The X-Men & Wild Wild West (the series with Robert Conrad & Ross Martin, NOT THAT BLOODY AWFUL MOVIE) do not belong to me...but Tyme does. I am having fun using her as the go between of the mutant and western world, but this is all for fun and not profit so nobody sue me okay.
This story is best read AFTER reading Tyme's introductory story Wild Tyme
http://www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=545975
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Part 1
Tyme sanded the wood and didn't look up. She felt the grit of the paper and leaned into her work. The haze of the sun poured in through the window and lit the fine dust created by her. The repetition, the rhythm of the motion...didn't comfort her so much as numb her from day to day. The change in the wood. The pause in motion to feel the wood, still warm from friction and sun...almost alive...turning silky under her care. The resumption of motion. She didn't even look up when she heard the motorcycle pull up and the motion of the sanding reminded her of other things.
She didn't have to hear the excited shouts to know that they were greeting Wolverine, and she leaned over to pull the shop window shut so she could continue to work undisturbed. She refused to look out. She was determined not to be part of the celebration. But almost without her making the decision she extended herself to the happy parade that made it's way past her window.
She felt the emotional presence of each member of the welcoming party. The cool, commanding nature of Scott...watchful...jealous...but confident that nothing was beyond his control. She felt the equally cool and confident Jean Grey who normally wore a mask over her emotions...the wall that a trained telepath wears as a protection, (One that Tyme was still learning), but she could tell that the occasion seemed to warrant a dropping of the shield. She felt the puppy-like giddiness of Rogue who so desperately wanted to touch the man she bore such a crush for...who had saved her. Just as he had saved Tyme. Poor Rogue.
She felt the desert wind that blew Logan's emotions her way. She could feel Wolverine's emotions burn against her with their raw honesty. She could feel the energy. The violence...the need for sensation he had that kept him from having to remember the things he thinks were stolen from him. He was like a walking bonfire. She took a moment to bask in the glow...but she didn't join the happy throng.
She didn't greet him, as she should. She couldn't...she was determined not to. Not to feel. But then she reached out...almost before she could stop herself and she felt the space where emotions should be. She felt the space, which was as solid as a glass box suspended in mid air, and she lowered her head further and worked the sandpaper harder into the wood.
The blank space in the air was Charles Xavier. Her Charlie...no...not HER Charlie. Her Charlie had been buried by hardship, responsibility, grief and a stern, controlled, reasoning goal. Her Charlie had become everyone else's patriarch. He had become Professor X.
And while he had seemed glad to see her again, she had a feeling she was an uncomfortable reminder to him now. A reminder of the past, of a youth he couldn't recapture. Maybe even an embarrassment to him. Perhaps she was even a temptation. And the stoic Professor allowed no distractions to mar his fatherly skin.
He didn't let her dwell on their former relationship. He told her the first night on the flight to the Institute, after she left Logan, that her dream of being with him again was impossible. That she was welcome to stay at the Institute until she felt able to face the world again...but that beyond that, it would be best if they didn't discuss the past.
But what else was she beyond her search for him? She had put her entire stock...her dreams of happiness. Everything she was into finding the love that had kept her alive after her family discovered her mutant abilities.
Not that she liked expressing her abilities. Time hopping wasn't a walk through the park. It had nearly killed her on many occasions...and it was the reason her father had almost killed her when she was 15. It was the reason she was on her own for so many years. It was the reason Charlie and she met when she was 17 and he was 19...and it was the sole reason she kept trying to get back to him over and over until the hopping had worn her down with its increasing futility. Until she couldn't bear to use it for the agony of loneliness it caused when Charlie couldn't be found.
She would never use it again. But her other ability had replaced it in causing her pain. Her empathic abilities had taken on a new strength...and a new life. She had arrived in Logan's arms barely able to withstand the force of his emotions and her's had surprised and hurt him as she had thrown her feelings into his mind like a knife in self defense. It was Logan's strength of will...and his stubborn version of nurturing that kept her from killing herself. Now her empathy was the agony of Charles Xavier shutting her out.
Jean taught her to build walls. She taught her to use her powers. Jean taught her...not Charles. Charles found other places to be. About the only time he had let his walls drop slightly was when he had discovered her carpentry skills and had offered the old chauffeur's garage as a shop and apartment and she'd accepted. She had felt relief trickle over the dam...relief that she would not be under the same roof as him...relief to put some distance between them. She had also felt the hurt when he realized that his relief had leeched through and caused her pain. But she knew he considered her pain a minor thing now...and something she would work through "for her own good".
So she never complained. She never caused trouble. She never bothered anyone. She was just the ghost who fixed doors and cabinets and repaired holes blasted in expensive wood paneling by young mutants learning the ropes. She was as innocuous as a janitor...she contributed...but quietly, and then she retired to her rooms.
Jean, & Rogue expressed some concern for her...tried to draw her out. And Hank McCoy had gloriously commented that she was as pretty a wallflower as he'd ever met. But it didn't even elicit a blush. She had simply tucked her unruly blond curls behind her ears and excused herself and gone back to work on her lathe. She could feel the worry some of them had for her but she really wished they wouldn't bother. Couldn't they see that the best thing to do would be to divorce herself from the emotions that caused her pain? To learn to build her walls, to learn to be alone, and to learn never to fall in love again.
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Wolverine liked the attention though he would never admit to it being anything more then a pain. But Charles Xavier wasn't fooled and he smiled at the burly mutant.
"We are so glad you have returned to us again."
Wolverine looked around and a slight frown creased his brow.
***She's glad you're back too Logan.***
The leather clad man chomped down hard on the cigar he smoked and shot Professor X a quick glance. He hated when the man did that. But he was learning that Xavier usually had a reason when he did and he kept his mouth shut and just kept walking with the group.
***She has been very helpful here. She's learning how to control her empathic abilities.***
Logan heard the pause as almost a physical presence in his mind. "But?" He prompted.
***But...*** Picked up Xavier. ***She has withdrawn from everyone.....because I had to withdraw from her.***
"Geez Louise." Logan hissed. He had had a feeling that Tyme's reunion with her "Charlie" was going to be a sorry one...he had hoped his feeling would be wrong.
***Your instinct was correct my friend.*** The mind voice was somber. ***She had laid so much hope in our brief time together. She is a beautiful person Logan. She was everything a young man could want...then. But she can't seem to cope with the changes in me. She doesn't complain, or try to force contact with me...and she works hard. But she is alone...and she shouldn't be. Even Rogue doesn't cloister herself like Tyme does. I fear she has taken all this personally. She expected me to be the answer in her life and I'm not. Now she has decided to cope by shutting life out. She stays in that garage shop...and practices putting up walls.***
As the party moved up the steps of the Mansion Logan looked back toward the old garage and made a low grunt. Then he turned and followed the small group of X-men inside.
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She didn't really dream much anymore. And sleep came easily when you worked yourself into exhaustion in a single-minded manner to pass the time. So Tyme didn't wake easily when the pebbles made their tinkling, plinking noises against her window. The insistent sound probably registered somewhere in her but she was well able to ignore it. At least she could ignore it until she heard the breaking glass and the muffled curse.
Feeling older then her 22 years she screwed her eyes tight and cursed loudly at the kids she was positive were making a nighttime visit as a prank. She rolled out of her bed and immediately stepped on a piece of broken glass and cursed again painfully. Then throwing up the window she looked out into the moonlit yard while she reached down to fish the shard out of her big toe so she could shove it up the offender's ass.
Her eyes widened slightly just before she prepared to give the miscreant a very painful piece of her mind...and stopped herself. Wolverine stood under her window looking something she had never thought he could look....sheepish.
"Sorry 'bout the rock baby." He grinned. "You're a sound sleeper and I don't know my own strength sometimes."
She was suddenly aware that she looked like hell and she was still scowling from the interruption and the cut on her toe. Not the best welcome home for Logan. She ran her fingers through her loose blond curls and smiled gamely.
"Leave it to you to break up property and cause bodily harm to a girl's toe while playing Romeo."
Logan smiled wolfishly. "Subtlety is my middle name."
She shook her head tiredly. Then straightening slightly she called out. "Come on up...I needed to get up and stop some bleeding anyway."
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How she ended up on the back of Wolverine's motorcycle she'd never understand. No wait, she thought with an inner chuckle. She knew.
The speed. The rush. The memories.
The feel of her arms wrapped around Logan's waist and Logan's confidence that she would follow him out into the night for drinks.
Logan had looked around her untidy apartment and had whistled low. "Girlie, I thought nuns lived in neat little rooms? This is a sty!" He plucked a bra off a broken rotary saw she had been taking apart in the kitchen and smiled. "I like it."
She didn't know whether to laugh or grouch. "Nun?"
Wolverine held the bra up and watched the light play though the material and didn't look at her.
"Ain't it nuns that lock themselves in their rooms and don't talk to no one?"
She grabbed the bra out of his hands and sat down heavily and applied the bandage, she was carrying, to her toe. Charlie...she thought.
"I think you got that confused with a hermit." She grumbled. "And it's wrong. I do my share here. In case you haven't noticed we have kids here who can do a lot of damage to woodwork with a paperwad fight and a few sonic blasts and a fire spike or two. I fix those holes in the walls...replace doors and teach shop. I'm not a hermit...and you know damn sure I'm not a nun."
Logan leered at the confiscated undergarment. "Well...maybe not a nun then. But when was the last time you went out for a drink...cut loose?"
So dressed in a black leather hipsters and a pink mid-rift t-shirt and a matching black leather bomber jacket with fringe she had emerged from her bedroom to see Logan pick up her bra again and hold it out to her. "Sure you won't be needing this?"
