Disclaimer: The only thing I own from X-Men are comic books and the movies, I am a but a mere fan with perhaps far too much time on my hands. Please don't mind the mistakes, they're mine and I'm pretty darn proud of them. I hope everyone likes the new story, get settled, it's a looong one this time. Please enjoy!

Unbreakable

Easy is not the word in my vocabulary to which I would use to describe my life. However, I don't prefer 'pitiful', 'sad' or 'unfair' either. I think every person remembers the first time one of their parents tells them that life isn't fair; it's as if you were being told an open secret. Everyone knows it, but when something goes wrong, or 'unfair', in our lives, we try to hide it and keep it from everyone else, its part of out human nature we must deal with. But, I digress. I don't prefer the term 'victim' to describe me, but I wouldn't call myself a 'survivor' exactly. No, I'm just a young girl who has happened to stumble into some bad situations over my few years of living. I'm not a normal person, but I'm not a special case. Before I go any further, perhaps I should introduce myself and tell you my story. You may have a better word to describe me, as I've never been able to find one that summed it all up for me; My name is Chloe Wells, I lived in a place called Laughlin City, which is in Canada, though I was originally born in Washington State. I lived with my mother since my father had been sent to prison for thirteen years following charges that I was never quite clear about. That was when I was three, after a divorce my mother was remarried to a man who, although never touched me, would beat my mother. So it came as no surprise when my aunt, who lived in Canada, came to take me from school at the age of six to live with her, because I had been orphaned due to a murder-suicide on the part of my stepfather. I lived with her until I was eight, but the demands of having a child in the house did not become easier over time, instead she found it more strenuous the older I became, and so she gave me over to an adoption agency. However, since my father was still alive and had rights, I had to be put into foster care. It was too long before an older couple came to take me in, they owned a bar in Laughlin City and lived in the upstairs of the building…they still do, actually. It was no great secret that I was only being taken in because they needed extra money, but it was a warm home with my own room and over time they grew accustomed to me, so I didn't mind. By the time I was ten years old I had seen enough cage fighting to pretty much be able to pick out the winners before the fights even started, so I decided to start taking bets. Not to sound conceited, but I was a cute kid. I had long, blonde, curly hair, big brown eyes and with a smile, I could get anyone to bet on anything.

It wasn't until I was fifteen years old that I saw one of the men at the bar eyeing the cage fighters, debating on whether or not to try it. He would be a winner; I knew it. I watched him toss back the rest of his beer and head towards the cages just as our resident cage fighter, who had been there for a week, knocked out another man, winning the match. As the fight announcer, Sid, asked if any other man wanted to go up against him, I watch the man from the bar tell him that he would. Sid then announced that his name was Wolverine and that he would be fighting up against Rourke, the man who had been beating the crap out of all of the other men that week. But my money was on the Wolverine. He pulled off his boots, T-shirt and A-Shirt underneath and then entered the cage.

I was supposed to be picking up beer bottles to throw away, but I stopped just to watch the match. I moved around to beside the makeshift bleachers we had. There was a bell and then the match started. Rourke threw a punch to his stomach, then one to the side of his face, and another to his left eye. All the Wolverine did was crack his neck, and then threw one swift punch to Rourke's jaw, sending him to the floor of the ring for a count out. Everyone watched to see if he would get up, but I knew he was out for the count; there was no way he was getting up after the blow he had received, and when the time was up, I was right. He had to be dragged from the ring by two of the other men there. The crowd cheered the new fighter, the Wolverine, and I know it was going to be hard to keep bets from going to him instead of his opponents.

Later that night, as we were closing up, Wolverine came up to the bar and sat back down.

"Chloe, get him whatever he wants, on the house," Tom, the owner and one of my foster parents, said.

