Keri Wilson

Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

The house was packed with people. Gambit and Rogue had decided to host the X-holiday party for the first time.

Now that they had not only Jubilee but Kitty and Piotr to help it had seemed like a fun idea. With the little ones here at the school too it seemed the ideal spot. Seemed... Rogue sighed. It was utter chaos.

She escaped into the relative quiet of the kitchen. Remy and Jean were arguing just like the old days back at the X-mansion about how much spice to put into anything. Jean, the typical upstate New Yorker she was, liked things bland. Remy though liked spice even more than the typical Cajun.

"Non, you leave out de nutmeg, and apple pie taste like cardboard."

"Maybe the way you make it Remy LeBeau."

Rogue winced; the argument was getting a bit too heated. "Now y'all are acting just like old times. Guess ah'm goin' tah settle it like ah did too."

Rogue took the nutmeg from Remy's hands, and added about half of what Remy would have put in. Then she lay the dough strips over top of pie, while staring both Remy and Jean down. Neither said a word. until she put the pie in the oven. Then Remy laughed and soon Jean had joined in.

"So much for being mature parents, huh?" Jean smiled ironically.

"Real good role models, ne chere?" Remy grinned.

"Lordy, sometimes ah think ah'm the only adult here." Rogue's eyes were dancing with amusement and she had that lopsided smile that Remy swore was what made him fall hopelessly in love with her.

"What's this, from the girl who whoops and yells when she plays basketball and wins a game?" Kitty said as she finished phasing though the ceiling with her infant son Fion in her arms. Kitty smirked back at Rogue.

"Oooh wicked rear attack." Jubilee laughed. She had been leaning against the doorjamb enjoying the entertainment. She had Rogue and Remy's infant daughter Regina in one arm and their toddler Roger in the other. As soon as Rogue had left the living room, both children had begun to cry. Jubilee picked both children up and followed her. As soon as they saw both their parents again they quieted.

Rogue took Regina from Jubilee's arms and cuddled her baby. Regina grasped tight to a strand of her mother's hair and grinned toothlessly.

"Dada." Roger wiggled in Jubilee's arms until she let him go. Remy watched him toddle a few steps, then grinned and swooped him up fast. Roger shrieked delightedly at his favorite game. "Dada!"

"Mama." Rogue wasn't surprised to see her three year son Richard had snuck into the kitchen and was now tugging on her long green velvet skirt wanting attention. Ah hope that chocolate that's all over his face and hands will wash out of velvet. She smiled at her older son. "What is it shugah?"

"Wanna eat. Hungry."

Rogue laughed gently. "Ah think yah already ate a little somethin'." She damped a paper towel in the sink and cleaned him off as best she could. Good thing we had some pictures taken already. What a mess, she thought. Richard shook his head negatively while she wiped his face.

"No, want real food, `nough candy."

"You've trained them well." Jean said telepathically in Rogue's head. "My three I have to practically TK them to the table at mealtime. All they want to eat is candy."

"Oh that's just Richard." Rogue nods toward her nearly five-year-old daughter Renee, who had made her way into the kitchen and had climbed on the counter and was "helping" her daddy cook. "Now she will eat anything daddy makes, but if ah make it, she picks at it, and demands that her daddy cook next time. The only thing she devours of mine are my cookies."

"She's her daddy's little girl, isn't she?" Jean laughed.

"Oh definitely. She tries tah imitate anythin' she sees him do."

Rogue watched her older daughter hand her father ingredients he needed but also various kitchen utensils she found momentarily fascinating.

"What's dis one for, papa?"

"Dats a flour sifter. Y' pour de flour in top part, `bove de screen den y' turn dat crank while y' gently shake it over a mixin' bowl."

"Why?"

"Makes de flour work better."

"Oh."

Remy was getting a bit distracted by having to explain things while putting the ingredients he need into the stew he was making under duress. He would have preferred something far more spicy, but he'd make the sacrifice for the holidays.

He enjoyed his daughter's enthusiastic helping but he really needed to concentrate on cooking right now. He hoped Renee would grow bored of kitchen utensils soon and decide she wanted to play with her friends, Scott and Jean's twins John and Scotia. Neither who had yet stepped foot into the kitchen. Remy smirked. Probably dere momma's cooking drive dem away, he thought.

*****************************************************************

After gorging on far too much good food, and giving into the children's demands for "presents now!" The evening entertainments began.

Paige Guthrie and Jonothon Strasmore, recently engaged, asked to borrow the sleigh. There had been a three inch snow the night before, so it was just enough for the sleigh's first ride of the season.