She looked down at her tautly stretched shirt with the rainbow butterfly in the center and glanced up at the smiling mutant. "Do you think I need it?"
Wolverine took her hand and pulled her toward the door..."Not on your life baby!"
~~~~~~~
She knew why she was with Wolverine. She had no trouble picking up his emotional desires. And she knew his frustrations. She could see Jean floating around in his mind. She could see fuzzy images of other women...red heads mostly...a young oriental woman. She felt his losses.
She knew she wasn't on his list of people he wanted to fall in THAT kind of love with. And he knew the same thing about her. But they had sought comfort in each other once. They had escaped loneliness in each other's arms and even though she wanted to keep her vow never to love again...her body drew her reasoning to the possibility that comfort didn't have to be complicated with love. She didn't have to love again. Logan understood.
She hugged him tighter and leaned against his back and closed her eyes. He kicked the bike into high and they dove into the night, full steam ahead.
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Logan smiled to himself as they pulled up in front of the Bier Haus Inn. He was glad Tyme had taken him up on the offer. But was he really doing this to help Tyme? He sure hadn't liked the thought that the kid was hiding from life at the Westchester mansion. That's not why he'd called them to come get her. He didn't want to see the girl kill herself...he'd seen too much death and too many good people do stupid things when they were in the grip of despair. Including himself.
If he could get her out. Loosen her up a bit...maybe get her to laugh...then maybe...maybe something.
But what?
Maybe a romp in the sheets? He felt a small stab of guilt. Very small. Why not? It had helped last time. And it didn't do him so bad either, he reminded himself.
He had to admit that while he was glad that the folks there had missed him...(that was new for him) he found the place a bit stuffy, and he found Rogue's crush a bit overwhelming, but sweet, and Jean's presence too distracting. Scott was a good guy...but with his arm always around Jean in a way that suggested he was still wary of Logan's intentions....and he was right. So why was he with Tyme tonight? A substitute? Was that fair to the girl?
He was also surprised by the changes in the girl. She was a stunner...and she hadn't been bad looking as a wind burned hitchhiker...hell...she was even a knockout as a blue lipped frozen corpse.
But now? WOW!
Her messy blond curls hung to her shoulders and were the color of honey and her huge green eyes were sharp as daggers. And...whoof..her body was...well...well worth any guilt he may feel. She was a petite girl. 5'3 or so but gone was the leanness of poverty. Now she was fighting trim. Workouts and the exercise she got as the grounds carpenter had given her a definition that was the rival of the other X-men and the build they received in their Danger room training and in action.
But there were other changes as well. Her control training with Jean had allowed her to wall up her emotions. He hadn't sensed one stray feeling from her since he arrived. He felt something like a spider web's tickle in his mind when she was around...but it seemed to be a result of their initial encounter. A connection connected with the deeper sharing she had given to him while they shared the night. But if she felt it too she didn't say....and he had to wonder if that tether wasn't something that made Xavier uncomfortable too...maybe he couldn't get rid of the connection either.
But it didn't bother Logan...not as much as he thought it should. Maybe that was because of the hard edge she had acquired too. He understood it. And he wanted her to live life but who was he to tell her that her ideas on love were wrong. It hadn't treated him any too good in the past either.
The inside of the pub was dark. Wood that was stained deep with God knows what, but that had a black, smooth beer scented finish. Music thumped loudly in one corner but not loudly enough to cover raucous laughter and talking.
The drunk & the drunker staggered together in a familiar way on the worn wood dance floor. And the smell of Cholesterol loaded greasy food clung to over made up waitresses that dodged pinches and slaps to generous backsides. Logan shook his head...why did places like this attract him?
They found a corner table and sat...Logan, out of habit, sat with his back to the wall and he lit a stogie & signaled a frizzy haired waitress in a stained apron over and ordered them some beers.
Tyme took a long pull off the bottle and made a face. Logan smiled and ducked his head a little. It hadn't occurred to him she might not be a drinker. But she took another drink and looked at the label with a determined look. A definite, "I need to get drunk" look. She was about to lift her elbow again when he touched her arm.
"Go easy kid...we got all night."
She lowered the bottle. Her eyes bore a hole in him. "What are we doing here Logan? Didn't Charlie bother telling you that I've got a job here? I'm the carpenter...I even teach it. I'm busy, productive, I have a roof over my head and I'm fine...."
"And you're 22 and you don't go out, socialize, and act like you have a stick shoved up your ass most of the time." Finished Logan.
"Well, except for the 22 part, it sounds like you." She muttered.
"Yeah, but that's part of the whole mystery that is me Baby!" He leaned his chair back against the wall and grinned. "A long, slow, cultivation of misery and anti-social behavior...it's what makes me the interesting old fart that I am. Besides...you're pouting makes real grouches like me look like wusses!"
Tyme, still looking at her beer (for fear of looking at Logan's face and breaking up), chuckled softly and took another long drink and set her bottle down and pushed it away.
"I don't pout." she said, sticking out her lower lip for emphasis.
Logan righted his chair and stood. The lip was too much. He rounded the table and put out his hand. "Dance." he barked.
She looked at his hand as though she expected him to pop his claws on her for a moment.
"What?"
He leaned in and brushed her cheek with the stubble on his chin as he whispered. "Let's...dance."
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She didn't know what surprised her more. The kiss that Logan planted on her when she stood up or the fact that the crusty, sexy, old mutant could really...really dance.
Surprised or not she did her best not to let him sway her from her carefully cultivated bad mood and failed miserably. The dancing was wonderful and the kiss was better. It was distracting. And maybe if love wasn't in the cards...distractions could be. She could always distract herself...one distraction to the next to keep her going. But can you live a whole life like that?
She didn't care. She danced mind numbingly close to his body, with detours into spins and dips that only a man with lots of mileage under the belt could perfect. Finally exhausted, she laid her head against his chest and allowed him to rock her gently in a slow, slow dance.
She relaxed and as she did her walls lowered slightly. She felt the man approach before Logan felt the tap on his shoulder.
"I'm cuttin' in..." The drunk slurred as he pulled Logan by the shoulder. He was a tall, raw boned brute with a pronounced ridge for a brow and a Redman hat slammed tight on top of his balding head.
"Buzz off Bub!" Logan growled a warning. Tyme felt the drunk's temper spike. He was an angry, bitter man, and the booze made him dangerous. Images associated with violence swirled in Tyme's mind. She even saw herself in his mind. And it terrified her. She pulled away from Logan and raised her walls with a suddenness that made her head ache.
The drunk reached around Logan and grabbed Tyme's wrist and yanked her toward him almost knocking her off her feet. She reacted quickly by kicking out and catching him in the upper thigh with her chunky black sneakers. She cursed when she missed her intended target. The drunk's face turned blotchy with rage and he pulled his hand back to hit her when Wolverine grabbed the downward, flying fist out of the air and squeezed it in his hand.
With a slight twisting motion of his own Wolverine dropped the drunk to his knees and he released Tyme's arm. She stepped back to let him work. She had seen the Wolverine angry before...but she had only heard stories of his fighting technique.
And she opened her mind to his emotions and was overwhelmed. Wolverine lived for this...his distraction. His eyes narrowed like a predator's and his nostrils flared and his teeth were bared in a savage smile. The gun blast in the air by the innkeeper was almost a signal to Wolverine to begin the fight instead of to stop the fight as the old man was obviously hoping. Tyme was almost afraid to touch Wolverine in his berserker state but she grabbed his arm and shouted at him to stop.
Wolverine turned on her with a growl of annoyance, but he recognized her and kicked the drunk backwards and looked at her wrist. "He hurt you kid?"
She shook her head and looked to the innkeeper who was advancing on the group. He was a round, small man with large arms and a square jaw padded with fat. He eyed the situation quickly and pointed a chubby finger in the direction of the drunk as his buddies mumbled and milled and helped their friend off the floor.
"Deke...You and your boys need to git outta here now! I've had enuff of dis crap! Move fast cuz if you don't the cops will move ya!" he bellowed.
The raw boned miscreant shot a smiling Logan a look that chilled Tyme. She was tempted to feel out the drunk's emotions but the images...what she saw in him earlier had scared her. She just wanted him gone.
Once the bar had been cleansed of the stink of Deke, Logan took Tyme in his arms and smiled. Some wise ass had put the song "Bad to the Bone" on the juke box and Logan lifted his head back and gave a pretty convincing howl and dipped Tyme bringing her up slowly with a deep kiss.
"Well..do I know how to show a girl a good time or what?"
She took a deep breath and relaxed in his arms. "You sure know how to remind me why I don't go to bars with strange men."
"I can remind you of why you might leave bars with strange men...." He grinned seductively.
She grinned back. Distractions.
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As they stepped out the bar door it was obvious Logan had not seen the attack coming. The shadow wielding the bat struck him in the back of the head and he went down hard. He tried to get up but the blow still had his ears ringing and he stumbled and fell down the steps and into the gravel parking lot. Blows from the bat rang down on his head over and over and Tyme tried reach him but was halted from behind by a hand around her throat and another on her mouth, garbling her screams. She flung herself backwards and tried to kick but she was being lifted up and carried away from where 4 or 5 men beat Logan with bats & bottles.
She knew immediately that the drunk had her. The harder she struggled the harder he squeezed her throat until her ears buzzed and her vision began to blur and recede. Her walls were hard to maintain like this and when they fell her eyes widened in horror. She wasn't going to come back from this alive. She knew the man would rape and kill her...she could even see where he planned to dump her body later in his filth filled mind. She stared at Logan and she begged him to be all right...to get up.