"Yeah," I said, dropping the rag that I was using to clean the counters with and walking up to him. Once I saw him in better light, I realized that the reason he was called Wolverine was that he looked like one. From the way the hair on his head rose and dipped back in the middle, to the hair on his face, which connected with his sideburns. He looked like an animal and fought like one, too. He had one all of the other matches that night. "What can I get you?" I asked him, rather nervous about talking to him.

"Just a beer," he said, puffing on a cigar.

I pulled out a beer and sat it in front of him. "Here you go, it's on the house," I said with a weak smile.

"Thanks," he said, taking a sip, and then giving me a sideways glance he asked; "Are you old enough to be working here?"

"I live here, so I don't know what the rules for that is,"

"Does the fightin' not bother you?" he asked, chewing on the end of his cigar.

"Why would it?"

"I just didn't think most girls would want to see stuff like that,"

"Well, it doesn't bother me as long as it's good fighting; I've seen some guys get their arms broken, and that I can't watch. Anything involving bones being broken, I have to turn my head,"

"No problem tonight, then?" he asked, taking another long sip of his beer.

"No, you didn't give them enough time to break their bones," I said with a small laugh.

"Chloe, did you finish wiping down the bar?" Tom yelled at me.

"Not yet," I yelled back.

"Well get to it, we close soon and you've got to go with Viv to pick up our orders tomorrow,"

"Yeah, in just a second,"

"I said get to it now," he said from the back room.

I let out a loud sigh. "If you need anything else just yell at me," I said with another week smile, went back to where I had left my rag, and began to clean the counters once again. By the time I made my way down the bar, he had gone and left me with a ten-dollar tip underneath his bottle. I quietly tucked it into my pocket, threw away his empty beer bottle and finished cleaning the rest of the bar. Once I was done, it was past three in the morning and I went upstairs to my bedroom. I fell into my bed, not minding to change my clothes, and quickly fell asleep.

My foster mother, Viv, awakened me two hours later. We needed to go to a town that was around three hours away. We had to pick up an order of whiskey that had been miss-shipped to a grocery store instead of the bar.

It only took my around ten minutes to get ready. I switched my T-shirt for a clean one, pulled on a sweater over it and slipped on my pair of old black high top Converse shoes that were just slight of falling apart. I brushed my teeth, pulled up my curly blonde hair into a ponytail and slicked on some chapstick before heading into the small kitchen/dining room area. I grabbed one of those weird, store bought, plastic wrapped muffins and a cup of coffee before heading out to the car, where Viv was waiting for me.

The ride was relatively quiet, neither of us ever talked too much to each other. She mostly talked about replacing the rafters inside the house, putting up new wire in the fighting cage, getting new doors for the bathroom stalls and other things that were mumbled more to herself rather than directed at me.

Once we arrived at the store, Brite's Grocery, Viv went to straighten out our order. I waited in the car, but after ten minutes, I got out and decided to walk over to the church across the street. It was a large Catholic one, with huge stained glass windows running from top to bottom. I lightly pulled on one of the doors, making sure that it was open, which it was, before going in. I walked in, not quite sure what I was supposed to do. My mother had been Baptist and I had gone to church with her every Sunday while she was still alive. I hadn't stepped foot inside of a church since her funeral, but for some reason I was drawn to it. I didn't know what to expect, but when in and saw an empty church. I sat down on one of the pews near the front, staring at a picture of Mary holding the baby Jesus, which stood in front of a box that held around twenty candles, most of which were melted and nearly at the end of their wicks.

"Do you need any help?" I heard a voice from behind me ask.

I turned my head around to see a Priest standing in a doorway of another room.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I just saw the church from across the street and wanted to come in, I can leave," I said, standing.

"No, you don't have to leave, feel free to stay as long as you feel necessary, but is there anything that I can do for you while you're here?"

"Oh, I don't know, I'm not really Catholic,"

"Well, you don't have to be Catholic to get some help," he said, walking towards me.

"Do I need to confess or something?"

