anymore." Warren leaned his elbows on his knees and put his face in his hands.

"Why? Do you think we won't care if you admit it? We're all traitors to one thing or another. We know what happened, and we are still here for you if you want out assistance," Hank told him.

Warren looked over his fingertips at Hank. "You never betrayed anyone. How do you know?"

"I've been a traitor to myself, I suppose. Some might consider that worse. Some might not." Hank shrugged. "But you're not that person now. You need to accept it before you'll accept any forgiveness we give you."

Warren shook his head desperately. "I can't. But with all that's happened... Betsy's brush with death, Onslaught, Gambit... I can't stop thinking about it either."

Hank glanced briefly at the computer screen then back to Warren. "Maybe what happened in Antarctica rang some familiar chords with you own situation."

"I am not Gambit," Warren said fiercely.

"That's not what I said," Hank shot back. "But damned if you two don't share a stubborn streak."

Warren raked a hand through his hair. It had taken him time to work up the courage simply to bring it up. He didn't want to run away from it but he wasn't sure he could tell all his soul at once without bursting.

"I don't want to be cast out like he was..." Warren muttered.

"What was that?"

"The X-Men don't know half the things I did for Apocalypse. I don't want you to throw me out like he was when you find out," Warren said.

"That won't happen," Hank said.

"I'll bet Gambit thought the same thing," Warren yelled, "but that didn't stop Rogue from leaving him to freeze to death, did it?"

"Warren," Hank said calmly," that won't happen." He tapped the computer screen. "Because we are going to find Remy and make sure that something like this never happens again."

*****

The music inside the East Coast club was loud but not deafening. Gambit sat at a corner table, eyes hidden by dark sunglasses. He'd come here the night before, scanning the crowd for any signs of the drug dealer that he'd been following for the past week. The club itself was clean but it was in of the more frequented haunts of the dealer.

However, he found his attention being drawn away from the entreances to the woman sitting at the bar. She kept looking towards the dance floor where the man she had come in with was dancing with another woman. She tried to hide her feelings about it with an air of indifference but Remy's senses saw past that.

Rising form his seat he made his way slowly and easily through the throng of people without taking his eyes from her. She had slick black hair pulled into a French twist. Her face was round with wide blue eyes. Her lips kept dropping into a frown she tried not to show and she spun the straw around in her drink despondantly. Making women smile was one of the things Remy loved to do, even if it was only for one night. It made him feel good to know he could lighten someone's day for awhile.

Slipping into the seat next to her, Remy caught her attention, then sent a meaningful glance at the dancing pair she had been watching. "He leave ya hangin', chere?"

She followed his gaze, then ducked her head to stare back at her drink. "I guess."

"Not very gentlemanly of 'im," Remy said, leaning on his elbow. "Man should always give at least one dance to de lady he show up wit'."

She glanced at him quickly, surprised that he had been paying attention to her since she had come in.

"Name's Remy, by d'way." He gave her a winning grin.

"Amy," she said and held out her hand to him. He kissed her knuckles rather than shaking her hand like she had expected. Her smile was amazingly bright.

"Care ta dance, chere?"

"I'd love to."

*****

The pale woman watched the angel come into the rec room of the mansion. He flopped onto a sofa, oblivious to her intrusion, as everyone in the house was. She waited as he leaned his head against the arm of the sofa and slowly drifted into a light doze. She floated rather than walked towards him, knelt beside him and tucked her flowing white robes about her bare toes. Reachign out, she placed her fingertips carefully into his temples. Warren shifted, wrapping his arms more tightly about himself, but didn't wake.

Approaching him was different than with the redheaded man. Placing a dream in his mind was the only way she could think of to get through to this one.So she gently arranged a sequence of images and sounds among his usual dreaming. That would get him thinking about it, at least subconsciously. In his mind, the images collided, creating a bunch of nonsense to be sorted out later.

Harpoon and Arclight were being chased by a huge gold lizard. They ran around Warren, trying to hide behind his wings, then they fled off to the side to disappear through the haze. Then Gambit appeared suddenly at Angel's side. As he handed Angel a sword, their hands brushed together momentarily, and Warren was shocked by how cold Remy's hands were. A battle was being fought around them, though he couldn't see who was fighting. "Pick up de pace, Wings. Dey need y'help and y'fallin' behind again," the Cajun drawled.Apocalypse flew in, his head attatched to a bat's body. He flapped aroudn their heads, laughing in a ridiculously high-pitched voice before breathing fire and burning a village down. Gambit watched the bat fly off, turned to Warren, and shrugged. Then everything was swept away by fire and light, and he was falling to his death.

The woman disappeared half a second beofre Warren woke, leaving him to wonder what could have brought on a dream like that.

*****

Remy hummed tunelessly down the street, his trenchcoat flapping about his ankles in time with his stride. There were a few people out and about, running in and out of the convenient store across the street. Some of them were leaning over the porch railings of their homes, straining to see what was happening that would warrent the police cars that cruised down the streets. He could still hear the sirens wailing several blocks away, patrolling about the East Coast club. The night had come to a pleasing close, he thought. Due to an elaborate and rather underhanded ploy he had pulled, the drug dealer was no in police custody. And Amy had been a pleasant company and a pretty good dancer, as well.

He grinned about nothing in particular, stuffing his hands in his jean pockets. I feel almost whole again, he thought. Not completely whole, but getting there, which was more than he could have said a few months ago.