Hope flared briefly when she saw headlights illuminate the lot and saw a truck on the other end. But her fear mounted when she saw the men with the bats scatter back and stand on the sidelines and laugh as the truck gained speed and barreled down on Wolverine's bloodied form.
She started screaming. But not with her mouth. Her consciousness beginning to fade, she let her rage and terror flood her mind and explode from her. The drunk didn't even have time to react. His head burst from the inside like a ripe melon and he fell away from her and she collapsed to the ground. She didn't even comprehend the nature of what she'd done. She didn't even see the results...the body behind her...or the men who were falling over screaming and grabbing their heads. She was scrambling forward, half on hands and knees half on her own feet. The lights were almost on Logan.
Tyme lurched forward and fell on Logan who groaned weakly. Looking up, her entire vision was filled with bright white light. She did the only thing she could think of.
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James West rubbed his eyes again. Not enough sleep last night...but then again what took the place of sleep was well worth a few yawns in the morning. He thought of the girl with her brown hair fanned over his pillows. She'd smelled of vanilla...nice. He liked a girl who smelled like cake.
Anyway...he would have to remember to send her flowers with a note or something before they left in a few days.
Right now Special Agent James West was doing his best to look alive before going into the constabulary along the bustling San Francisco street to look into a suspicious incident that had occurred in front of the Bank of California a day before they were expected to receive a shipment of new greenbacks from the mint and the gold bullion to back the paper money up. The local law was pretty jumpy with the shipment due soon. For Jim and his friend & colleague Artemus Gordon...this was one of their easier assignments.
The Police Captain was a crusty Irishman named Flannery. With a shock of red hair as burnsides...or sideburns as they were beginning to call them and a big waxed mustache, but not a hair on top of his freckled bald head Flannery cut an interesting figure.
The big policeman led Jim back to the holding cells and pointed to their "suspect".
The man stretched out on the cot looked dead. He was covered in blood; his wild hair was matted with it. But Flannery assured Jim that there wasn't a mark on the guy. He was unconscious, but according to doctors, otherwise unhurt. Jim stepped closer to the bars and looked down at the figure.
The stranger wore blue canvas denim pants like the miners wore and a jacket of brown polished leather, which didn't have buttons he was familiar with. He wore, under the jacket, a shirt of flannel with a black and red check.
Even under the gore and grime Jim could tell this was a well-built man. He had a fighter's build that was the envy of many a professional boxer...and he appeared to have a more then passable handsome face. In a really rough sort of way. Jim could see why the man was as suspicious as his appearance to Flannery's men. He was an intimidating figure even prone and sleeping.
Jim looked at the condition of his clothes and the amount of blood he was covered with.
"Looks like he won the fight." He quipped to Flannery.
"Bub...That's as close to losing as I get."
Jim didn't start. He turned back toward the bars and watched the man swing his legs off the cot and stand, testing each arm and stretching in the manner Jim'd seen when he'd taken his martial arts training many years before. Each movement was compact and controlled and each movement relaxed a certain muscle group. The muscles in the small of Jim's back tensed slightly.
This man was maybe someone to watch after all. He didn't look at Jim or Flannery. He walked to the water basin in the cell and poured out a generous amount and washed his face, neck and hands. Then he poured the rest over his head and washed the blood out of his hair and shook his shaggy head like a great dog and stood. He wasn't a vain man from his scruffy looks, though as he approached the bars he was using the towel, he'd dipped in the water, to try to remove most of the dried blood from his jacket.
He stopped in front of the bars and examined them briefly with a snort of contempt. Jim dismissed Flannery who left with an unsure look, closing the door behind him.
The man's dark eyes slowly rose to lock with the hazel eyes of James West and the man smiled. It was a lupine smile, the edges of his canine teeth even appeared just a little sharper and more pronounced adding to the wolfish image.
"I got a bit of a headache Bub. So if you'll go about letting me out of here and take me to my friend, I'll promise not to mess up the building too much."
Jim straightened and clasped his hands casually behind his back. "If you'll just answer a few questions I'll see what I can do about getting you out of here..."
The man's voice was a low growl. "I don't need no help getting out...I was telling you that if you did it nice like I wouldn't have to make it hard on you. I ain't got no beef with you...I just want to find my friend and get out of here."
Jim ignored the implied threat. "If your friend is the young lady we found you with...then I'm afraid she's not here."
"If you don't tell me where she is you'll be afraid all right." The man's eye's narrowed.
Jim knew...knew...that this man was dangerous. He didn't have to bluff, and his threats were uttered with the assurance of fact. This man truly thought he could take apart anything that stood in his way. And Jim was almost convinced...strange as it seemed, that he could.
Jim raised his head calmly and as gently as possible said what he knew this man didn't want to hear.
"The girl you arrived with is in the hospital."
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Artemus Gordon was led to the private room of the hospital usually reserved for important private patients. A guard outside the room came to attention and saluted which still made Artie nervous for some reason. He did a sloppy facsimile of a return salute and walked through the opened door. He looked at the figure on the bed in the center of the bare, white room. He stepped up to the side of the bed and shook his head. The girl was pale, and small. Her curly blond hair had been washed of the blood that was in it when she arrived. It wasn't hers. But she wasn't without injuries. Artie discreetly moved the collar of the huge nightdress the nurses had but her in, and revealed the marks that were darkening on her slender throat. The girl flinched fitfully in her sleep at the touch and Artie withdrew his hand, letting it pause on her hand with a gentle squeeze.
Artie looked around. He hated hospitals...but he saw more reasons to hate this particular place in which this small girl seemed so alone. Since she and the man had arrived in such a, if Artie was to believe the witnesses, spectacular fashion (a supposed explosion of greenish light and a shower of sparks) in the middle of the street directly in front of the bank, both covered in blood and unconscious, they were being treated as a potential threat. But as Artie flicked the bottom of the blankets up a bit to reveal a tiny ankle sheathed in a cold iron shackle and chained to the rail of the bed he couldn't help but think that this was overkill. He reached back and pulled a stool up and sat next to the bed and tried to imagine what he should do.
He glanced at the bedside table and picked up the neatly folded pile of clothes and examined him. He whistled low under his breath. He looked at the daring leather pants and the strange, and very small, pink shirt and looked at the tags, which bore unfamiliar clothier labels, and back at the girl. She was a very attractive young lady, Artie had to admit, even in this sad condition. And the clothes seemed to indicate that she wasn't too shy about herself. But Artie just looked at her face, with her long lashes fluttering sporadically, and her eyes searching, furtively under closed lids, and wondered how someone as forward seeming as her garments suggested could look so terribly vulnerable.
Then her full lips parted and she gave a long exhale and then a sudden intake of breath that caused Artie to do something he was unaccustomed to. He jumped. Artie looked around nervously and tried to steady his now rapid heartbeat. He sat back down on the stool and leaned in. The girl had started moving her lips and was starting to sweat profusely. Artie tried to get close enough to hear what she whispered, but his nervousness was growing. This didn't feel right. He wouldn't find a sick girl something to be afraid of...and why did his skull itch? His heart sped up and he found his breathing coming in short gasps like the girl's. He didn't understand.
He leaned in closer despite the growing headache he was feeling and his hand held the girl's and he found it hard to release her when he realized that he was squeezing it a bit too hard.
The word she muttered over and over was breathless and mournful. "Wolverine....wolver...wolverine...wolv..."
Artie tried to keep his own voice from quavering as he tried to wake her enough to ask what she meant. The nudging motion he gave her shoulder produced a reaction he never could have anticipated. The girl sat bolt upright and her eyes opened wide. Bright green light poured out of her eyes, bathing the room in an eerie glow as though she were a lantern and she screamed.
"LOGAN!"
Artie's hands flew up to his head and he echoed the prolonged and agonized scream, and he heard, just outside his own terrified pain, the scream spread like a virus until the hospital, every floor, rang with similar cries.
He tried to stumble to his feet but fell twice. Artie was reduced to crawling out the door. Outside he saw others making more or less the same progress as him from the nearest exit. He saw, with blurry horror, one man leap from a window to escape the terror filling his mind. And Artie was aghast by the sudden urge he had to follow him.
The terror had dimensions that couldn't come from him...he saw people and images that he couldn't make sense of. Mostly he saw twin white lights and laughing men who were beating a downed man unmercifully...he felt his throat contract and he knew he was trapped. But he recognized none of it. He was experiencing a profound grief that was more like a hot knife slicing into his brain.... and he knew it was her emotions...he knew she was forcing this pain into their minds.
He was sobbing and stumbling through the final door and he saw others lurching away from the pain filled building as fast as they could while others just sobbed and screamed on the lawn outside.
He had to find Jim....
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"SHE'S WHAT!?" Bellowed the man behind the bars.
"She was unconscious when you two appeared. Barely breathing." Jim was carefully watching the man's reaction to the news. There had been initial suspicion by the local law that the man had somehow caused the woman to be in the condition she was found in, but if he was then he was a better actor then even Artie could ever aspire to be. And that was saying a lot. The man's face passed through stages of genuine disbelief to horror as Jim described how doctors originally found her, then there was a look of dawning and a barely contained rage.
"Unlock the door or I make the lock and you go away." He seethed.
Jim did something the man didn't seem to expect. He moved closer to the bars. The man eyed him with a little more of an appraising glance. The look of being "sized up". And for a strange reason Jim was pleased. Until then the man hadn't seemed to consider Jim at all. Just his present state of incarceration and his displeasure with it. Now the man seemed to be weighing him as an opponent. Jim's hands itched with an almost juvenile anticipation. But he kept his features even. His manner calm.
