Dakar, Senegal - Sixteen Years Ago

She hadn’t seen Logan since Le Havre, and Xia hadn’t been able to get any information about him from anyone.

It didn’t help that she’d been in the company of Reaper. He gave her the creeps. Not as badly as Shrike, but he was an arrogant know-it-all, and all he would say was Logan was on a “private mission” (whatever that meant), and out of contact, as it could “compromise his cover”. It sounded so much like bullshit, but Reaper seemed to make sure she couldn’t reach him - or anyone, in fact. He told her it wasn’t good to become too “attached” to teams. “Although often people of complimentary abilities are put together, there are times when that won’t work,” he said haughtily, as they were somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean. “And then there’s our unfortunately high turn-over rate.” He had grinned at her then, all teeth and no warmth. “Ours is a dangerous business.”

And as far as she could tell, all Reaper did was go to secret meetings with dubious people while she waited out in the foyer or walked the grounds. When she asked why she was along at all when she had nothing to do, he told her she was acting as his “bodyguard” - as if Reaper needed one! She had thought about it - she'd had a lot of time to think - and decided there was only one reason why she was tagging around as Reaper’s personal assistant: they wanted her away from Logan. Why?  Had Shrike seen something in her mind before her field went up, something Reaper didn’t approve of?

(But if he didn’t approve of “fraternization”, why didn’t he do something about Static and Logan? Or himself and that Italian girl, whatever her code name was this week?)

Reaper had told her the point of meeting in this French Colonial style hotel, at least. (Dakar seemed chock full of French Colonial buildings; it was almost like being back in France … except, of course, it was about one hundred degrees.) He told her she had the “day” (what was left of it) off, as this was simply a meeting with operatives who had been in the field.  Since they were meeting in a somewhat public place, she guessed they were now being brought back in.

She really didn’t care. She was tired of Reaper and his superior bullshit, and she just couldn’t wait to go somewhere else and do something, and she didn’t care who she got teamed up with, as long as it wasn’t him (and Shrike). Her plans were just to lounge around in her air-conditioned hotel room and maybe sleep until evac, but then she caught the tail end of a conversation Reaper was having with an unknown party: "- I don’t want Weapon X storming in here and tearing up the joint. What the fuck is the trigger for docility - “

Weapon X. What Shrike called Logan. Did that mean he was here? He was one of the ones coming in?

(Again with that word:’ trigger’. Trigger what?  It wasn’t like he was a trained animal that could only respond to commands.)

So she spent her day at the hotel bar, on a stool with a great view of the lobby. She had a feeling Logan would gravitate towards the bar, but just in case, she wanted to be able to spot him. She had butterflies in her stomach, and she had no idea why. Except …

… what if Shrike had done something to him?  Oh, come on, she was kidding herself - he had done something to Logan. But what and why?

She had never been much of a drinker, but she discovered she liked rum and coke. One seemed to settle her queasiness, so she had another. Soon she was feeling warm and confident. Whatever Shrike had done to him, she could undo - her field was resistant to telepaths. She could protect Logan with her field, or - better yet - beat the shit out of Shrike with it until he agreed to undo what he had done, if he had done something. But he must have - why did Reaper mention “trigger”, like Shrike had?

She saw one operative she recognized pass through the lobby, but she had yet to see Shrike, which was good. Maybe he wasn’t here. But if he wasn’t … what did that mean for Logan? Was he all right?

Xia had just gotten her third rum and coke when she saw a man who could only be Logan in the lobby. What was with him and leather? In heat like this, it was an obvious giveaway he wasn’t normal.

She hurried out to the lobby, and called out “Logan!” as he entered an elevator, but he didn’t seem to hear her. She managed to get an arm between the elevator doors before they completely shut, and they gasped apart so she could get inside. “Logan,” she said, smiling, happy to see him.

