20

Logan wasn’t surprised to wake up back in Jean’s garden, but he was surprised to see what had changed.

He sat up, only to find the grass he was laying on drastically overgrown; it was as shaggy as a bad haircut. Around the garden the restraining wall of trees had also grown, but this time in ways bizarre and unnatural. Branches as thick as human torsos intertwined with one another, reaching up like static green and black torches, ringing the perimeter and nearly touching the flaming red sky.

And Alkali Lake was back. The frozen water that had drowned the base was exactly where a sprawling mess of shrubs had been before, and the water was a perfect mirror for the crimson sky. “Jeannie?” He asked, wondering if she had gone back to being the flaming thing in the water again. He really didn’t feel like going for a swim.

“Everything’s going wrong,” she said, behind him. He pivoted sharply on his heels to find her coming out of the gothically overgrown forest, and he realized he felt just a bit like Alice In Wonderland. Did that make Jean the White Rabbit or the Mad Hatter?

“Still?”

She glanced at him with an apologetic grimace. “A different kind of wrong.”

As soon as she was within reach, he grabbed her and pulled her into a kiss. Maybe he did feel like he was cheating on Yasha a bit, but also not really; after all, how long had he had a “thing” for Jean? It was like she had seniority.

She responded in kind, pressing against him so tightly there wasn’t a single bit of space between them. She was still emitting warmth like a radiator, but he didn’t care. It was almost kind of erotic. Her hand caressed the back of his neck, and he slipped his hands beneath her shirt, smoothing them down her back.

Quite suddenly she shoved him back, and shook her head vehemently. “I’m sorry, Logan, but … yesterday was a mistake. I shouldn’t have -”

“It didn’t feel like a mistake.” He had locked his arms around her waist, and she had her hands on his shoulders, as if prepared to shove him away, but she hadn’t yet. Although apart, there was no denying the intimacy of this.

She glanced down, never quite meeting his eyes. “I know. I’m just … you’re my only connection to my old life. I think perhaps I used you, and I’m sorry.”

“Use away.”

Finally she did meet his eyes, if only to frown at him. “Logan-”

“What exactly is wrong?” He interrupted, not ready for a mindscape rejection too.

After a moment, she said, “I’m not really sure. It felt like a part of me just … died, but by the same token, I felt more … energized.”

“Aren’t those feelings kinda mutually exclusive?” He wondered, although at the same time, he realized Bob must have killed Camaxtli. At least it hadn’t killed Jean too.

“I know. I can’t really explain it.”

“But you’re okay now?”

She shrugged helplessly. “I think so. I just feel a little … lost.”

He couldn’t help but scoff. “There’s a lot of that goin’ around lately.”

She gazed at him curiously, her fiery eyes almost painful to look at. “What do you mean?”

It was his turn to shake his head and draw her into an embrace, so mainly he didn’t have to look at her face. He really didn’t want to face her now brutal brand of telepathy again. “Nothing really. It’s just been weird without you.”

She hugged him tightly, resting her chin on his shoulder. “It’s been weird without all of you too. I miss you.”

“You’re comin’ back soon?”

“I think so. But … I’m a little worried.”

“About what?”

She paused for a moment, happy to hold him tight and never look him in the eye. “My own strength. I’m not sure I have a handle on it yet.”

“It takes some getting used to,” he admitted, remembering how initially startled he was by his own strength, in the beginning - but that was before he realized he had about a hundred pounds of metal in his body. As soon as he understood what felt like a nudge to him was in actuality a violent shove, it got progressively easier to manage. “But I know you’ll find a way to deal with it. You’re a pretty strong babe, when you wanna be.”

“Babe?” She repeated, but he could hear the smile in her voice. “You’re playing with fire there, you know.”

“It’s a hobby of mine.”

She pulled back, only far enough so she could look him in the face. Her eyes seemed a little less painfully bright this time, and she moved her hand up his spine, to the base of his neck. “You’re not afraid of getting burned?”

Was that a double entendre? If it was, it was one of the odder ones he’d ever heard, and that included ones he’d tried to use. “I’ll heal,” he offered, wondering if that was a potential double entendre too. Well, under the right circumstances …

She kissed him this time, passionately and powerfully - he got a sense of that power she was talking about; it was like she was a barely insulated high voltage wire. He wondered if he should mention that to Bob next time he saw him. He also wondered if Jean had suddenly gotten over her earlier reservations.

Well, like he always believed, a good mistake was best done twice.

21

Logan made sure his mind was perfectly clear as he opened the door to Xavier’s office and looked in. “Storm said you wanted to see me?” He’d encountered her in the hall, even though he had no idea she was back. He forgot to ask if she found the Dutch mutant, but on the other hand, he didn’t care all that much.