"Ya got some balls Boyscout, gettin' up in my face. So I'm going to cut you a break...move or lose."
Then the man brought his fist up to where it was level with Jim's eyes and his arm flexed minutely and Jim had to fight the desire to step back.
Three shining metal blades sliced open the man's skin between his knuckles and began to slowly reach up into the sky almost nine inches. The gradual climb of the metal claws escaping the man's skin made it hard for Jim to keep eye contact with him but like a wolf challenging another wolf he knew that losing that eye contact could be fatal.
What was this man....this creature?
"My friend needs my help. If I'm right, she's sick and hurt...and in that condition she can be dangerous to others in a way that you wouldn't understand." The man pointed the claws at Jim. "And you're gonna tell me where she is or I start slicing things."
Jim was aware of the threat to himself and the predatory dance they were performing but when he mentioned the girl being a danger to others he needed clarification. Did this girl have claws like his? What danger?
The answer was immediate.
The door slammed open to the holding cells and Artemus Gordon staggered inside.
Jim could barely recognize his friend. Blood poured from his nose and there was a steady trickle, which oozed from his left ear.
Jim dropped his stoic mask and leapt to Artie's side and lowered him to the ground against the wall near the door.
"Oh my God, Artie! What happened?" Jim pulled a kerchief from his breast pocket and began to clear away blood from the face of his sobbing friend. He could see Artie take deep choking breaths and the sobs became less and less dire, but this was still frightening. Jim had never seen his friend in this kind of state before.
Artie could barely lift his head...gasped his first words.
"The girl...girl...she..she..I don't know how...pain..."
Jim was almost beside himself with curiosity and a growing anger.
"The girl did this?!"
Artie nodded and grabbed Jim's arm. "The whole hospital...she is driving everyone insane...she almost killed me."
Jim wanted to run straight for the disaster in progress, but Artie wouldn't release his arm. He wheeled around just in time to see the wild man behind the bars run at the steel and swing his arm in an arch and slice through the cage with those unnatural claws as though it were butter. Jim stood in front of the advance and tensed his arm in a manner that activated the derringer in his sleeve. The small gun launched into his hand and he made it clear he was ready to use it.
The wild charge stopped and the man looked down at Artie and back at Jim. "I need to help her...don't try to stop me."
"If she's hurting people then she needs to be stopped..." Jim shouted back. It was clear to the man how Jim intended to stop the woman who had nearly killed his friend and the beast in front of him growled.
But it was Artemus who interjected.
"She's scared, hurt...mourning...it's her pain...she can't control...." Then he paused and looked up at the man with a startling recognition spreading on his face.
"Wolverine! LOGAN!" he pointed. "She needs to see him...she thinks he's dead...she thinks she killed him!"
Jim looked at the beast man as the man withdrew his claws with a metallic snicking sound. Jim stared briefly at the wounds between his knuckles as they closed up miraculously behind the sheathing. Then the man gave Jim a hard, look.
"Show me where she is...before more people get hurt. I can stop it. She's an empath. She can feel the emotions of others and send hers...but when she's sick she can lose it...she can accidentally hurt people."
Jim stood his ground but Artie wouldn't be ignored. He pulled on Jim's other arm pleadingly.
"Listen to him Jim..."
Jim looked down into his friend's pain-filled eyes. "Artie...she almost killed you. A rabid dog doesn't mean to hurt anyone either..." The "Wolverine" stepped closer not appearing to care about Jim's gun in the slightest and that did worry Jim a bit.
"Tyme ain't no dog you can shoot down BUB!"
Artie just looked at Jim and said very calmly. "Jim...you don't understand...when you see her you will. Please help her."
James West stared hard at his friend. Even wounded as he was he was defending this girl. He knew his friend was generous to a fault...gallant toward the ladies..but he wasn't stupid. Jim wasn't making any promises...he would do whatever he had to protect lives. But he wanted to know for himself...now.
He nodded to the wild man and turned out the open door and led the way at a dead run.
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Wolverine didn't know why he didn't just shred the guy...but he didn't. Maybe it was because he kinda reminded him of Scott Summers. And while Scott had a big bug up his ass about law and order and justice and crap..he was an ok guy. He was a control freak...but ok...he had Jean, which really annoyed him, but he was still ok.
This guy was no mutant defender of humanity, but he did know how to spot a born fighter when he saw one. Even through the sissified suit of blue, which clung to him like yellow spandex, Wolverine could tell that this man was fighting trim and his stance and control was one of a man who was trained well.
He also knew that this fellow was more then just the local law...he was government law. Which put him on edge.
There was never a GI agent type he had met who didn't have an agenda. Wolverine wanted to stay well clear of whatever that agenda was. If he had to skewer the guy to do it he would. But right now he needed him to find Tyme and to hopefully get back home.
He was well aware from the clothes, the cell and the weapon the government man held that Tyme had done what she had claimed she could do...she'd hopped back in time with them. He knew that she hated it...now, because of the Professor more then ever.
He didn't remember it happening, but he knew it had to have been something serious that would make her attempt it.
And she had told him that the attempts made her sick for days...that was just with her alone and a backpack. She had never attempted anything more because of the pain. But now she had made it back in time with him as well. She must be in a real world of hurt. He only hoped he could bring her out of it...he hoped the pain and sickness hadn't driven her insane.
He followed the man in blue like a hound, and he had to control the desire to pull ahead of him several times...he simply didn't know his way through the place's side streets like this man. He looked over his shoulders several times and noted with respect that the man called Artie was doing a pretty good job of catching up to them despite the pain he had endured.
Then Wolverine stopped and looked around. He felt his brain itch...he lifted his head and tested the air. He inhaled deeply...sorting through all the scents in this crowded filthy, frontier city. Then he leapt past the agent in blue who had stopped to watch him. The man gave a surprised shout and bolted after him, never building up a substantial lead over the man.
When Wolverine approached the hospital he saw people in varying states of terrible condition, staggering around the perimeter of the grounds. His head was beginning to pound and he could catch glimpses, distorted, torn images. Hard to see, hard to understand but grief-torn and despairing.
He didn't wait for the other two men. He dove through the broken doors of the hospital and started taking stairs three at a time. The waves of pain started buffeting like winds in a storm. The images were becoming clearer. The drunk's plans for her. The image of him being beaten by the men with bats and bottles was disconcerting when seen through her eyes. The all consuming image of the truck bearing down on both of them. The terror. All amplified by her mutant ability and radiating from her as though she were ground zero of a bomb drop. He knew his healing factor helped him in fending off the worst of the physical effects...but it was damn near as debilitating a weapon she possessed as any that the Brotherhood had thrown against them. He could hear footsteps coming up the stairs and part of him was impressed that the blue-suited man could concentrate enough to follow him into the mental holocaust. He felt it had more to do with a pig-headed stubbornness then in any natural ability to resist the pain.
He was calling her name as he exploded into the room where he found her.
There he stopped briefly and stared...and throwing back his head again he roared in rage.
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James West could barely see...his mind was filled with things he couldn't explain. And a terrible, shattering fear. But if Artie was right then this fear wasn't his and he did his best to separate his feelings from the feelings of this stranger and had taken out his Winchester somewhere, halfway, up the stairs and had put away the derringer. This person was clearly a danger. And he knew that Artie's gallantry knew almost no bounds but he couldn't allow this uncontrollable force to continue. She was killing people and he had to stop it. His eyes felt like they were being pushed out of his head and he could barely catch his breath. She had to be stopped...she had to be stopped.
He entered the room as the man Artie called Wolverine had howled angrily and dove for the figure in the center of the room.
The girl was so small and pale...twisted in blankets and sheets she'd been fighting and lying on the floor with one leg in the air, caught and twisted in the shackles keeping her to the bed. Her ankle bleeding where the metal dug into her at the awkward angle.
She was laying on her back with her arms flung out to her sides like a crucifixion with sweat drenched blond hair a tangle around her head.
But her eyes were open and not like any he had ever seen before. He saw no iris or white, or pupils. They were brilliant green lamps of painful light filling his mind with terror.
Jim watched as the man raced toward her and unsheathed those deadly looking knives in his hands with an audible metallic ring and he sliced the air and the shackle chain fell in pieces to the floor. This wild man lifted the girl with as much tenderness as a man could possess and hugged her to him as he lowered her to the bed.
Through his pain Jim could see the man screaming her name just inches from her face. He shook her shoulders and even took back a hand and slapped her face.
"TYME...IT'S LOGAN! TYME...LOOK INSIDE ME! IT'S ME...WE'RE ALIVE! YOU SAVED US! TYME...YOU HAVE TO LOOK AT ME...YOU ARE HURTING PEOPLE WITH YOUR POWER! TYME PLEASE!!!"
Jim couldn't wait any longer...he cocked the revolver and lifted it. This was a matter of life or death.
But the beast man heard the gun lock and he turned and another set of claws emerged from his other hand and he stood with his body blocking the girl and crouched, like a cat tensed to leap on prey. His eyes were feral. Jim expected the battle to commence now.
But just when he expected to have to shoot the clawed menace the pain in his head shut off with a suddenness that made him nauseous. He and the beast staggered for a moment and then he recovered. Jim still held his gun but Artie had arrived and had placed his hand over the barrel and lowered it.
"Jim...it's stopped."
The Wolverine turned back to the girl and they could see her skin looked waxy and taut as her eyes screwed tight shut and she screamed audibly.