But he simply glared at her, chin down and eyes up, his blue eyes (blue?! Where was the green?) hard and scrutinizing. She was so shocked by his angry demeanor and lack of recognition she stayed silent as the doors shut behind her, belatedly realizing she didn’t want to be in an enclosed space with him right now. She jumped when he finally said, “You’re an operative, aren’t you? One of ours.”

For a split second, she considered the possibility he was joking, just kidding around with her, but the look in his eye had no humor at all. The lift started to rise in a slightly juttering manner, and she worried that it might be old as the hotel itself.  But what could she do about it now? “You don’t recognize me, do you?”

He grunted, and she wasn’t sure what it was supposed to mean. “Yer one of ours. I memorized the faces.”

She stared at him in disbelief. He really didn’t know her? Except as a face in a file? What the hell had happened to him? “Logan - “

“Why are you calling me that?” He snapped.

“That’s your name.”

The elevator shuddered to a stop, and he glared at her until she stepped aside and cleared the way for him to leave. “I don’t have a name,” he growled as he stomped out. “I’m just Wolverine.”

Holy fuck. What had Shrike done to him?

She quickly followed him, horrified and curious. He simply went to his assigned hotel room and slid the key card through the lock, aware she was there but more or less ignoring her. “I’m Atomic,” she said, hoping that rang some bells for him. “Xia Zhang. Remember?”

He shoved the door open, pocketing the card and never looking back at her. “Remember what?”

She was able to catch the door before it shut in her face, and followed him inside. “You can’t be serious.”

The first thing he did was shut the drapes on the glass doors of his balcony, cutting off the remaining sunlight and damning the neat hotel room to a murky gloom. At least that hadn’t changed about him. “I ain’t in the mood to fuck around, darlin’. What is it you want?”

He really didn’t know her anymore. She felt so weak in the knees she sat down on his bed, and the rum and cokes suddenly roiled in her stomach. Oh god, she really didn’t want to barf and have that be Logan’s first (next) memory of her. She propped her elbows on her knees and put her head in her hands. “I can’t believe you’ve forgotten me. Don’t you … what’s your first memory?”

“My first memory?” He said it so derisively she looked up. He was sneering at her like she was a bad comedian he was about to sling a bottle at and jeer off the stage. “What? Who the fuck cares?”

“Shouldn’t you?”

He just stared back at her, but a brief, uncomfortable look flashed across his face. She realized then, her heart sinking, that she really had missed him badly. She fucked things up so badly with him. Maybe there was a second chance here; some sort of redemption for her being a complete chickenshit, on top of a lovesick teenager and a basic disappointment to him.

She pointed to the jade bracelet, which she always wore, except when it would interfere with something she had to wear for a mission. It was really the only present she had ever received, and she considered it a good luck charm, as well as a gift from the nicest man she knew. Well, perhaps now that was past tense - had known. “You bought me this in Taiwan, for my birthday. Don’t you remember?”

His strangely blue eyes scudded over to her wrist, and studied it for a second before looking back at her. Blank; there wasn’t even the slightest glimmer of recognition. (Why had his eyes changed? Did they do more than mindfuck him? Was it also chemical? Physical?) “No.” he scoffed. “What the fuck are you, my girlfriend?”

“Yes.” It was out of her mouth before she realized what she said. It was the alcohol talking, or at least she told herself it was.

He quirked an eyebrow at her, as if he didn’t believe her, but his lips curled up in a faint smirk, like it was almost funny. “Really? Where’s my welcome home kiss?”

“Come and get it.” What was she doing?  Did she really hope this would snap him back to his senses? Or was she hoping it wouldn’t?

He stalked over, letting his leather jacket fall to the carpet, and her heart started to trip-hammer in her chest. What the fuck did she think she was doing?

He paused, as if daring her to admit she was lying, and then kissed her, harder than she expected, and his rough stubble scraped her face almost painfully. But the kiss was much nicer than she expected. Much nicer.

Somehow she ended up laying on the bed, him on top of her. He was heavy and warm, kissing her almost violently, and she was groping for the buttons on his shirt before deciding she didn’t care and simply started tearing at it, pulling it up his back.

