"Gon' haveta see 'bout makin' dese lessons a little later." He grumbled, flipping the covers off his slim, muscular body and swinging his legs over the side. He pulled his green bathrobe off the nearby chair and pulled it on as he headed out of his room. He paused on his way down to the kitchen and quietly opened Emil's bedroom door.

Remy smiled softly as he stood in the doorway and watched Emil sleeping for a moment before waking him up. Emil's thick red hair contrasted on the white pillow, creating a unique, almost candy-cane-like effect. Remy looked at his watch and had to wake his cousin up so they could eat breakfast and not be late for their first sailing lesson at 9:30.

He walked over and lightly kicked Emil's bed. "Rise an' shine, mon ami!"

"Mmph?" Emil mumbled incoherently. He pulled the covers over his head. "Go 'way."

Remy laughed. "No way. Don' you wan' learn how to sail?"

Emil pushed the covers off his head and peeked over them at Remy. "Yeah…but it's too early…"

"I t'ought de same t'ing, but it'll be worth it, at least for today." Remy said, reaching over and yanking the covers down. "C'mon. Let's eat."

James Armstrong was waiting at the marina for Remy and Emil. He was a man in his mid-thirties with wavy brown hair and piercing brown eyes. He gave the younger men a smile and wave as they approached.

"'Ello boys!" He greeted them, coming off the sailboat and joining them on the marina dock.

"Bonjour Monsieur Armstrong. T'anks for agreein' to givin' us some lessons." Remy replied, shaking the older man's hand. "I'm Remy LeBeau an' dis is my cousin Emil Lapin."

James scoffed. "Think nothing of it. And please, call me James. Everyone else does." He looked at Emil. "So you're the lucky birthday boy, huh?"

Emil grinned and blushed slightly. "Yeah…I've always wanted to learn how to sail. An' I have to agree wit' Remy on dis…t'anks."

"Okay," James said briskly, deciding to get to the point. "I t'ink to start off our lessons, I'll take you on a tour of de boat and show you some basic t'ings you'll learn more in-depth later. After that, what do you think about going out for a little sail, so you get a feel of being on the water and can see first hand what needs to be done to sail a boat correctly?"

Remy and Emil looked at each other and then looked back at James with matching smiles on their faces. "Sounds good." Remy agreed. "Whatever you want to do is fine."

"First off, are there any preliminary questions?" James asked.

"What did you name de boat?" Emil laughed. "I heard everyone gives deir boats names."

James laughed as well. "Good first question, Emil. Yes all boats are given names by their owners. I named this one "The Princess of Wales" because I bought it in 1997, four days before Diana was killed. The boat I owned before this one was called "The Floating Emerald" because it was a shiny emerald green color. Now, if you both will follow me, I'll give you the grand tour."

The sailboat was one of the larger boats docked at the marina, and the inside was a stunning combination of dark wood, glass and fiberglass. James showed them the boat from end-to-end, top to bottom, pointing out various parts of the craft. Both cousins recognized some of the terms he used. They spent the morning with James on the boat and then he took them to a local diner for lunch.

"I have food on the boat, but I thought it would be fun to save that for some other time, perhaps this evening." He explained as they drove to the diner in his SUV.

When lunch was done, they went back to the marina to get ready for their afternoon sail. Remy and Emil both helped James with the preparations with his guidance. By the time they were ready to go, excitement was running high for both James' students.

Before they set sail, James told Remy and Emil that the first sailing thing they should do is check the radio to make sure it's working and call the weather center nearby just in case there is less than beautiful weather on the horizon. They watched him as he did those things and discovered the weather was perfect for that afternoon. They couldn't be happier, and then they set sail.

Emil looked at Remy, his eyes glowing. "Dis is so damn cool…!" He exclaimed softly. It would be even cooler when he and Remy were the ones in charge of sailing a boat, but it still thought it was amazing, and Remy agreed with him.

"I know, isn' it?"

They sailed along in the bright sunshine for well over two hours, with Remy reminding Emil every fifteen minutes to make sure his sunblock was still working. As far as any of them were concerned, the afternoon was perfect, and they were having such a great time that none of them noticed a serious problem making its way towards them.

Around four-thirty, they stopped sailing and went into the kitchen area of the sailboat. Remy and Emil helped James make their supper, with very few checks on if everything was okay outside. When they were finished, they took their plates of food up to the deck so they could sit and look at the ocean as they ate and got a huge, unexpected surprise.

"Oh mon dieu…" Remy breathed, knowing the scene before them was not a good one. He got a feeling the people at the weather center had not known of this, or else they would have said so.

James looked at his students with a sinking feeling. He was going to have to ask them for a lot of help, help he knew they weren't ready to give him. But he didn't have a choice. They were going to learn the art of sailing under difficult conditions very quickly. Or so he hoped.

"I hate to tell you this, boys, but we're going to have to postpone supper until we get back to Florida." He began, understanding the downcast look that appeared in their faces all too well. They were hungry. Hell, so was he. But they couldn't afford to waste anymore time. "We have to get off the water. If we get caught in this storm, we'll be in serious trouble. I'm hoping we still have time to stay ahead of it, but I am going to need your help to do that."