She was trying to shut off a flood and they all tensed in case she couldn't and the pain would come crashing back on them more intensely then before.
But it didn't. Instead the girl sighed once and fell unconscious.
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This story is best read AFTER reading Tyme's introductory story Wild Tyme
http://www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=545975
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Part 1
Tyme sanded the wood and didn't look up. She felt the grit of the paper and leaned into her work. The haze of the sun poured in through the window and lit the fine dust created by her. The repetition, the rhythm of the motion...didn't comfort her so much as numb her from day to day. The change in the wood. The pause in motion to feel the wood, still warm from friction and sun...almost alive...turning silky under her care. The resumption of motion. She didn't even look up when she heard the motorcycle pull up and the motion of the sanding reminded her of other things.
She didn't have to hear the excited shouts to know that they were greeting Wolverine, and she leaned over to pull the shop window shut so she could continue to work undisturbed. She refused to look out. She was determined not to be part of the celebration. But almost without her making the decision she extended herself to the happy parade that made it's way past her window.
She felt the emotional presence of each member of the welcoming party. The cool, commanding nature of Scott...watchful...jealous...but confident that nothing was beyond his control. She felt the equally cool and confident Jean Grey who normally wore a mask over her emotions...the wall that a trained telepath wears as a protection, (One that Tyme was still learning), but she could tell that the occasion seemed to warrant a dropping of the shield. She felt the puppy-like giddiness of Rogue who so desperately wanted to touch the man she bore such a crush for...who had saved her. Just as he had saved Tyme. Poor Rogue.
She felt the desert wind that blew Logan's emotions her way. She could feel Wolverine's emotions burn against her with their raw honesty. She could feel the energy. The violence...the need for sensation he had that kept him from having to remember the things he thinks were stolen from him. He was like a walking bonfire. She took a moment to bask in the glow...but she didn't join the happy throng.
She didn't greet him, as she should. She couldn't...she was determined not to. Not to feel. But then she reached out...almost before she could stop herself and she felt the space where emotions should be. She felt the space, which was as solid as a glass box suspended in mid air, and she lowered her head further and worked the sandpaper harder into the wood.
The blank space in the air was Charles Xavier. Her Charlie...no...not HER Charlie. Her Charlie had been buried by hardship, responsibility, grief and a stern, controlled, reasoning goal. Her Charlie had become everyone else's patriarch. He had become Professor X.
And while he had seemed glad to see her again, she had a feeling she was an uncomfortable reminder to him now. A reminder of the past, of a youth he couldn't recapture. Maybe even an embarrassment to him. Perhaps she was even a temptation. And the stoic Professor allowed no distractions to mar his fatherly skin.
He didn't let her dwell on their former relationship. He told her the first night on the flight to the Institute, after she left Logan, that her dream of being with him again was impossible. That she was welcome to stay at the Institute until she felt able to face the world again...but that beyond that, it would be best if they didn't discuss the past.
But what else was she beyond her search for him? She had put her entire stock...her dreams of happiness. Everything she was into finding the love that had kept her alive after her family discovered her mutant abilities.
Not that she liked expressing her abilities. Time hopping wasn't a walk through the park. It had nearly killed her on many occasions...and it was the reason her father had almost killed her when she was 15. It was the reason she was on her own for so many years. It was the reason Charlie and she met when she was 17 and he was 19...and it was the sole reason she kept trying to get back to him over and over until the hopping had worn her down with its increasing futility. Until she couldn't bear to use it for the agony of loneliness it caused when Charlie couldn't be found.
She would never use it again. But her other ability had replaced it in causing her pain. Her empathic abilities had taken on a new strength...and a new life. She had arrived in Logan's arms barely able to withstand the force of his emotions and her's had surprised and hurt him as she had thrown her feelings into his mind like a knife in self defense. It was Logan's strength of will...and his stubborn version of nurturing that kept her from killing herself. Now her empathy was the agony of Charles Xavier shutting her out.
Jean taught her to build walls. She taught her to use her powers. Jean taught her...not Charles. Charles found other places to be. About the only time he had let his walls drop slightly was when he had discovered her carpentry skills and had offered the old chauffeur's garage as a shop and apartment and she'd accepted. She had felt relief trickle over the dam...relief that she would not be under the same roof as him...relief to put some distance between them. She had also felt the hurt when he realized that his relief had leeched through and caused her pain. But she knew he considered her pain a minor thing now...and something she would work through "for her own good".
So she never complained. She never caused trouble. She never bothered anyone. She was just the ghost who fixed doors and cabinets and repaired holes blasted in expensive wood paneling by young mutants learning the ropes. She was as innocuous as a janitor...she contributed...but quietly, and then she retired to her rooms.
Jean, & Rogue expressed some concern for her...tried to draw her out. And Hank McCoy had gloriously commented that she was as pretty a wallflower as he'd ever met. But it didn't even elicit a blush. She had simply tucked her unruly blond curls behind her ears and excused herself and gone back to work on her lathe. She could feel the worry some of them had for her but she really wished they wouldn't bother. Couldn't they see that the best thing to do would be to divorce herself from the emotions that caused her pain? To learn to build her walls, to learn to be alone, and to learn never to fall in love again.
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Wolverine liked the attention though he would never admit to it being anything more then a pain. But Charles Xavier wasn't fooled and he smiled at the burly mutant.
"We are so glad you have returned to us again."
Wolverine looked around and a slight frown creased his brow.
***She's glad you're back too Logan.***
The leather clad man chomped down hard on the cigar he smoked and shot Professor X a quick glance. He hated when the man did that. But he was learning that Xavier usually had a reason when he did and he kept his mouth shut and just kept walking with the group.
***She has been very helpful here. She's learning how to control her empathic abilities.***
Logan heard the pause as almost a physical presence in his mind. "But?" He prompted.
***But...*** Picked up Xavier. ***She has withdrawn from everyone.....because I had to withdraw from her.***
"Geez Louise." Logan hissed. He had had a feeling that Tyme's reunion with her "Charlie" was going to be a sorry one...he had hoped his feeling would be wrong.
***Your instinct was correct my friend.*** The mind voice was somber. ***She had laid so much hope in our brief time together. She is a beautiful person Logan. She was everything a young man could want...then. But she can't seem to cope with the changes in me. She doesn't complain, or try to force contact with me...and she works hard. But she is alone...and she shouldn't be. Even Rogue doesn't cloister herself like Tyme does. I fear she has taken all this personally. She expected me to be the answer in her life and I'm not. Now she has decided to cope by shutting life out. She stays in that garage shop...and practices putting up walls.***
As the party moved up the steps of the Mansion Logan looked back toward the old garage and made a low grunt. Then he turned and followed the small group of X-men inside.
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She didn't really dream much anymore. And sleep came easily when you worked yourself into exhaustion in a single-minded manner to pass the time. So Tyme didn't wake easily when the pebbles made their tinkling, plinking noises against her window. The insistent sound probably registered somewhere in her but she was well able to ignore it. At least she could ignore it until she heard the breaking glass and the muffled curse.
Feeling older then her 22 years she screwed her eyes tight and cursed loudly at the kids she was positive were making a nighttime visit as a prank. She rolled out of her bed and immediately stepped on a piece of broken glass and cursed again painfully. Then throwing up the window she looked out into the moonlit yard while she reached down to fish the shard out of her big toe so she could shove it up the offender's ass.
Her eyes widened slightly just before she prepared to give the miscreant a very painful piece of her mind...and stopped herself. Wolverine stood under her window looking something she had never thought he could look....sheepish.
"Sorry 'bout the rock baby." He grinned. "You're a sound sleeper and I don't know my own strength sometimes."
She was suddenly aware that she looked like hell and she was still scowling from the interruption and the cut on her toe. Not the best welcome home for Logan. She ran her fingers through her loose blond curls and smiled gamely.
"Leave it to you to break up property and cause bodily harm to a girl's toe while playing Romeo."
Logan smiled wolfishly. "Subtlety is my middle name."
She shook her head tiredly. Then straightening slightly she called out. "Come on up...I needed to get up and stop some bleeding anyway."
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How she ended up on the back of Wolverine's motorcycle she'd never understand. No wait, she thought with an inner chuckle. She knew.
The speed. The rush. The memories.
The feel of her arms wrapped around Logan's waist and Logan's confidence that she would follow him out into the night for drinks.
Logan had looked around her untidy apartment and had whistled low. "Girlie, I thought nuns lived in neat little rooms? This is a sty!" He plucked a bra off a broken rotary saw she had been taking apart in the kitchen and smiled. "I like it."
She didn't know whether to laugh or grouch. "Nun?"
Wolverine held the bra up and watched the light play though the material and didn't look at her.
"Ain't it nuns that lock themselves in their rooms and don't talk to no one?"
She grabbed the bra out of his hands and sat down heavily and applied the bandage, she was carrying, to her toe. Charlie...she thought.
"I think you got that confused with a hermit." She grumbled. "And it's wrong. I do my share here. In case you haven't noticed we have kids here who can do a lot of damage to woodwork with a paperwad fight and a few sonic blasts and a fire spike or two. I fix those holes in the walls...replace doors and teach shop. I'm not a hermit...and you know damn sure I'm not a nun."
Logan leered at the confiscated undergarment. "Well...maybe not a nun then. But when was the last time you went out for a drink...cut loose?"
So dressed in a black leather hipsters and a pink mid-rift t-shirt and a matching black leather bomber jacket with fringe she had emerged from her bedroom to see Logan pick up her bra again and hold it out to her. "Sure you won't be needing this?"
