"You guys, hurry up!" Mercy sounded out of patience, and in her eyes she had a very good reason. 'Men say women are slow? It's the men who are the slow ones!' she thought, and almost giggled. Giggling was not what would have gotten those three confoundedly slow men to work faster, she knew, so she held back her laughter and instead gave them the sternest look she could muster given the circumstances. "Jean-Luc is gon' be home soon an' you know Tante Mattie wants us to have dis done before he gets here!"
The three men stopped what they were doing and looked at her from their various positions on the roof of the LeBeau mansion. Just to make Mercy even more annoyed than she already was, Emil grinned and dropped the string of colored lights he was holding. The lights landed right at Mercy's feet. Remy and Genard started chuckling, and Mercy glared up at them in total exasperation.
"Hey Merce, if you want dis done so fast, why don' you get up here an' do it yourself?" Genard laughed. Mercy scowled.
"Jus' do it, would you?" she asked, climbing the ladder with the lights and handing them back to Emil, who gave her the most innocent look he was capable of making. Sighing, Mercy climbed back down the ladder and resumed her supervising as Tante Mattie came outside to see how things were progressing.
"How are dey doin'?" Tante Mattie asked. Mercy blew air out through her teeth and groaned.
"Dey'd be doin' better if dey had all day to do it." She replied. "I swear, Tante Mattie, dey're de slowest creatures on de planet!"
"Hey! We heard dat!" the three men exclaimed from the roof. Both women laughed.
"Now you boys know I want to have dis house decorated b'fore Jean-Luc gets back." Tante Mattie reminded them. "An' Mercy an' I ain' gon' do it ourselves, so it's up to you three to do it for us. Could you go a little faster?"
"We're goin' as fast as we can, Tante." Remy replied, giving her his most charming smile. She nodded and turned back to Mercy.
"I'm goin' to de store, I need to pick up some t'ings for de fruitcake I'm makin'. Is dere anyt'ing you want?"
"Non…" Mercy replied absently. Tante Mattie sighed quietly. She knew the holidays had been hard on the Guild members for the past few years, since Henri died. The hardest hit were Jean-Luc, Remy and Mercy, who were Henri's family, and, although he wouldn't openly admit it, Emil, who was Henri's best friend.
"Alright. Well, remember Jean-Luc's due back in an hour, so make sure dey get dose lights finished b'fore den, okay?" Tante Mattie replied, giving Mercy a brief hug.
Forty-five minutes later, Remy, Emil and Genard climbed down the ladder and stood by Mercy. The four thieves looked at the house and surveyed their handiwork. It was just getting dark, so they had put the lights on, and the mansion was now lit with twinkling lights. As Jean-Luc's car pulled up the drive, Mercy turned and smiled at her brother-in-law and their friends.
"It looks wonderful guys. You did a great job." She complimented them.
"Dat you did." Jean-Luc agreed, standing by his car with the door open, smiling at the scene before him. "Only t'ing we need now is snow, but I don' t'ink we're gon' be getting' dat anytime soon."
"Papa, can we go get de tree tonight?" Remy asked his father. Jean-Luc raised an eyebrow. It was the first time since coming back to New Orleans that Remy had seemed interested in doing anything except staying home and listening to music. While he still wasn't sure of all the details surrounding Remy's stay in Antarctica or the trial he had undergone, he knew the events had hurt Remy deeply. He decided to encourage any progress Remy made, even if it meant he had to take the guild on their annual quest for the perfect Christmas tree.
"Do you want to, mon fils?" he asked with a smile. Remy nodded. "Den oui, we'll get de tree tonight. If we can all agree on one, dat is…"
"Hey we're not dat hard to please are we, Jean-Luc?" Emil asked with a laugh.
Jean-Luc shook his head and groaned. "Goin' tree hunting is de one t'ing I hate about de holidays. Half of you want to find de perfect tree an' won' stop until you do, de other half don' b'lieve dere's such a t'ing as a perfect tree. De arguments are startin' to be hard on de head, seein' as how I ain' as young as I used to be…"
The younger guild members laughed, and Genard promised that they'd try to keep the arguing down to a dull roar this year.
"Don' you want to go to New York an' spend Christmas with de X-Men?" Mercy asked Remy the next morning over breakfast. Jean-Luc had yet to come downstairs, so Mercy felt it was okay to ask what she knew would be a touchy question. With only eight days to go before Christmas, she thought maybe Remy would be thinking of the snowball fights he was missing.
Remy looked at his sister-in-law over his scrambled eggs with a solemn expression. "Non…dey don' want me dere. At least you guys are makin' me feel at home here."
Mercy tilted her head. "Remy, dis is your home, no matter what happened b'fore, an' no matter what Theoren and Claude say. Dey don' know anyt'ing. Of course we're makin' you feel at home. You are home."
Remy frowned. "Merce, can I ask you somet'ing?"
"Of course you can. What's on your mind?" she replied, giving him an encouraging smile.
"Do you b'lieve in angels an' life after death an' all dat stuff Tante Mattie keeps talkin' 'bout?"