“Yes, please, come in,” Xavier said, straightening some books on the corner of his desk. The sunlight spilled over the room from the window behind him, and seemed to wash out the entire room into shades of sky blue and pale yellow.

“How’s Brendan doing?” He asked, as he shut the heavy wooden door behind him. He was curious, especially since the last time he saw him, he was pretty heavily doped up.

“Oh, fine. His recovery has been remarkable, considering. And Doctor Halbidi asked me to compliment you on your tourniquet - she thought it looked remarkably professional, even with such crude tools.”

That must have been the name of the demon doc. All he could do was shrug. “The bullet might have nicked his artery. I didn’t want him bleedin’ out on me.”

“Actually, it did nick his femoral artery,” Xavier told him. Kindly, he waited until he had taken a seat before saying that.. “Your tourniquet and his mostly Brachen physiology kept him alive. It made me curious where you got your medical knowledge from.”

Logan stared at Xavier, trying to figure out what he meant by that. His voice and expression were so perfectly neutral it was difficult to say. “I don’t have any medical knowledge. I can just battlefield triage, that’s it.” As soon as it was out of his mouth, he realized that probably wasn’t the best thing to say.

“Battlefield triage?” He repeated curiously, confirming Logan’s worst fears. “That’s very interesting.”

He was inexplicably angry, and he knew he was about to say something uncalled for, but he couldn’t stop himself. “Well, whatta ya expect? I’m a killer; I know anatomy pretty well.” Logan instantly covered his face with his hands, and tried to tamp down his impatience. What the fuck set him off there? Maybe he was just in a stroppy mood this morning.

He heard Xavier shift in his chair, and launch into his most paternal tone of voice. “Logan, what you did -”

He let his hands fall to his lap, and interjected, “Is that why you wanted to see me? To compliment me on my ability to make a tourniquet?”

Xavier sighed, as if he knew he wasn’t going to let him finish that sentence. “No. I was curious what happened there yesterday.”

He shrugged. “You got everyone else’s reports, right? I got nothing to add. Except … and ya know, it pains me to side with ‘Clops on anything, but … Brendan’s got the stuff, you know. He can improv if he has to, and he takes the big risk for the team; he won’t go quietly, no matter how bad the odds. He’s got real survivor skills, but not so much that he just runs away. You should fast track him.”

The Professor nodded, not at all surprised. “His mutant ability seems to make him excel at everything he learns academically, but he does seem to utilize skills far beyond what he’s learned in class. Still, he has no goals or aims whatsoever. He’s so accustomed to circumstances ripping the rug out from beneath him that he makes no plans beyond simply getting through the day.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t blame him.” Logan decided not to say “That’s my philosophy too,” because he felt that wouldn’t be a mark in Brendan’s favor. “Maybe once he gets used to things around here, he‘ll adjust.”

“Perhaps.” Xavier seemed a little disappointed, as if he’d hoped he’d elaborate more on what happened between him and Leonie, and what exactly they found there. “Also, a friend of yours called from Los Angeles this morning - Wesley?”

“Oh yeah?” He wondered if he had more files for him.

“You were sleeping, and I thought it best to leave you undisturbed.  He didn’t leave a message, save to ask that you call him back as soon as possible.”

He nodded. “Gotcha.”

“Oh, and maybe, when you’re done with that, you could go have a talk with Leonie.  She snuck out this morning.”

“And you didn’t stop her?”

“There was no reason to. She really has no idea what she’s doing. She wished to be alone, and she simply went down to Abbot’s Park. She’s still there.”

Which meant Xavier must have been using Cerebro to check up on her. No wonder she wanted to be alone. Well, not that he could blame Xavier for wanting to keep an eye on her; she could be very dangerous.

“You’re really the only one here she’s had major interaction with,” Xavier continued, as if he needed to explain why he wished to send him after her.

Logan shook his head, not needing to hear this. “She’s my daughter.  It doesn’t matter that she was brewed up in a test tube and a vat somewhere - she’s still mine, right?  I’ll go talk to her.” He sighed as he stood, still not ready to face fatherhood of any kind, and certainly not the involuntary kind.  But it was hardly her fault, was it? They used her and fucked her over too, just like they had done to him.  It was one of the many sad things they had in common. “She remember anything else?”

Xavier shook his head. “Not that I can tell.  It’s a sad state of affairs.”

“Life is, more often than not.” He considered his options, and headed for the door. “Wesley can wait, I’ll bring her back, then I’ll call.”