She looked down at her tautly stretched shirt with the rainbow butterfly in the center and glanced up at the smiling mutant. "Do you think I need it?"
Wolverine took her hand and pulled her toward the door..."Not on your life baby!"
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She knew why she was with Wolverine. She had no trouble picking up his emotional desires. And she knew his frustrations. She could see Jean floating around in his mind. She could see fuzzy images of other women...red heads mostly...a young oriental woman. She felt his losses.
She knew she wasn't on his list of people he wanted to fall in THAT kind of love with. And he knew the same thing about her. But they had sought comfort in each other once. They had escaped loneliness in each other's arms and even though she wanted to keep her vow never to love again...her body drew her reasoning to the possibility that comfort didn't have to be complicated with love. She didn't have to love again. Logan understood.
She hugged him tighter and leaned against his back and closed her eyes. He kicked the bike into high and they dove into the night, full steam ahead.
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Logan smiled to himself as they pulled up in front of the Bier Haus Inn. He was glad Tyme had taken him up on the offer. But was he really doing this to help Tyme? He sure hadn't liked the thought that the kid was hiding from life at the Westchester mansion. That's not why he'd called them to come get her. He didn't want to see the girl kill herself...he'd seen too much death and too many good people do stupid things when they were in the grip of despair. Including himself.
If he could get her out. Loosen her up a bit...maybe get her to laugh...then maybe...maybe something.
But what?
Maybe a romp in the sheets? He felt a small stab of guilt. Very small. Why not? It had helped last time. And it didn't do him so bad either, he reminded himself.
He had to admit that while he was glad that the folks there had missed him...(that was new for him) he found the place a bit stuffy, and he found Rogue's crush a bit overwhelming, but sweet, and Jean's presence too distracting. Scott was a good guy...but with his arm always around Jean in a way that suggested he was still wary of Logan's intentions....and he was right. So why was he with Tyme tonight? A substitute? Was that fair to the girl?
He was also surprised by the changes in the girl. She was a stunner...and she hadn't been bad looking as a wind burned hitchhiker...hell...she was even a knockout as a blue lipped frozen corpse.
But now? WOW!
Her messy blond curls hung to her shoulders and were the color of honey and her huge green eyes were sharp as daggers. And...whoof..her body was...well...well worth any guilt he may feel. She was a petite girl. 5'3 or so but gone was the leanness of poverty. Now she was fighting trim. Workouts and the exercise she got as the grounds carpenter had given her a definition that was the rival of the other X-men and the build they received in their Danger room training and in action.
But there were other changes as well. Her control training with Jean had allowed her to wall up her emotions. He hadn't sensed one stray feeling from her since he arrived. He felt something like a spider web's tickle in his mind when she was around...but it seemed to be a result of their initial encounter. A connection connected with the deeper sharing she had given to him while they shared the night. But if she felt it too she didn't say....and he had to wonder if that tether wasn't something that made Xavier uncomfortable too...maybe he couldn't get rid of the connection either.
But it didn't bother Logan...not as much as he thought it should. Maybe that was because of the hard edge she had acquired too. He understood it. And he wanted her to live life but who was he to tell her that her ideas on love were wrong. It hadn't treated him any too good in the past either.
The inside of the pub was dark. Wood that was stained deep with God knows what, but that had a black, smooth beer scented finish. Music thumped loudly in one corner but not loudly enough to cover raucous laughter and talking.
The drunk & the drunker staggered together in a familiar way on the worn wood dance floor. And the smell of Cholesterol loaded greasy food clung to over made up waitresses that dodged pinches and slaps to generous backsides. Logan shook his head...why did places like this attract him?
They found a corner table and sat...Logan, out of habit, sat with his back to the wall and he lit a stogie & signaled a frizzy haired waitress in a stained apron over and ordered them some beers.
Tyme took a long pull off the bottle and made a face. Logan smiled and ducked his head a little. It hadn't occurred to him she might not be a drinker. But she took another drink and looked at the label with a determined look. A definite, "I need to get drunk" look. She was about to lift her elbow again when he touched her arm.
"Go easy kid...we got all night."
She lowered the bottle. Her eyes bore a hole in him. "What are we doing here Logan? Didn't Charlie bother telling you that I've got a job here? I'm the carpenter...I even teach it. I'm busy, productive, I have a roof over my head and I'm fine...."
"And you're 22 and you don't go out, socialize, and act like you have a stick shoved up your ass most of the time." Finished Logan.
"Well, except for the 22 part, it sounds like you." She muttered.
"Yeah, but that's part of the whole mystery that is me Baby!" He leaned his chair back against the wall and grinned. "A long, slow, cultivation of misery and anti-social behavior...it's what makes me the interesting old fart that I am. Besides...you're pouting makes real grouches like me look like wusses!"
Tyme, still looking at her beer (for fear of looking at Logan's face and breaking up), chuckled softly and took another long drink and set her bottle down and pushed it away.
"I don't pout." she said, sticking out her lower lip for emphasis.
Logan righted his chair and stood. The lip was too much. He rounded the table and put out his hand. "Dance." he barked.
She looked at his hand as though she expected him to pop his claws on her for a moment.
"What?"
He leaned in and brushed her cheek with the stubble on his chin as he whispered. "Let's...dance."
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She didn't know what surprised her more. The kiss that Logan planted on her when she stood up or the fact that the crusty, sexy, old mutant could really...really dance.
Surprised or not she did her best not to let him sway her from her carefully cultivated bad mood and failed miserably. The dancing was wonderful and the kiss was better. It was distracting. And maybe if love wasn't in the cards...distractions could be. She could always distract herself...one distraction to the next to keep her going. But can you live a whole life like that?
She didn't care. She danced mind numbingly close to his body, with detours into spins and dips that only a man with lots of mileage under the belt could perfect. Finally exhausted, she laid her head against his chest and allowed him to rock her gently in a slow, slow dance.
She relaxed and as she did her walls lowered slightly. She felt the man approach before Logan felt the tap on his shoulder.
"I'm cuttin' in..." The drunk slurred as he pulled Logan by the shoulder. He was a tall, raw boned brute with a pronounced ridge for a brow and a Redman hat slammed tight on top of his balding head.
"Buzz off Bub!" Logan growled a warning. Tyme felt the drunk's temper spike. He was an angry, bitter man, and the booze made him dangerous. Images associated with violence swirled in Tyme's mind. She even saw herself in his mind. And it terrified her. She pulled away from Logan and raised her walls with a suddenness that made her head ache.
The drunk reached around Logan and grabbed Tyme's wrist and yanked her toward him almost knocking her off her feet. She reacted quickly by kicking out and catching him in the upper thigh with her chunky black sneakers. She cursed when she missed her intended target. The drunk's face turned blotchy with rage and he pulled his hand back to hit her when Wolverine grabbed the downward, flying fist out of the air and squeezed it in his hand.
With a slight twisting motion of his own Wolverine dropped the drunk to his knees and he released Tyme's arm. She stepped back to let him work. She had seen the Wolverine angry before...but she had only heard stories of his fighting technique.
And she opened her mind to his emotions and was overwhelmed. Wolverine lived for this...his distraction. His eyes narrowed like a predator's and his nostrils flared and his teeth were bared in a savage smile. The gun blast in the air by the innkeeper was almost a signal to Wolverine to begin the fight instead of to stop the fight as the old man was obviously hoping. Tyme was almost afraid to touch Wolverine in his berserker state but she grabbed his arm and shouted at him to stop.
Wolverine turned on her with a growl of annoyance, but he recognized her and kicked the drunk backwards and looked at her wrist. "He hurt you kid?"
She shook her head and looked to the innkeeper who was advancing on the group. He was a round, small man with large arms and a square jaw padded with fat. He eyed the situation quickly and pointed a chubby finger in the direction of the drunk as his buddies mumbled and milled and helped their friend off the floor.
"Deke...You and your boys need to git outta here now! I've had enuff of dis crap! Move fast cuz if you don't the cops will move ya!" he bellowed.
The raw boned miscreant shot a smiling Logan a look that chilled Tyme. She was tempted to feel out the drunk's emotions but the images...what she saw in him earlier had scared her. She just wanted him gone.
Once the bar had been cleansed of the stink of Deke, Logan took Tyme in his arms and smiled. Some wise ass had put the song "Bad to the Bone" on the juke box and Logan lifted his head back and gave a pretty convincing howl and dipped Tyme bringing her up slowly with a deep kiss.
"Well..do I know how to show a girl a good time or what?"
She took a deep breath and relaxed in his arms. "You sure know how to remind me why I don't go to bars with strange men."
"I can remind you of why you might leave bars with strange men...." He grinned seductively.
She grinned back. Distractions.
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As they stepped out the bar door it was obvious Logan had not seen the attack coming. The shadow wielding the bat struck him in the back of the head and he went down hard. He tried to get up but the blow still had his ears ringing and he stumbled and fell down the steps and into the gravel parking lot. Blows from the bat rang down on his head over and over and Tyme tried reach him but was halted from behind by a hand around her throat and another on her mouth, garbling her screams. She flung herself backwards and tried to kick but she was being lifted up and carried away from where 4 or 5 men beat Logan with bats & bottles.
She knew immediately that the drunk had her. The harder she struggled the harder he squeezed her throat until her ears buzzed and her vision began to blur and recede. Her walls were hard to maintain like this and when they fell her eyes widened in horror. She wasn't going to come back from this alive. She knew the man would rape and kill her...she could even see where he planned to dump her body later in his filth filled mind. She stared at Logan and she begged him to be all right...to get up.