This was wrong; this was so very wrong, and she knew it.  But it didn’t stop her.

10

“Hmm.”

Scott glared at him, but since he knew the thing couldn’t see beyond his visor (and even if he could, he probably couldn’t give a shit), he asked, “Is this some obscure demon language you think I should know? For the past five minutes all you’ve been saying is hmm.”

Forajo glanced at him without bothering to raise his head, his long white hair framing his deeply creased face like a wimple. “This takes time, Human.”

“What takes time? You conning me out of my money?” He threw up his hands, and shook his head at his own stupidity. “I can’t believe this. I’m a moron.”

“I am not a con artist,” the demon make-up artist groused in his rusty voice. “Now be quiet and let me concentrate on the portents.”

“The portents?” Scott repeated in disbelief. They were in the back room of Gaia’s Arcana, a small storage space where boxes and crates of god knew what were shoved to the side, opening up a wide rectangular space on the scuffed and dusty wooden floor. On it, Forajo had drawn a chalk circle and placed, in the middle, a tiny chafing dish full of what looked like cigarette ashes. But he had yet to do anything with that; mostly he had just cast the “portents” around it, after holding Beowulf in his hands for a while and saying a few words that Scott would swear were a mispronunciation of the opening lyrics to Edelweiss. “The portents are bleached chicken bones and marbles you stole out of a Hungry Hungry Hippos game!”

The demon scowled at him, making extra folds appear in his leathery face. (He had to admit as make-up artists went, he was very convincing.) “They are crow bones, I’ll have you know. And I have to use those marbles - someone stole my runes.”

Scott rolled his eyes and slapped his hands to his forehead as he turned around, facing the blue-beaded curtain that substituted for a door. “I am the stupidest thing on the planet … “

“Possibly,” Forajo agreed sourly. “But your friend is on the move.”

“Oh really?” He glanced back at him, wondering if his beam would work on him, or if he had a bulletproof/energy-proof vest under the robe.  Forajo had already made it clear he knew he wasn’t a “normal”. ( “Oh yeah, normal people wear welding goggles,” he snorted, tucking the end of his white hair into his shirt.) “And why am I supposed to believe a word you say?”

Forajo pointed down at the circle. Scott looked, and saw several of the small, white plastic marbles were going around the base of the chafing dish, like water before it went down the plughole. “Parlor trick. I’ve seen Penn and Teller do something like that.” A complete lie, but he hardly could believe such an obvious fraud as Forajo could do anything.

Forajo gave him a look so evil he felt slapped. “If you disbelieve I will give you back your money and you can get the fuck out of my store. Are you going to listen to me or not?”

Although Scott bet he was bluffing about the money … he almost believed he was serious. Wow.  He was either snowing him big time, or he was so goddamn desperate he’d believe almost anything. “Fine,” he sighed, giving in (for now). “He’s on the move to where?”

The demon “Hmm”-ed again, and then realizing that probably was a mistake, admitted, “I’m not sure at the moment.”

Scott tried to will himself not to get angry. It was hard, though, because he could already feel the vein in his left temple throbbing away like a jungle drum. “Why the hell not?”

“He’s moving! He’s not settled! Jesus.” Forajo then walked off to a mini-fridge tucked in the near corner, grumbling to himself, “Goddamn mutant goyim thinks he knows better than me. Meshuggenah. I left Belgium for this?” He pulled out a small bottle of Evian spring water (was that fridge really full of Hershey bars and Starbucks iced coffee?) and came back, giving up on the old man shuffle he had tried on him earlier. He took the cap off, and poured half the contents of the bottle into the chafing dish, making the ashes swirl into a soupy mess.

“What is this?”

Forajo took a pull off the water bottle before setting it on top of a nearby crate. “I’m scrying for a location. What does it look like I’m doing?”

Scott decided that was a rhetorical question. “So what does it say?”