"Oui…dere has to be somet'ing…Remy…dis is about Henri, isn' it?" Mercy asked in reply. Remy nodded and looked away from her, blinking furiously to try and keep back the tears that were threatening to spill over. Mercy noticed his reaction and reached across the table, taking his hand in hers. "You really miss him, don' you?"
"Uh-huh…" Remy agreed quietly. The tears flowed down his cheeks, but he still couldn't face Mercy. He and Henri had been very close in spite of the differences in their ages, and he had often felt it was his fault that the Assassins killed Henri.
"I do too…we all do. It's hard, I know. But all we can do is take it one day at a time. Tante Mattie told me dat." Mercy sighed and decided to ask Remy something really personal. "Remy, what's your favorite memory of Henri?"
A faraway, dreamy look came over Remy's face. "It was so long ago…just after I met him and Papa, when I was ten, he taught me how to make shadow puppets. No one had ever taken any time to just play with me before. Henri always took the time to do t'ings with me. Dat's my favorite memory."
Mercy smiled at him. "That's so sweet! You know somet'ing?"
"What?" Remy took a breath and looked at his sister-in-law in spite of the tears still trickling down his cheeks.
"I b'lieve he's watching over us from wherever he is. Keeping an eye on us, and makin' sure we're all okay. Like a guardian angel of sorts."
Remy laughed through his tears. "Somehow I can' picture Henri bein' anyone's angel!" he exclaimed. "None of us are exactly saintly, if you know what I mean…"
"True, but it's a nice thought, isn' it?"
"Oui. I'll have to remember dat sometimes when I'm feelin' upset 'bout somet'ing." Remy replied, his face growing serious yet again. "Mercy, de others don' t'ink it's my fault he's dead do dey?"
Mercy's blue eyes widened, and she shook her long blonde hair vigorously. "No! Remy, why would any of us t'ink dat?"
Remy sighed, looking away from her again. "If he hadn' come up to New York to get me for de tithing, de Assassins wouldn' have followed him an' killed him. I keep t'inkin it's my fault."
"Non, Remy, it's not your fault. I have a feeling, an' Jean-Luc agrees, dat dey would have killed him no matter where he was. It was planned. His trip to get you jus' gave dem an opportunity. You didn' know he was comin' to see you, so it's not your fault."
"Okay." Remy said. "I jus' wanted to know. Claude and Theoren have been giving me some weird impressions since den, I didn' know what to make of it…"
Mercy rolled her eyes. "Has it ever occurred to you in all de years you've known dem dat Claude and Theoren are a couple of weasels trapped in a hen house? Dey're weird. Don' pay any attention to dem. Lord knows dey don' deserve de attention dey get as it is."
"Dey're important in de Guild." Remy pointed out with a chuckle.
"True. But bein' important don't make dem good people, or even smart people." Mercy reminded him, returning the chuckle as Jean-Luc walked into the room.
After supper on Christmas Eve, Jean-Luc turned the lights on the huge almost-perfect tree, and, like the animals on Noah's Ark, the members of the Thieves Guild arrived in pairs. Jean-Luc, Remy and Mercy were already there, because they lived at the house. Claude and Theoren arrived together, as did Emil and Genard. Tante Mattie was almost late, but her excuse was she was waiting for Zoe to pick an outfit.
"As if it really matters what de girl wears…" was Tante Mattie's exasperated remark as she took her seat in the rocking chair.
Zoe shot Tante Mattie a dirty look. Or, as dirty a look as a girl raised in Japan could shoot. "Of course it matters, Tante! I'm going outside my apartment, therefore it matters what I look like."
"You always wear the same kinds of outfits, Zoe. What's de point of wasting time tryin' to pick one?" Theoren commented. He found himself on the receiving end of the same look Tante Mattie got a few seconds before.
"I do not expect you of all people to understand, Theoren." Zoe replied bitingly. She wasn't the fondest of Theoren and didn't mind anyone else knowing it. She thought he and Claude were too stuffy. "Don't waste any brainpower trying to, okay? You might kill some valuable cells."
"Ouch…" Emil snickered.
Theoren glared at Emil. "Don' you start with me, Red…" he warned. Emil raised his hands and eyebrows in an innocent, confused expression.
"What…? What did I say now?" he asked. Genard shook his head.
"If you value your life, Emil…" he grinned.
"AHEM!" Jean-Luc said in a loud voice. The guild members looked at him, all except for Remy, who was trying not to let on to Theoren that he was laughing hysterically at him, and Emil, who was still trying to figure out why Theoren was mad at him.
"Have we forgotten what day dis is?" Jean-Luc continued. "It's Christmas, people. Let's try not to argue for the next twenty-four hours, okay?"
"Dey keep startin' it," Claude grumbled.
"Oh, now that's real mature, Claude." Zoe remarked with a snicker. Claude glared at her.
Jean-Luc put his head in his hands with a sigh. It seemed he wasn't going to get what he wanted, for now at least. Maybe by the New Year, they'd start to behave themselves.
Then again, he remembered that he'd hoped that last Christmas too, and he didn't get his wish then either. With that thought, he sighed again and brought out the eggnog, deciding to leave things as they were. 'After all,' he thought to himself. 'Dey're my fam'ly an' I can't change 'em, nor would I even if I wanted to, which sometimes I do…'