Hope flared briefly when she saw headlights illuminate the lot and saw a truck on the other end. But her fear mounted when she saw the men with the bats scatter back and stand on the sidelines and laugh as the truck gained speed and barreled down on Wolverine's bloodied form.
She started screaming. But not with her mouth. Her consciousness beginning to fade, she let her rage and terror flood her mind and explode from her. The drunk didn't even have time to react. His head burst from the inside like a ripe melon and he fell away from her and she collapsed to the ground. She didn't even comprehend the nature of what she'd done. She didn't even see the results...the body behind her...or the men who were falling over screaming and grabbing their heads. She was scrambling forward, half on hands and knees half on her own feet. The lights were almost on Logan.
Tyme lurched forward and fell on Logan who groaned weakly. Looking up, her entire vision was filled with bright white light. She did the only thing she could think of.
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James West rubbed his eyes again. Not enough sleep last night...but then again what took the place of sleep was well worth a few yawns in the morning. He thought of the girl with her brown hair fanned over his pillows. She'd smelled of vanilla...nice. He liked a girl who smelled like cake.
Anyway...he would have to remember to send her flowers with a note or something before they left in a few days.
Right now Special Agent James West was doing his best to look alive before going into the constabulary along the bustling San Francisco street to look into a suspicious incident that had occurred in front of the Bank of California a day before they were expected to receive a shipment of new greenbacks from the mint and the gold bullion to back the paper money up. The local law was pretty jumpy with the shipment due soon. For Jim and his friend & colleague Artemus Gordon...this was one of their easier assignments.
The Police Captain was a crusty Irishman named Flannery. With a shock of red hair as burnsides...or sideburns as they were beginning to call them and a big waxed mustache, but not a hair on top of his freckled bald head Flannery cut an interesting figure.
The big policeman led Jim back to the holding cells and pointed to their "suspect".
The man stretched out on the cot looked dead. He was covered in blood; his wild hair was matted with it. But Flannery assured Jim that there wasn't a mark on the guy. He was unconscious, but according to doctors, otherwise unhurt. Jim stepped closer to the bars and looked down at the figure.
The stranger wore blue canvas denim pants like the miners wore and a jacket of brown polished leather, which didn't have buttons he was familiar with. He wore, under the jacket, a shirt of flannel with a black and red check.
Even under the gore and grime Jim could tell this was a well-built man. He had a fighter's build that was the envy of many a professional boxer...and he appeared to have a more then passable handsome face. In a really rough sort of way. Jim could see why the man was as suspicious as his appearance to Flannery's men. He was an intimidating figure even prone and sleeping.
Jim looked at the condition of his clothes and the amount of blood he was covered with.
"Looks like he won the fight." He quipped to Flannery.
"Bub...That's as close to losing as I get."
Jim didn't start. He turned back toward the bars and watched the man swing his legs off the cot and stand, testing each arm and stretching in the manner Jim'd seen when he'd taken his martial arts training many years before. Each movement was compact and controlled and each movement relaxed a certain muscle group. The muscles in the small of Jim's back tensed slightly.
This man was maybe someone to watch after all. He didn't look at Jim or Flannery. He walked to the water basin in the cell and poured out a generous amount and washed his face, neck and hands. Then he poured the rest over his head and washed the blood out of his hair and shook his shaggy head like a great dog and stood. He wasn't a vain man from his scruffy looks, though as he approached the bars he was using the towel, he'd dipped in the water, to try to remove most of the dried blood from his jacket.
He stopped in front of the bars and examined them briefly with a snort of contempt. Jim dismissed Flannery who left with an unsure look, closing the door behind him.
The man's dark eyes slowly rose to lock with the hazel eyes of James West and the man smiled. It was a lupine smile, the edges of his canine teeth even appeared just a little sharper and more pronounced adding to the wolfish image.
"I got a bit of a headache Bub. So if you'll go about letting me out of here and take me to my friend, I'll promise not to mess up the building too much."
Jim straightened and clasped his hands casually behind his back. "If you'll just answer a few questions I'll see what I can do about getting you out of here..."
The man's voice was a low growl. "I don't need no help getting out...I was telling you that if you did it nice like I wouldn't have to make it hard on you. I ain't got no beef with you...I just want to find my friend and get out of here."
Jim ignored the implied threat. "If your friend is the young lady we found you with...then I'm afraid she's not here."
"If you don't tell me where she is you'll be afraid all right." The man's eye's narrowed.
Jim knew...knew...that this man was dangerous. He didn't have to bluff, and his threats were uttered with the assurance of fact. This man truly thought he could take apart anything that stood in his way. And Jim was almost convinced...strange as it seemed, that he could.
Jim raised his head calmly and as gently as possible said what he knew this man didn't want to hear.
"The girl you arrived with is in the hospital."
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Artemus Gordon was led to the private room of the hospital usually reserved for important private patients. A guard outside the room came to attention and saluted which still made Artie nervous for some reason. He did a sloppy facsimile of a return salute and walked through the opened door. He looked at the figure on the bed in the center of the bare, white room. He stepped up to the side of the bed and shook his head. The girl was pale, and small. Her curly blond hair had been washed of the blood that was in it when she arrived. It wasn't hers. But she wasn't without injuries. Artie discreetly moved the collar of the huge nightdress the nurses had but her in, and revealed the marks that were darkening on her slender throat. The girl flinched fitfully in her sleep at the touch and Artie withdrew his hand, letting it pause on her hand with a gentle squeeze.
Artie looked around. He hated hospitals...but he saw more reasons to hate this particular place in which this small girl seemed so alone. Since she and the man had arrived in such a, if Artie was to believe the witnesses, spectacular fashion (a supposed explosion of greenish light and a shower of sparks) in the middle of the street directly in front of the bank, both covered in blood and unconscious, they were being treated as a potential threat. But as Artie flicked the bottom of the blankets up a bit to reveal a tiny ankle sheathed in a cold iron shackle and chained to the rail of the bed he couldn't help but think that this was overkill. He reached back and pulled a stool up and sat next to the bed and tried to imagine what he should do.
He glanced at the bedside table and picked up the neatly folded pile of clothes and examined him. He whistled low under his breath. He looked at the daring leather pants and the strange, and very small, pink shirt and looked at the tags, which bore unfamiliar clothier labels, and back at the girl. She was a very attractive young lady, Artie had to admit, even in this sad condition. And the clothes seemed to indicate that she wasn't too shy about herself. But Artie just looked at her face, with her long lashes fluttering sporadically, and her eyes searching, furtively under closed lids, and wondered how someone as forward seeming as her garments suggested could look so terribly vulnerable.
Then her full lips parted and she gave a long exhale and then a sudden intake of breath that caused Artie to do something he was unaccustomed to. He jumped. Artie looked around nervously and tried to steady his now rapid heartbeat. He sat back down on the stool and leaned in. The girl had started moving her lips and was starting to sweat profusely. Artie tried to get close enough to hear what she whispered, but his nervousness was growing. This didn't feel right. He wouldn't find a sick girl something to be afraid of...and why did his skull itch? His heart sped up and he found his breathing coming in short gasps like the girl's. He didn't understand.
He leaned in closer despite the growing headache he was feeling and his hand held the girl's and he found it hard to release her when he realized that he was squeezing it a bit too hard.
The word she muttered over and over was breathless and mournful. "Wolverine....wolver...wolverine...wolv..."
Artie tried to keep his own voice from quavering as he tried to wake her enough to ask what she meant. The nudging motion he gave her shoulder produced a reaction he never could have anticipated. The girl sat bolt upright and her eyes opened wide. Bright green light poured out of her eyes, bathing the room in an eerie glow as though she were a lantern and she screamed.
"LOGAN!"
Artie's hands flew up to his head and he echoed the prolonged and agonized scream, and he heard, just outside his own terrified pain, the scream spread like a virus until the hospital, every floor, rang with similar cries.
He tried to stumble to his feet but fell twice. Artie was reduced to crawling out the door. Outside he saw others making more or less the same progress as him from the nearest exit. He saw, with blurry horror, one man leap from a window to escape the terror filling his mind. And Artie was aghast by the sudden urge he had to follow him.
The terror had dimensions that couldn't come from him...he saw people and images that he couldn't make sense of. Mostly he saw twin white lights and laughing men who were beating a downed man unmercifully...he felt his throat contract and he knew he was trapped. But he recognized none of it. He was experiencing a profound grief that was more like a hot knife slicing into his brain.... and he knew it was her emotions...he knew she was forcing this pain into their minds.
He was sobbing and stumbling through the final door and he saw others lurching away from the pain filled building as fast as they could while others just sobbed and screamed on the lawn outside.
He had to find Jim....
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"SHE'S WHAT!?" Bellowed the man behind the bars.
"She was unconscious when you two appeared. Barely breathing." Jim was carefully watching the man's reaction to the news. There had been initial suspicion by the local law that the man had somehow caused the woman to be in the condition she was found in, but if he was then he was a better actor then even Artie could ever aspire to be. And that was saying a lot. The man's face passed through stages of genuine disbelief to horror as Jim described how doctors originally found her, then there was a look of dawning and a barely contained rage.
"Unlock the door or I make the lock and you go away." He seethed.
Jim did something the man didn't seem to expect. He moved closer to the bars. The man eyed him with a little more of an appraising glance. The look of being "sized up". And for a strange reason Jim was pleased. Until then the man hadn't seemed to consider Jim at all. Just his present state of incarceration and his displeasure with it. Now the man seemed to be weighing him as an opponent. Jim's hands itched with an almost juvenile anticipation. But he kept his features even. His manner calm.