He gave me a kind smile as he stopped in front of me. "No, you don't have to confess unless you want to, you could light a candle for someone or pray, whatever you feel you should do,"

"Can I light a candle for someone who's not alive?"

"If that's what you want?"

I nodded my head. "I would like to do that,"

He allowed me to light one of the many red candles that I had been staring at only moments before and I felt compelled to give a Hail Mary, and hoped that I did it right.

Just as I was done, I heard someone else enter the church.

"Chloe, we have to go, what are you doing in here?" Viv called to me from the vestibule.

"I'm lighting a candle," I answered simply.

"Well are you done, we've got to go, it's going to be nearly one before we get back,"

"Yeah, I'm just about done; I'll be out to the car in a little bit,"

"Hurry," she said, walking off.

"Well, I have to go, thank you for letting me light one of your candles,"

"It was no problem. If you ever need anything, I'm father McCarol, feel free to come by anytime you're around," he said, shaking my hand.

"Thank you," I said with a smile, then leaving.

The summer weather was heating up, so I took off my sweater and tied it around my waist as I walked back across the street.

"What were you doing in there?" Viv asked as I got into the care.

"I was lighting a candle, I told you,"

"For you, you don't know anyone?"

"For my mother," I said as we began to drive.

"Your mother's dead," she said to me, and the words stung me like salt in an open wound.

"I know, but he said it didn't matter,"

"Since when are you religious?"

"I went to church with my mother; I've always been religious,"

"Well, you have to remember where you work and live, don't let that get in your way,"

"It's not going to," I said, staring out my window.

I'm sure that anyone who didn't know Tom and Viv personally would probably think that they were just a couple of greedy, old, mean people, and to some extent, they were. However, they had their good points; they took care of me. They may have yelled and snapped at me a few times, but they would never lay a hand on me, nor did they ever get mad if I yelled back at them. They had had a daughter who was killed when she was just a teenager by a mutant. I never knew all of the details, I didn't want to know them, because I had heard that those who had know what had been done to her couldn't sleep for weeks afterward, and I was sure that my imagination did worse things to her without knowing, but I didn't want to know for sure. I understood that they were still pained by their loss, because I still hurt over my own. We were three grieving people all living in the same house, fighting to not let anyone see how much we were all dying inside.

As one-dimensional characters, Viv and Tom would come out as villains, but because I knew them and knew there was so much more to them, I was willing to overlook their faults, as I'm sure they had down for me those seven years. I wasn't exactly a picnic myself; I came with some pretty heavy luggage, as I told you before. An eight-year-old girl who stood by as her father was sent to prison, her mother was murdered and her aunt had given her away because it was hurting her 'social life', no one could go through that and come out unscathed, and so we all living with one another, just trying to survive.


"Chloe, get him a whiskey!" Tom yelled at me.

A week had passed and I knew whom he was referring to by 'him', Wolverine. He was fighting and after most of his matches, he would ask for a whiskey. So, I filled up a shot glass full and pushed my way through the crowd until I got to his side of the cage. I slipped the glass through the gaps in the wire and watched as he tossed it down, not flinching a bit as the bitter drink ran down his throat. He handed the glass back to me and wiped his mouth of with the backside of his hand before sticking in his cigar, taking a puff and blowing smoke rings in my face.

"Is there no one else that's man enough to fight this animal?" Sid heckled the crowd from the middle of the ring.

"Bring me another one after the next match," Wolverine told me after a man from Ontario named Marlon stepped up to fight.

I fought my way back to the bar to fix him another drink, and by the time I got back to the cage, Wolverine was giving his final blow to Marlon and knocking him out.

"Here," I said, shoving the glass back into his hand as he walked back to his corner.

Once again, he grabbed it and tossed the drink back, swallowing it all in one gulp. "Thanks," he said, handing me the glass and propping himself up in his corner.