Forajo’s white eyes bugged out in disbelief. “It’s not a fucking television set! I can’t just turn it on and bammo! Give it a minute, will you?”

He huffed a sigh through his nose and crossed his arms over his chest, leaning against the nearest boxes. He saw, stenciled on their sides, “Gross: Crystals” and “Dormant Lavatian Snake Egg Clusters - Do Not Shake or Consecrate”. That last one must have been a joke.

It seemed like a full moment passed as Forajo stared into the muddy water - and that was all it was, just a black, sooty mess; Scott didn’t see a damn thing, not even Forajo’s reflection. He found himself staring at the little white marbles as they circled round, and wondered if maybe he had a demonic power that allowed him to do that; a low level telekinesis, perhaps. Jean, even before her power surge, would have found that a piece of cake.

“California,” Forajo finally said, straightening up. “He’s in California.”

“Where in California?”

Forajo shrugged broadly with his hands. “The upper half. He’s on the move-I won’t be able to give you an exact location until he pulls over.”

Scott couldn’t believe he was even buying this. “So we’re just supposed to wait until he does?”

“Hell no - get your punk ass out of my store,” the demon said, with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Got a cell phone?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“Well, leave me the number, and I’ll call you as soon as he settles.”

Scott scoffed. “Uh huh.”

Forajo’s look was so stern, he almost resembled Xavier under that mess of excess hair and skin. “A deal is a deal, Human. My bond is good, unlike some of yours. And I’d have to be completely fucked in the head to risk pissin’ off Bob, wouldn’t I?”

He really didn’t know, and he suspected that Forajo knew that was a lie. But what did he have to lose here?  If the guy was a liar, he would find him; he knew his name, he knew where he worked. It wouldn’t be all that difficult to find out where he lived.

And there was some luck in his favor. Xavier (if things were still on schedule) was taking some of the older kids to the local observatory tonight for a little professional stargazing. They’d probably have left by now, as Xavier wanted to get there just before sunset, to show them the grounds. Storm would be in charge of the other kids, and he figured he could sneak past her and get to the jet. Oh sure, she’d be pissed off, but if he claimed it was an emergency (he’d mention Logan‘s name if he had to), she’d probably let him go. Of course, when Xavier returned, he’d be mighty pissed - and if he did invoke Logan’s name, where Storm would give him the benefit of the doubt, Xavier probably wouldn’t - he’d know he was up to no good. But hopefully he’d be so far away at that point there’d be no catching up to him.

“No, I guess you wouldn’t,” Scott finally replied, turning to leave. He left a card for the school with his personal contact number on it on the crate, making sure Forajo saw it. “Call me as soon as he stops.”

“I said I would, didn’t I?”

Scott paused before the beaded curtain, and turned back, saying sheepishly. “And thanks.”

Forajo just made a shooing gesture with his hand. “Get your bony tuccus out of my store, and never darken my doorway again.”

That was gratitude for you.

***

When Xi woke up, it was just as disorienting as coming to after an accident. And in a manner of speaking, she was.

She’d hardly been conscious when the memories started flooding back to her, and she thought she might be sick again. But it had been about a week now, and she was finished throwing up. Or at least she hoped she was.

It was a complicated mission that went horribly wrong. There had been a base built in secret on an island off the coast of Russia, a "mutant experimentation" lab, that they were supposed to infiltrate and destroy - her, Logan, and this strangely fast guy code-named "Lightning" (which she thought would have fit an electricity slinger better, but she didn't make these things up).

But they'd been double-crossed, as they were apparently expected by the personnel, although that in itself didn't matter - they were a team built to take out heavy resistance. It was inside the base there was trouble.

The problem was the automated defense systems: the codes had been changed, and the system was different than the intell had indicated. When the place started armoring up and cutting them off from one another, they knew they were in trouble.