“Logan, be careful with her. This is her waking up in the snow moment,” Xavier said, making him pause.  How’d he know about that?  Well, he had asked him to read his mind, hadn’t he? “You remember how you were then.  She’s not as … scattered -”

“Insane,” he corrected him.  Well, there was no point in sugar coating it.

Xavier’s lips thinned, as if he found the very concept of the word distasteful.” - but she is feeling as displaced and lost in the world.  You may be the only person who can possibly understand what’s she’s going through.”

Logan paused with his hand on the doorknob, and looked back at Xavier, feeling an inexplicable wave of pity for that sullen, terrible tyrant of a girl. “It’s not her fault, you know.  She didn’t deserve that.”

“You didn’t deserve what was done to you either.”

Logan turned away, swallowing a scoff. “I’m not so sure about that,” he replied, but was out the door before Xavier could ask him what he meant.  He didn’t really want to talk about it anyways.

Some things were just best left alone.

****

She wasn’t hard to find at all, in spite of the early lunch crowd starting to fill the park.

She'd done her best to find an out of the way corner, a slightly graffiti marked bench under the shade of a spreading elm, and just off the entrance to an arboreal jogging path. There was no avoiding the people, though.  Businessmen in dress shirts and ties, jackets off and sleeves rolled up, sat on the benches near the reflecting pool, chugging espressos and loudly discussing things such as “Ronald, that dick in accounting”.  College-age kids played hacky sack on the grass, while younger kids obviously skipping school attempted to skateboard on the bike path without getting hit by cyclers or rollerbladers. There were many epithets thrown around, mostly in Spanish and English.  It smelled like sunlight, exhaust, coffee, and too many people.

She sat in the dappled shade, looking much the same as she had when he first saw her in Times Square, only she had swapped her old Moosehead t-shirt for a newer t-shirt that had written on it, in white letters ‘When I Snap, You’ll Be The First To Go’.  He wondered if she'd taken that from one of the other kids, or it was given to her (anonymously, of course) by someone who thought he was being funny.  But her ubiquitous old backpack was sitting beside her on the bench, as if she wasn’t concerned about someone grabbing it and running, and he knew now she wasn’t.  She figured she could take anyone. Well, almost anyone.

She didn’t look up as he approached, just kept staring down at the toes of her sneakers, and didn’t seem to notice him, even as he sat down on the bench beside her. Then she said, somewhat listlessly, “Here to drag me back?”

“No. I’m here to see if you’re all right.”

She snorted, and looked up, a weary sadness in her eyes. “All right?  What do you think? I’m a spy clone who only exists ‘cause I was supposed to lead you into a trap.  How all right am I supposed to be?”

“That’s not true.  You’re neither a spy nor a clone, and that wasn’t a trap.”

She stared at him in open disbelief. At least she was acknowledging his presence. “You got amnesia that fast?”

He smirked. Oh, he wished. “No. That was too easy, and I think you know that.  How long could they have held any of us?”

He watched that idea sink in, watched a troubled look pass over her face like a cloud, then she looked away again, out at the path.  People were gawking at them - Logan could feel their eyes on him, punching through his back like bullets, but often when he looked at them he only caught the eye of one out of two of them.  But when he glared back, they quickly looked away and pretended to be doing other things.  He was just going to have to get used to the creepy feeling of other people’s eyes on him - there were too many people in the park. “If it wasn’t a trap, what was the fucking point?”

“I don’t really know. I was hoping we could figure that out together.”

She scoffed and shook her head. “I can’t remember jack shit.  You think I’ll be any good figuring out what those fucks are up to?  Please.”

“Darlin’, I’ve forgotten several lifetimes worth of stuff. That doesn’t stop me.  It can’t.”

She stared down at her sneakers again, and he figured that was a bad sign, and for a long minute, where he got to enjoy the singing birds interspersed with multi-lingual cursing and cubicle farmers blaming their failures on someone else.  Finally, she said, “How do you do it?  How do you live like this?  You know people are after you, but you don’t know who or why, and you don’t know who you are or what you’re supposed to be.  It’s all so fucked up.”

“I know.  But I have to keep going because I don’t know what else to do.  What’s the other option?  Give up?  Does that sound like a good option to you?”

“No,” she sighed, twisting her hands nervously in her lap. “But I don’t know who I am or why I should bother to do anything.”

“Live for yourself - it’s all you can do.” He was aware he could be talking to himself, and in a weird way, he was.

After a moment, she grabbed her backpack, and dragged it onto her lap. “D’ya know what I got in here?” He realized it was rhetorical, so he waited for her to continue. “Money. I rip off some white trash wannabe drug dealers who were trying to dope up girls in this club so they could fuck ‘em.  It’s two hundred bucks, more or less.”

He supposed he should be glad she just ripped them off of money, but maybe not - they sounded like real scumbags. “What about the drugs?”