My bets had taken a huge dip since he had arrived, just as I had suspected, and I was slightly miffed about it. Even though he usually left me five or ten dollars underneath his empty beer bottles, it wasn't what I had been racking up with my betting. I had to think of another way to start making money again, I had to come up with a way to use him to my advantage, because I had a feeling that he was going to be around for a while, and my instincts were usually right.


"Chloe, get him what he wants," Tom yelled at me.

I looked over at the bar from where I was cleaning glasses later that night, and saw Wolverine sitting there, puffing on, what looked like, the same cigar that he had been smoking all day.

I finished drying out the glass that I was holding and went over to him. "What can I get you?" I asked. I was no longer nervous to talk to him; it had been replaced by annoyance instead. Tom and Viv were making more money; people were coming from all over to see the 'Animal-Man' beat the crap out of some guy and even to have the crap kicked out of them, as well. However, I hardly saw any of that money, and it was his fault.

"A beer," he said.

"Why did I even ask?" I wondered. "He always gets the same thing,"

"Here," I said, setting down his beer a little harder than I had intended, sloshing some of it out onto the bar and his shirt and jacket. "Sorry," I apologized. I found a clean rag and gave it to him to clean himself up.

"Don't worry about it," he said, drying off his clothes.

"I didn't mean to slam it down that hard," I lied.

He handed me the rag back and gave me a coy smirk. "You could have fooled me; I was expecting you to throw it in my face,"

I took the rag and wiped up the beer that had splashed out onto the counter. Slightly blushing I asked; "Why were you expecting that?"

"For someone reason you've been pissed at me since I started comin' here,"

"You've screwed up all of my betting, no one wants to bet on the guy you're fighting when everyone knows that you're going to win,"

"Aren't you too young to be runnin' bets?" he asked with a cocked eyebrow.

"I work in a bar; I don't think it matters if I find out a way to get some extra money on the side,"

"Fair enough," he said, taking a sip of his beer.

"Chloe, did you finish cleaning those glasses?" Tom yelled at me.

"No, I'm waiting on a customer," I yelled back. "Why don't you finish doing them?"

"Because I told you to,"

"Will you get in trouble if you don't listen to him?" Wolverine asked.

"No, he'll just get mad at me for taking too long," He nodded his head. "If you need anything, just tell me," I told him, but like every night before, he was gone by the time I had finished cleaning the glasses and was wiping the bar down. When I got to his empty bottle to throw away, there was twenty dollars underneath it. I smiled as I stuck it into my pocked, feeling like he had finally given me a tip worthy of what I had been doing.

I got to bed before three that morning and found myself having dreams about Wolverine, his cocky smirk and his animal magnetism while fighting but complete change while talking to me. I couldn't rip his fighting form from my dreams and when I woke up the next morning, I was extremely upset with myself for letting him take over my sleep, which seemed to be the only time that I wasn't waiting on him.


"Chloe, go find Wolverine, he's late," Tom yelled at me from the bar where I was at, picking up beer bottles behind our bleachers.

"How am I supposed to find him?" I asked.

"He's been sleeping in his truck out in the parking lot,"

I let out a frustrated sigh; the last thing I wanted was to be delivering wake up calls to him.

I sat the five bottles that were in my hands down on the bar and pushed my way through the already growing crowd until I was to the front doors. I was hot, aggravated that I had to be out there waking that stupid man up, and extremely frustrated because I didn't know what kind of truck he drove, and at eight o'clock the parking lot was full of Canadian rednecks and their pick-up trucks. I didn't know what to do, so I started knocking on all of the truck doors that had campers on them. After fifteen minutes I had gone through half of the vehicles and interrupted three different sets of people who were doing anything but sleeping. As the sun was starting to set behind the trees, I spotted a brown truck with a camper attached to it parked near the end of the parking lot. I walked to it, deciding that if it wasn't him, I would go back to the bar and let Tom deal with him on his own. I knocked on the side of the camper and waited for someone to answer. It wasn't long before the camper started shaking and the back door opened. Wolverine, who had on a flannel shirt with only three buttons buttoned, all of which were in the wrong holes, started at me, looking sleepy, slightly hung over and pissed off.