Wolverine - Logan - was in charge, and gave her the order to punch her way out (the forcefield would "repel" the walls, making her seem stronger than she actually was), get Lightning if she could, and get away to a safe distance. He intended to cut into the control center and attempt to abort the self-destruct sequence. Now she could hear announcements in a loud, guttural language that she assumed was Russian, but she couldn't understand them. Logan spoke the language, though, and knew everyone was being ordered out before the whole place went up like a Roman candle.

She didn't want to leave without him, but she trusted that he knew what he was doing - he was Wolverine, after all - and sometimes (frankly) he scared her.

It was funny too. He was closer to the Logan she felt she always knew, and the sex was intense, if perhaps a little too rough sometimes; he really got wild. But if he cared for her at all - if he cared for anyone at all, himself included - she never saw any sign of it. He had all the emotion of a cyborg, and she was starting to miss the awkward but sweet Logan, the one who bought her the bracelet, the one who promised to take care of her. She sometimes wondered if he was dead.

But lately, she'd seen signs that the personality implant - or lack of personality implant, however that went - was breaking down. For one thing, he'd stopped sleeping with her. It seemed he was perennially "not in the mood", which she found very hard to believe from her limited past experience with him, and he was even more taciturn (which she also thought was an impossibility), not wanting to talk about anything or spend any time with her off-mission. He still didn't remember who exactly she had been to him before,
but she was beginning to pick up the guilt and self-loathing vibe - he was starting to think she was too
young for him.

It gave her some hope, even as she was feeling a sense of loss. Maybe she would lose the Wolverine she knew, but maybe the Logan she knew before would come back.

Lightning was stuck in a corridor in the far end of the complex, so she had to punch her way through about a dozen bulkheads. The power died when she punched through metal wall number four, and she knew Logan must have hit the internal power supply, but red strip lights still cast a sanguineous glow; he'd hit the mains, but there was a back-up somewhere still in effect, which meant the countdown was still on.

She was through five and on her way to the sixth and last one (she could hear him shouting through the wall, "Would you hurry up and get me the fuck outta here?!"), when the entire world seemed to end.

Wasn't sound supposed to be faster than light, or did she have them backwards? All she knew was she saw the light first, a blinding white that seemed to overload and shut down her optic nerves, and then there was a sensation of force, of being pushed by a giant hand. She couldn't remember ever hearing a noise at all.

She came to several meters from the smoldering wreckage of the base, surprised to find her field was still holding, even though she'd lost consciousness. Those “improvements” that Control said would increase her “mastery” of her powers had obviously worked;, and at the time, she’d been afraid they were going to telepathically manipulate her, like they had Logan.

The base was mostly metal, concrete, and other materials that didn’t exactly burn like wood; mostly it was simply smoldering, sending up what must have been semi-toxic clouds of black smoke into the still night air. She kept her field up and struggled to her feet, walking cautiously back to the disaster area where the lab used to be. The reddish light cast from the meager flames made shadows jitter and sway on the ground, and until her eyes adjusted, she held out hope that it was Human movement.  It wasn’t.

She called Logan’s name twice before remembering he only responded to Wolverine, but it didn’t matter; the only sounds she heard were the sizzle of molten metal hitting flames, and concrete cracking from the heat, sounding for all the world like breaking ice. Only once she started to wade into the smoldering debris did she remember to find her comm unit - protected by her field, it too survived intact - and put a call in to their allied base in Kyoto, requesting an emergency evacuation team.

The first thing she found was a jagged white bone sticking up from what looked like a hunk of burned meat; her best guess was it was part of Lightning’s arm, or perhaps leg, maybe even back. Anatomy wasn’t her forte, and he’d been blown into small chunks, many of which were simply bone, as most of the flesh was stripped in the initial blast. He must have been right beside one of the main detonators. The good news was he probably didn’t suffer.