“Seems it all fell out of their pockets and backpacks when they got torn.  Quite a coincidence, huh?”

That was his girl all right. “They make stuff so cheap nowadays.”

“Amen.”

They sat in silence for a moment, while Logan did his best to ignore the itch of eyes on them, and she set her backpack aside once more.  The lack of speech wasn’t as uncomfortable as it was before. “So, what now?” He finally asked her. “Two hundred won’t get you that far, but it’s a start.”

“I was thinkin’ of going to California - but why? I have nowhere to go; I shouldn’t even exist, should I?”

He shrugged. “Neither should I, but here I am.  Why don’t you come back to the school with me?”

“Why? They hate me there, and I hardly fit in.”

“No one fits in - well, not since Scott left.  And as far as hating you goes … have you ever given them a reason not to?  You come off as pretty cocky.”

She let out a sharp laugh. “This from the “I’ll be fine!” guy.”

“Runs in the family, I guess.”

“There’s a frightening thought.” She paused, and held her hand up, trying to catch a small spot of sunlight in her palm.  She then turned her hand over and seemed to stare at the back of it, as if trying to see the tips of the bone claws hiding beneath her skin. They were easier to see when they were coated with metal. “Can you help me at all?”

He knew what she meant, and wasn’t about to point out he knew very little about his own past. Truth be told, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know anything more about his past; what he had learned was bad enough. “Hello, my name is Logan - I’m a mass murderer who’s had at least two total mental breakdowns.  Coffee, anyone?” “I ain’t gonna promise you I’ll find much, or that you’ll like what I find, but I promise I’ll do my damnedest to dig up everything I possibly can.” He stood up, and held out his hand to her, partially a gesture of truce, and partially a gesture of help. “Deal?”

She gazed up at him skeptically, and for a moment he could see why Yasha had said
she had his eyes.  It really showed when she was suspicious. “Why?  ‘Cause I’m your daughter?”

“Because they’ve hurt enough people.  No more.  It stops now.”

With a very reluctant smile, she took his hand, and allowed him to help her to her feet. “We’ll kick their asses.”

“Absolutely. They don’t know the can of whoop-ass were gonna open up on ‘em.”

She smirked, and shoved the backpack into his chest, so he had to snag it with his free hand before it hit the ground. “Yeah. They’re gonna be sorry they ever let me go, huh?”

It seemed that everyone claimed time slowed at moments like these, but that wasn’t true. Three things happened in rapid succession, so fast that Logan only realized the order
in retrospect: a muffled “whoomp”, like someone slapping a down pillow against a microphone; red filling his vision, like an explosion of neon; and a feeling of impact, like he’d just been hit in the head by a falling Skylab.

He lost consciousness, but didn’t realize it until he started to regain it, swimming back up to awareness smelling blood, his head throbbing like an open, infected wound.  He heard murmurs of people around him, including one man shouting at someone that they needed an ambulance here now.  Opening his eyes to the burn of healing still happening upon his forehead, he felt a liquid, warm heaviness on his body, and looked down, expecting to see that his chest had been ripped open, because he could feel the warm blood gushing down his side, and the stench of it was almost overwhelming.  But that wasn’t what he saw.

What he saw was the top of Leonie’s shattered skull, her blood spilling out of the top where she used to have a scalp, chunks of her brain matter splattered across his chest like discarded chunks of hamburger.  She reeked of death; she couldn't possibly heal from an exploded cranium.

Something fell off his face and plopped on his chest, then rolled to the ground.  A small flattened disc of silver; an impacted bullet that smelled of adamantium - no wonder it had packed such a kick.

“Stay down,” an Indian man said, off to his left.  He was the man on his cell phone to 911, and he looked stricken, like he had never seen something so horrible in his life. “Don’t move.  Help is on its way.”

But there was no help needed - not for him, and not for Leonie.  Oh god, those bastards, those motherfucking bastards, they -

He noticed, out of the corner of his eye, something laying in the grass beside him on the right.  A rock with a note tied to it.

With a hand covered in Leonie’s blood, he grabbed it and held it up to his face so his still focusing eyes could read it.  In neat, bland computer print, the note read simply: “We
can take everything from you whenever we wish, Wolverine.  You live this life at our discretion.  Enjoy it while you can.”

He stared at the black text until it seemed to be burned into his retinas, and then held it away, the rock dropping from his hand as if he’d been shot again.  But no gunshot could ever be as bad as that.

Logan just huddled there, holding his dead daughter’s body to him as tightly as he could, listening to the distant sirens get closer, and fighting back tears.

They had never let him go. They would  never let him go.

***

The End

(There will be a short intermission….)