Emil and Remy watched James take their plates down to the kitchen and then looked at each other, looks of pure panic mirrored on their faces.

"We ain' ready for dis, Rem…" Emil said quietly. "An' what happens if we don' stay ahead of de storm?"

Remy set his lips in a thin line and sighed. "I know we ain', but we have to try. Remember as much as we can of what he told us dis mornin' an' do a lot of prayin'. An' if we get caught in de storm, den we pray a hell of a lot more an' hope for de best."

When James rejoined them on the deck, he saw the fear-driven determination in their faces and was somewhat relieved. Even if they didn't know what they were doing, they were going to try. Which was all he could really hope for and more than other people he'd taught would have done. He started barking orders to them and as quickly as they could, they got the boat heading towards Florida again.

The dark clouds and high, cool winds came up on them very quickly and within an hour there wasn't a patch of blue sky to be seen in any direction. The once-calm water now tossed the boat from one huge wave to another and both the wind and rain made it nearly impossible for the three to hear each other even when they were yelling. At one point, as they dashed around trying to keep the boat on course, Remy caught a vibe and looked at Emil. Remy had only seen Emil's "I-have-never-been-so-scared-in-my-whole-life" look once before, the afternoon after Emil's father was murdered by the Assassins Guild ten years before, and this time it was no less worrying. Remembering his promise not to let Theoren down, Remy forced a smile and yelled to Emil.

"Jus' keep goin'! It's all we can do!"

Emil nodded, knowing that Remy had picked up on his feelings and continued working, shoving his fears as far away from the surface as he could.

Noticing how rough the sea was getting, James motioned for the two of them to join him in the kitchen for a quick meeting. He looked at them gravely when they got there.

"We're in the middle of the storm, there's no way we can get out of it, so we're going to have to decide what to do."

Emil refused to say a word, so Remy was the one who asked the question. "What options do we got, James?"

"We can stay here, keep fighting our way along with the storm and be taken to goodness only knows where. Or we can, as they say in movies, abandon ship." James explained. He then waited for them to talk it over.

"I don' care, Rem. Whatever you t'ink our best course of action is, I'm wit' you. Jus' as long as we ain' separated, it don' make a diff'rence to me." Emil said, his voice barely audible. Remy nodded and looked back at James.

"If we stay here, dere's a chance de boat could get destroyed an' we could get separated and/or hurt. If we abandon de boat now, we might actually have a better chance of survivin' dis." He said. "Since dat's de case, we'd like to vote for option two."

James sighed. "I had a feeling you'd go that route." He gave each of them a waterproof backpack and told them to fill it with food, water, matches and anything else they thought might be needed. They then strapped the packs on their backs and went back up to the deck. Before they had a chance to say another word, a huge wave tossed the boat high into the wind, sending all three of them flying into the dark angry waters.

When Remy came to the surface, the first thing he did was yell as loud as he could while trying to avoid swallowing a ton of salt water.

"EMIL!"

Remy looked around frantically, but was unable to see the boat, James or, worse, his cousin. He kept yelling, but started to swim as well, fighting the storm as best he could, wishing Ororo was there so he could convince her to use her powers to stop an act of mother nature just this once. But she wasn't, so he just swam, trusting his instincts for the direction.

A few hundred yards away, Emil was desperately trying to stay awake. Something in his head told him to start swimming in this direction since he surfaced, even though he really had no idea where he was heading. He kept talking to himself, willing himself to keep going even though he was exhausted and just wanted to close his eyes and sleep. Common sense and a desire to live to see the rest of his life told him sleeping was not an option, at least not yet, so he swam.

What seemed like an eternity later, both Remy and Emil both won their battle with the storm and reached shore on the same beach.

Emil dragged himself far enough up the beach so he'd be out of the water if the tide came in any further, took off the backpack and collapsed, tears of fatigue and fear mingling with the rain on his cheeks as he passed out.

Remy sat on the sand when he got there and looked around, wondering what the outcome of the day's events was going to be. With his sharp vision, he spotted something down on the far end of the beach that didn't look like it belonged there. Finding some energy, he got up and walked along the beach, cursing at the wind and rain in French even though he knew it wouldn't do any good. As he walked, he realized what he had seen was not a thing at all, but a person. It was Emil.

Almost hysterical from worry, Remy groggily ran the rest of the way and, after tossing his backpack beside Emil's, he dropped to his knees beside his cousin. Remy checked Emil's pulse, and after being assured his best friend was not dead, but merely sleeping deeply, he sighed with relief.

"Oh t'ank you God…" he whispered. He lay down on the sand, stretching out beside Emil, leaving around of a foot of sandy space between them. Before he closed his eyes and submitted to sleep himself, he reached over and gently brushed a stray lock of red hair off Emil's forehead. Emil somehow knew he wasn't alone and sighed softly as he slept, causing Remy to fall asleep with a smile on his face.