All the married couples smiled nostalgically, remembering that period between engagement and the wedding. The long hours spent gazing into each others eyes while earnest talk of the future together filled their hearts. The gifts, the little gestures of affection, the sense of stepping into something wondrous...

"Then reality steps in after the honeymoon." Jean shakes her head. "I was just as much head in the clouds as anyone else, even though Scott and I had lived together for years before we got married."

"But we figured things out, and still every so often, have moments when you feel that courtship rush." Scott added.

"They've never come down from that cloud." Kitty points to Rogue and Gambit. "They still chase each other through the house, after the kids are asleep."

"Dat's what life is like f' romantics, chere." Remy winked.

"Ah wouldn't have it any other way." Rogue concurred.

"You both have a young child within yourselves that you freely express. I knew the moment I met Remy that you two would be drawn to another." Ororo smiled at her dear friends. Remy had become one almost from the first moment they met, Rogue had taken longer, because of the circumstances they met under. But she felt like an older sister to them both, even though she and Remy were nearly of an age. Not quite the maternal feeling she had for Kitty, but a familial feeling certainly.

She was pleased her feelings about her two friends had proven out so well. Rogue and Gambit had both grown as they came together. Both had deeply compassionate hearts as well as romantic souls. Both had traumatic early childhoods they rarely mentioned to others, but certainly had to each other. Childhoods that had scarred them but they had overcome together. That was why they poured their all into being the best possible parents they could.

Ororo had been amused to receive advice from both of them on parenting children after she announced her pregnancy this fall. She and Forge had been married for a year and both decided that it was now time to have a child.

"Ro, yah have any idea if it's a girl or boy yet?" Rogue smiled, it was almost funny seeing Ororo pregnant, complaining about morning sickness, and all. She's so regal sometimes yah forget there's a real woman in there.

"It is a girl. She is also developing normally and I have been given the probable birth date."

"Probable? How about well maybe she'll come that date, but most likely not." Kitty said.

"Dat's wonderful Stormy, you an' Forge t'ink of any names yet?"

"Do not call me `Stormy' Remy." Ororo's admonishment was delivered with a smile. "We have not as of yet talked about names for the child. I believe
Forge has not fully realized that he will be a father within months." Ororo said the last in a deadpan tone, but her eyes were amused.

Forge was off on a mission and would not be back for another week, so Ororo had decided to spend that time here. He would be back in time for New Years Eve, if all went well.

Psylocke, Warren, Hank and Bobby were on the same mission. The Professor was working on some project at the X-mansion, and much of the other teams were also on missions. Only Paige and Jono had been able to come from Jubilee's old teammates of Gen-X. Kurt and Amanda had come with Moira and Sean, they picked up Matthias and Ian and returned to Muir Island for the holidays. They would have stayed but had already decided to do Christmas on Muir months ago.

Caleen and Toshi had hosted a Yule party at their home after their daughter Hana had returned home. All were invited, but Remy and Rogue and their kids were they only ones that went, other than Luna and her father. Quicksilver was bored by the festivities, but tolerated them for the sake of his daughter, who was a close friend with Hana. They then joined Crystal whom, Pietro was again working on a relationship. How long it would last this time, no one knew.

Remy's older son, Andrew, by a brief relationship with an older woman when he was barely an adult, had quietly adapted to his new family. Andrew had recently expressed an interest in a career in medicine and once Hank returned from the mission, plans were for him to start studying directly under Hank McCoy. The boy was already spending hours at a time poring over medical books and journals in preparation.

*****************************************************************

Shortly after midnight a snow covered Paige and Jono rejoined the party. Paige was coaxed by Jono and Jubilee to sing a Christmas song.

"This song kind o' makes me cry, y'all so, I might just have to quit in the middle..."

Have yourself a Merry little Christmas,
let your heart be light,
From now on your troubles will be out of sight,
Have yourself a Merry little Christmas,
Make the Yuletide gay,
From now on all our troubles will be far away.
Here we are as in olden days,
Happy golden days of yore,
Faithful friends that are dear to us,
Gather near to us once more.
Through the years we all will be together,
If the fates allow,
Hang a shining star upon the highest bough,
And have yourself a Merry little Christmas now.(1)

Before Paige had finished almost everyone had joined in, some with nice voices, others with fair, a few souls unfortunately were tone deaf, but at the moment it didn't seem to matter. Kitty didn't mind that it was a Christmas song, especially when Rogue asked her to tell the Hanukkah miracle story. Kitty related the ancient tale of how when the temple was rededicated in Jerusalem there was only one days worth of consecrated oil, but miraculously it lasted the 8 days it took for a resupply to arrive.