Although she felt nauseous, she didn’t get sick. She was too afraid of what she might find of Logan. It never really crossed her mind he was dead - he couldn’t die. Nothing in her would accept the notion that he could ever die, even if he was at ground zero of a devastating, bunker-leveling explosion. He didn’t seem to be anywhere, so she started shifting larger hunks of debris around her as best she could. She didn’t feel the heat through the field or smell the smoke, but she was no stronger than any woman her general size; the field only let her repel things, use its might against objects in its path; it didn’t let her pick up objects she couldn’t normally handle.

She heard the staccato whup-whup-whup of approaching helicopter rotors - faint but growing louder every second - when she found Logan.

At first, she was not even sure what she was looking at. Her first thought was dead soldier, as it was a body that had been literally denuded by the blast: the skin and hair was burned away, revealing glistening red knots of muscles and tendons in a grotesque anatomy display, lips curled back to reveal teeth as white as bone, a rictus grin of death. It was the hand that gave away his identity.

His left hand to be exact, splayed out beside him, partially propped up on a slagged I-beam. It was just a mass of muscle, no skin left to see, but as it turned out, the flesh had been blown clean off the top half of the index finger. So now, in the hellish glow of the low flames, she saw a gleam that shouldn’t have been there; a glint of light off a bone coated in adamantium. She stared at it for a full minute before she realized exactly what she was seeing.

The bile rose up her throat so fast she barely had time to drop the top half of her field before bending over and vomiting violently onto the smoldering debris beside her. But dropping the field allowed her to smell not only the dizzying, toxic smoke, but the thick stench of cooked meat and blood in the air, and her stomach continued to spasm like she was being punched from the inside out. She was dry heaving by the time the recovery team reached her and the charred corpse that was all that was left of Logan.

She started dry heaving again when one of the team shouted, “He’s still alive. Holy fuck, what do we do? His skin’s coming off on my gloves!”

No one should be alive after that. He was burned over ninety percent of his body, and god knew what kind of internal damage the force of the blast up close caused.  It blew Lightning - who was at least theoretically farther away - into constituent bone fragments. The pain … oh good lord, Logan … the poor man.  It was then she understood what he meant back in Le Havre, when he said he should have “left” a long time ago; he meant something just like this. What sin did he commit that was so egregious that he had to keep suffering, that he had to be maimed beyond all human endurance … and still come back for more?

She must have passed out, or the drug her rescuer gave her knocked out.  Either way, it was a blessing.

When she came to in the Kyoto “safe” area, she immediately asked about Logan, if he was all right, knowing full well no one could ever be all right after being as brutalized as that. She was told he was “recovering”, a bland, unsatisfying answer that she would hear several times from different people. It was two days before she worked up the courage to ask to see him.  It was another day before Control granted her permission.

He went with her, of course, her cold and unconcerned escort, who led her into what seemed to be a sub-basement of the hospital that she didn’t know existed. It was a place of Stygian darkness, where a glow seemed to emanate from the middle of the room, a sickly green that reminded her of the floor tiles upstairs. Technicians in white coats glided like ghosts from one bank of monitors to another, as she finally saw that the green light was coming from what looked like a seven foot long tank of water … a tank that had a body suspended in it.

No, not just any body - Logan.

Most of his skin had grown back, and he had a dark fuzz on his scalp that was most likely hair, while an oxygen mask obscured most of his face. He was naked and unconscious, resting on the bottom of the vat like a person who had accidentally drowned in their own sensory deprivation tank.  He looked like a corpse; only the rhythmic bleeps from the monitors told her that he was, on some level, still alive.

Control explained that they didn’t expect him to be conscious for days yet, and then after that he wouldn’t be “field functional” for perhaps a week. (He was already thinking about putting him back in the field, after this?!)  He also dismissed the strangely thick, chemical smelling green water as an “enzyme bath” that helped speed up Wolverine’s natural healing process. For some reason, she didn’t really like the sound of that. Should they be trying to “speed him up”? He was burned and maimed beyond recognition; for god’s sake, couldn’t they just let him rest?

But she was starting to understand that as long as he was just a thing to them, a tool - Weapon X - they would never let him be. No injury was bad enough.

No rest for the wicked.