"Ya got some balls Boyscout, gettin' up in my face. So I'm going to cut you a break...move or lose."
Then the man brought his fist up to where it was level with Jim's eyes and his arm flexed minutely and Jim had to fight the desire to step back.
Three shining metal blades sliced open the man's skin between his knuckles and began to slowly reach up into the sky almost nine inches. The gradual climb of the metal claws escaping the man's skin made it hard for Jim to keep eye contact with him but like a wolf challenging another wolf he knew that losing that eye contact could be fatal.
What was this man....this creature?
"My friend needs my help. If I'm right, she's sick and hurt...and in that condition she can be dangerous to others in a way that you wouldn't understand." The man pointed the claws at Jim. "And you're gonna tell me where she is or I start slicing things."
Jim was aware of the threat to himself and the predatory dance they were performing but when he mentioned the girl being a danger to others he needed clarification. Did this girl have claws like his? What danger?
The answer was immediate.
The door slammed open to the holding cells and Artemus Gordon staggered inside.
Jim could barely recognize his friend. Blood poured from his nose and there was a steady trickle, which oozed from his left ear.
Jim dropped his stoic mask and leapt to Artie's side and lowered him to the ground against the wall near the door.
"Oh my God, Artie! What happened?" Jim pulled a kerchief from his breast pocket and began to clear away blood from the face of his sobbing friend. He could see Artie take deep choking breaths and the sobs became less and less dire, but this was still frightening. Jim had never seen his friend in this kind of state before.
Artie could barely lift his head...gasped his first words.
"The girl...girl...she..she..I don't know how...pain..."
Jim was almost beside himself with curiosity and a growing anger.
"The girl did this?!"
Artie nodded and grabbed Jim's arm. "The whole hospital...she is driving everyone insane...she almost killed me."
Jim wanted to run straight for the disaster in progress, but Artie wouldn't release his arm. He wheeled around just in time to see the wild man behind the bars run at the steel and swing his arm in an arch and slice through the cage with those unnatural claws as though it were butter. Jim stood in front of the advance and tensed his arm in a manner that activated the derringer in his sleeve. The small gun launched into his hand and he made it clear he was ready to use it.
The wild charge stopped and the man looked down at Artie and back at Jim. "I need to help her...don't try to stop me."
"If she's hurting people then she needs to be stopped..." Jim shouted back. It was clear to the man how Jim intended to stop the woman who had nearly killed his friend and the beast in front of him growled.
But it was Artemus who interjected.
"She's scared, hurt...mourning...it's her pain...she can't control...." Then he paused and looked up at the man with a startling recognition spreading on his face.
"Wolverine! LOGAN!" he pointed. "She needs to see him...she thinks he's dead...she thinks she killed him!"
Jim looked at the beast man as the man withdrew his claws with a metallic snicking sound. Jim stared briefly at the wounds between his knuckles as they closed up miraculously behind the sheathing. Then the man gave Jim a hard, look.
"Show me where she is...before more people get hurt. I can stop it. She's an empath. She can feel the emotions of others and send hers...but when she's sick she can lose it...she can accidentally hurt people."
Jim stood his ground but Artie wouldn't be ignored. He pulled on Jim's other arm pleadingly.
"Listen to him Jim..."
Jim looked down into his friend's pain-filled eyes. "Artie...she almost killed you. A rabid dog doesn't mean to hurt anyone either..." The "Wolverine" stepped closer not appearing to care about Jim's gun in the slightest and that did worry Jim a bit.
"Tyme ain't no dog you can shoot down BUB!"
Artie just looked at Jim and said very calmly. "Jim...you don't understand...when you see her you will. Please help her."
James West stared hard at his friend. Even wounded as he was he was defending this girl. He knew his friend was generous to a fault...gallant toward the ladies..but he wasn't stupid. Jim wasn't making any promises...he would do whatever he had to protect lives. But he wanted to know for himself...now.
He nodded to the wild man and turned out the open door and led the way at a dead run.
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Wolverine didn't know why he didn't just shred the guy...but he didn't. Maybe it was because he kinda reminded him of Scott Summers. And while Scott had a big bug up his ass about law and order and justice and crap..he was an ok guy. He was a control freak...but ok...he had Jean, which really annoyed him, but he was still ok.
This guy was no mutant defender of humanity, but he did know how to spot a born fighter when he saw one. Even through the sissified suit of blue, which clung to him like yellow spandex, Wolverine could tell that this man was fighting trim and his stance and control was one of a man who was trained well.
He also knew that this fellow was more then just the local law...he was government law. Which put him on edge.
There was never a GI agent type he had met who didn't have an agenda. Wolverine wanted to stay well clear of whatever that agenda was. If he had to skewer the guy to do it he would. But right now he needed him to find Tyme and to hopefully get back home.
He was well aware from the clothes, the cell and the weapon the government man held that Tyme had done what she had claimed she could do...she'd hopped back in time with them. He knew that she hated it...now, because of the Professor more then ever.
He didn't remember it happening, but he knew it had to have been something serious that would make her attempt it.
And she had told him that the attempts made her sick for days...that was just with her alone and a backpack. She had never attempted anything more because of the pain. But now she had made it back in time with him as well. She must be in a real world of hurt. He only hoped he could bring her out of it...he hoped the pain and sickness hadn't driven her insane.
He followed the man in blue like a hound, and he had to control the desire to pull ahead of him several times...he simply didn't know his way through the place's side streets like this man. He looked over his shoulders several times and noted with respect that the man called Artie was doing a pretty good job of catching up to them despite the pain he had endured.
Then Wolverine stopped and looked around. He felt his brain itch...he lifted his head and tested the air. He inhaled deeply...sorting through all the scents in this crowded filthy, frontier city. Then he leapt past the agent in blue who had stopped to watch him. The man gave a surprised shout and bolted after him, never building up a substantial lead over the man.
When Wolverine approached the hospital he saw people in varying states of terrible condition, staggering around the perimeter of the grounds. His head was beginning to pound and he could catch glimpses, distorted, torn images. Hard to see, hard to understand but grief-torn and despairing.
He didn't wait for the other two men. He dove through the broken doors of the hospital and started taking stairs three at a time. The waves of pain started buffeting like winds in a storm. The images were becoming clearer. The drunk's plans for her. The image of him being beaten by the men with bats and bottles was disconcerting when seen through her eyes. The all consuming image of the truck bearing down on both of them. The terror. All amplified by her mutant ability and radiating from her as though she were ground zero of a bomb drop. He knew his healing factor helped him in fending off the worst of the physical effects...but it was damn near as debilitating a weapon she possessed as any that the Brotherhood had thrown against them. He could hear footsteps coming up the stairs and part of him was impressed that the blue-suited man could concentrate enough to follow him into the mental holocaust. He felt it had more to do with a pig-headed stubbornness then in any natural ability to resist the pain.
He was calling her name as he exploded into the room where he found her.
There he stopped briefly and stared...and throwing back his head again he roared in rage.
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James West could barely see...his mind was filled with things he couldn't explain. And a terrible, shattering fear. But if Artie was right then this fear wasn't his and he did his best to separate his feelings from the feelings of this stranger and had taken out his Winchester somewhere, halfway, up the stairs and had put away the derringer. This person was clearly a danger. And he knew that Artie's gallantry knew almost no bounds but he couldn't allow this uncontrollable force to continue. She was killing people and he had to stop it. His eyes felt like they were being pushed out of his head and he could barely catch his breath. She had to be stopped...she had to be stopped.
He entered the room as the man Artie called Wolverine had howled angrily and dove for the figure in the center of the room.
The girl was so small and pale...twisted in blankets and sheets she'd been fighting and lying on the floor with one leg in the air, caught and twisted in the shackles keeping her to the bed. Her ankle bleeding where the metal dug into her at the awkward angle.
She was laying on her back with her arms flung out to her sides like a crucifixion with sweat drenched blond hair a tangle around her head.
But her eyes were open and not like any he had ever seen before. He saw no iris or white, or pupils. They were brilliant green lamps of painful light filling his mind with terror.
Jim watched as the man raced toward her and unsheathed those deadly looking knives in his hands with an audible metallic ring and he sliced the air and the shackle chain fell in pieces to the floor. This wild man lifted the girl with as much tenderness as a man could possess and hugged her to him as he lowered her to the bed.
Through his pain Jim could see the man screaming her name just inches from her face. He shook her shoulders and even took back a hand and slapped her face.
"TYME...IT'S LOGAN! TYME...LOOK INSIDE ME! IT'S ME...WE'RE ALIVE! YOU SAVED US! TYME...YOU HAVE TO LOOK AT ME...YOU ARE HURTING PEOPLE WITH YOUR POWER! TYME PLEASE!!!"
Jim couldn't wait any longer...he cocked the revolver and lifted it. This was a matter of life or death.
But the beast man heard the gun lock and he turned and another set of claws emerged from his other hand and he stood with his body blocking the girl and crouched, like a cat tensed to leap on prey. His eyes were feral. Jim expected the battle to commence now.
But just when he expected to have to shoot the clawed menace the pain in his head shut off with a suddenness that made him nauseous. He and the beast staggered for a moment and then he recovered. Jim still held his gun but Artie had arrived and had placed his hand over the barrel and lowered it.
"Jim...it's stopped."
The Wolverine turned back to the girl and they could see her skin looked waxy and taut as her eyes screwed tight shut and she screamed audibly.
She was trying to shut off a flood and they all tensed in case she couldn't and the pain would come crashing back on them more intensely then before.
But it didn't. Instead the girl sighed once and fell unconscious.
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