Then Rogue said, "Paige said how `Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas' makes her tear up, well the song that does that tah me it the `Coventry Carol'. `Specially now that ah have children. Yah holdin' a baby in yoah arms durin' this season yah feel somethin' special. Ah was an atheist when ah felt like mah power was a curse an' ah'd never have that joy. No chance for love or a family of mah own. But now, while ah'm not a believer quite as much as some of y'all, ah do feel like ah got a few miracles now. And this season especially makes me feel that way.

Ah told that tah Caleen last year, and she said that as a pagan she felt the same way. Y'all know Christmas falls near the ancient Yule holiday. The church put Jesus' birth on the 25 because people were still celebrating the pagan holiday. The goddess gives birth tah the
god on Yule. It's about coming to the longest night of the year and the winter tah go through, but with the promise of spring. She said she really felt the symbolism of that part of the cycle the first Yule after she had Hana. So it's a spiritual time for a lot o' people."

Kitty nodded. "Hanukkah feels more important than it did ever before to me, now that I have Fion. And he is counted as Jewish by our faith too, because his mother" she smiles, "is Jewish. Our faith says our blood is carried through the mother. I think having a baby growing inside you and then holding it in your arms right after it's born feels kind of miraculous to a lot of women. "

Remy said, as he put his arm around Rogue, "Got me a few miracles too. De song makes me feel emotional, is "Little Drummer Boy". I spent most my childhood on de streets. I still believed, but when Christmas come around, no warm loving home f' me. No gifts, no money. I wanted t' have dat Christmas I read in books, in de library- a mama and papa, tree, Santa Claus..."

"Ah wanted a mama that loved me, not one that constantly told me that ah was a mistake and a burden. Ah never got those things in the books either. A teacher in school one time gave me and all the other dirt poor kids in her class a Christmas party. She moved away the next year though. That was the only Christmas ah ever remember havin' as a kid."

"One of de librarians kind o' `dopted me during de holidays, before my pere did. She see me in de library when I was real small. I came dere every day. She gave me clothes and candy every year."

"I never realized how blessed a life I lived growing up." Jean said. "I had what was just a dream for both of you. I had no traumas until my power manifested itself. I had parents that loved me, a safe home, and almost anything I wanted."

"Even in the orphanage we at least had Christmas every year. It was unhappy in someway because like both of you we just had a dream of loving parents, but I always had a home, of sorts and we had gifts." Scott mused aloud.

"I was resentful that Santa Claus and the tree weren't part of my families religion. My parents never got along well, even when I was small. They both loved me, but couldn't stand each other, or their families. I got Hanukkah gifts, but I don't ever recall much family warmth."

"My parents were good Communists. They didn't acknowledge the holiday much. No religious things at all. Mother told winter folk tales sometimes but that was all we had this time of year." Piotr said quietly.

"Wow! My parents gave me stuff all the time. I got stuff at Christmas and also at Chinese New Year. I liked the Christmas stuff better. Chinese New Year it was usually educational stuff. Mom and I loved shopping together at the holidays..." Jubilee quieted. Then more softly, "I miss them at Christmas. I cried almost the whole day the first Christmas after they were killed."

Paige hugged her old friend, then said, "There were ten of us kids. Mama and Daddy couldn't get much for us, but they always made sure we had something, and Daddy would take out his guitar and we'd all sing together, even after Daddy got too much coal dust in his lungs. He'd still bring out the guitar and play while we sang. He'd play even after we'd been sent to bed. I remember falling asleep hearing Christmas carols from that guitar..."

Jonothan Strasmore, shook his head, not wanting to contribute his own morose Christmas tale. For once, he was the one to say telepathically that there had been enough sadness tonight.

"You're right," his fiancée said. "We've all had terrible and sad things happen to us, but we've also had wonderful things. Those are gifts to remember. Gifts to cherish."

"Oui. No more sad tales tonight!" Remy quickly turned on the radio playing Christmas songs. "Time t' dance, chere." Remy grinned, and bowed elegantly to his wife. She smiled back and allowed herself to be drawn out of her chair.

"Ah believe ah will." She laughed as he whirled her around and they began to waltz.

**********************************************************************

(1) "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas"- comes from the movie "Meet Me In Saint Louis" and was originally sung with slightly different lyrics than popular version quoted here.