He still slipped into brooding mode more frequently than he would have liked.the X-Men were a constant presence in his mind, though he tried to ignore them and couls usually push them to the back of his thoughts. But when he had time to relax they came charging to th front again like they were trying to take his mind by siege. And it wasn't just Rogue, it was all of them. He'd think about all the things he'd done with each memeber of the team, from teh football games to helping Scott and Jean move into the boathouse. Even a disasterous shopping run with Logan that had ended with three shelving aisles toppled over, several cashiers hiding in the frozen food section, and their own hysteric laughter.

They'd become family to him but like every family he could remember, they didn't want him anymore. They were in his nightmares, too, usually standing as silent figures in the background, their backs turned to the horros that filled his dreams.

Still, he'd come to his own conclusions about his situation. Just because he wasn't welcome with the X-Men that didn't mean he had to stop helping. Hehad always been fond of playing Robin Hood, It suited his sensibilities. The problem was that it left little room for anything more than passing aquaintances.

Dat's why I stayed with'em. He came to the X-Men only to make certain that Stormy was in good hands. He had remained there because the work they did promised him everything he had searched for: danger, family, the chance to be something more than he had become. The promise of home had been just within his reach.

A strange humming sensation started on the edge of his spionic perceptions. He drew away from those thoughts and glanced about discreetly. He had wandered to the tip of the residential area of town and was quickly approaching a park. The sprawl of green and trees was cast in spotlight circles from the street lamps and the continuing ebb and increase of the breeze made the leaves rustle. The branches hung over dirt paths that led away from people and deeper into the park. The humming was coming from in there.

Wary of an attack, Remy moved at a steady gait towards the dirt paths. Something moved in the shadows, a glint of light catching the shiny object that was thrown in his direction. It landed with a dull thud before his feet. Remy knelt down to pick it up, his eyes trained on the path in front of him. He still didn't see anyone but the more he moved forward, the stronger the humming grew.

he glanced down long enough to study the object he held in his hand. It was a palm sized, golden plate shaped roughly like a tear drop. One side had a soft shine, vertically ribbed down the tough surface. The other had a grainy, sand paper texture.He glared at the words 'you are needed' which had been carved in tiny script into that side. That was what the strange woman in his apartment had told him. Remy stepped over the foot-high railing that divided the path from the trees, intent on learning who was behind all this.

*****

Warren dipped and glided on a warm current of air, making lazy cicrles in the sky. In losing his metal wings hehad lost much of the fighting prowess and protection they could offer, but still, he was exhilerated to have real wings again. The metal wings didn't fly like real ones did. With them it was sort of like being part of a fighter jet. All cold steel and no feeling. With the real ones, he could feel each feather adjust to the wind passing over and under them. It was a step towards feeling whole again.

He dove down through the trees below him, steering through the branches past a flock of startled birds and then up into clear sky again. He'd call Betsy when he got to the mansion again. They had to talk. That's why he was up here, to sort through his thought and get all the things that he and Hank had talked about organized. Not that she couldn't tell what he was thinking. She was a telepath, after all. But it meant more if he said it aloud.

He wondered how Scott and Jean did it. They didn't have any secrets from each other, not with their psionic rapport.He and Betsy would never be able to cope with something like that. They were both too private and too proud. She had changed so much since her exposure to the Crimson Dawn but through all that, she was still Betsy and he still loved her.

The thought crossed his mind that he should tell her about that strange dream he'd had. It confused him why Gambit would show so prominently. The Marauders and Apocalypse were strong factors in his life, but until recently, Angel ha dnever given much thought to Gambit. Hank did bring him up before. Still, he wasn't sure why it would be Gambit and not someone like Betsy or Hank, who were close to him. He'd heard of prophetic dreams and wondered if this was somehow connected to what might happen in the future.

Something rippled. He refocused his attention to the air currents he was riding. It was probably just a temperature shift. But somehow that didn't feel right. He closed his eyes and centered on the feeling, trying to understand what was wrong about it. There was a flash of light in front of him and he opened his eyes just in time to see the spinning disc that exploded outward in a circle of white and silver sparks.

"Holy--!" He tried to reverse direction or swerve away, but he was going to fast and the disc swallowed him.

*****

In the most dense area of the trees, a disc flouted in mid-air. It was taller than Remy, hovering a few inches off the ground. Spinning slowly on an invisible axis, it spat out occasional sparks of white, blue, and violet light aroud the edges.

Remy knew a teleportation device when he saw one. He'd seen enough of them in his tenure with the X-Men. But none of them had vere distorted his perceptions like this one did. The humming had ceased upon his arrival only to be replaced by a maddeningn buzz, like a bee was caught in his portion of the astral plane. Beyond the floating disc, he could feel nothing.

Remyh picked up a stone and gave it an experimental toss into the portal. The disc swallowed the stone harmlessly and continued to spin. Remy turned to look around to see if any of the town's occupants might have come this way. His mental abilities were too hindered by the grating presence of the disc that he couldn't sense anyone. But he didn't see anyone and looked back at the disc. There was no telling what was on the other side of that thing. He could end up on another planet. That was nothing new. It might be a time portal. Time travelers weren't anything new either, but he didn't want to become one.

Reaching into an inside pocket of his trenchcoat he pulled out the little plate that he had picked up and reread the scratchings on the back. The plate sparkle in the light reflected from the disc. You are needed... He looked up. That said it all, didn't it?

One a'dese days I'd like to see a body not go jumpin' through strange portals without knowin' what was on de other side first. But no today. Steeling himself with an intake of breath, Remy jumped into the disc.

End Part III

Spade
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