"What do you want?" he growled at me.

"It's after eight o'clock, you're supposed to be in there fighting right now, and everyone's going crazy wondering where you're at,"

He swore and ducked back into his camper, re-emerging to sit down and pull on his boots. "Why didn't you wake me up sooner?"

"I'm not your freakin' alarm clock, if you need someone to wake you up then that's your problem," I said as he stood up. "You look like you were dressed in the dark; don't you know how to button a shirt?"

As he stood there fixing his shirt, I looked past him into his camper. It was small, and from what I could see, messy. There were flannel and A-line shirts hung up on a makeshift clothing line. I suddenly found myself wondering what my life would be like if he were to take me away and I were to live with him. Would he be good to me and take care of me, or would I have to clean up after him and bring him beers while he lazed around on a couch watching TV? We would probably live in a trailer somewhere there in Northern Alberta, and I imagined that he would want a dog, but not a cute little Golden Retriever puppy like the one I had always wanted, but one of those ugly, mixed bred mutts that he would train to attack strangers. He would probably come home, staggering in the door drunk, and wanting me to fix dinner for him at two in the morning. But he wouldn't beat me, he would just argue with me until he passed out. Then he would go to work, if he even had a real job, and then it would start all over again. My life would fall into a routine of washing his clothes and cleaning up after him, and I hated him even more for pushing me into my imaginary rut.

We walked through the parking lot together and just before we got through the door, he turned to me and said, "Bring me a whiskey after every match,"

"How about every other match?" I argued. "I do have a job other than waiting on you,"

"Fine," he said, opening the door and walking into the crowded bar, to the cheers and boos of the customers.

I decided to stay outside for a moment, just to clear my head. I had been thinking of my father more than usual in those past few days; he only had a few more months left before he would be getting out of prison and my life would, once again, take a big change. There would be lawyers and social service agents investigating my case, deciding which family I would be better living with. I didn't remember my father much and so I didn't know what I would say if I were asked where I wanted to live. I wanted to have the opportunity to get to know him before I had to choose between him or Tom and Viv. I let out a loud sigh, I didn't have time to think about it; I had to get back to work.

As soon as I got back to the bar, Tom was telling me that Wolverine already needed a shot.

"I'd like to shoot him," I mumbled.

I fixed him one and rushed to bring it to him, but as I was walking to the cage, a drunken guy bumped into me, throwing the drink up into my face. I dropped the glass and it broke, sending the shards of glass scattering on the floor.

"Watch it, kid," the drunk man said, pushing me.

I fell backwards, lost my balance and fell down. My hand landed on the small pile of glass and cut my palm.

"Jerk," I yelled at him, trying to pull the bits of glass from my hand.

"Little girls shouldn't be in bars, they might get in trouble," another man said to me.

I pulled myself up from the ground and heading back towards the bar; I needed to clean off my hand and bandage it up. I went back into the room behind the bar, stuck my hand in the sink and ran cold water over my cut. It stung from getting some of the whiskey in it and I cringed as I pulled a small piece of glass that was still stuck in it, from the open wound in my right palm. I cleaned it with an alcohol wipe and covered it with a large bandage before going back out to the bar. I was sure that both Tom and Wolverine would be livid with me, but I didn't care. It wasn't even nine o'clock yet and I was already tired with the day. As soon as I came out, I went to work filling up another shot glass to bring over to the fighting cage. When I got to his corner, I saw that he was still fighting, so I waited. However, it was lasting a lot longer than they usually did and when I saw the man that he was up against, I realized that it was the same guy that had pushed me. Wolverine was taking his time with him, beating him mercilessly without knocking him out. I watched, wondering why he was doing it, why he wasn't just throwing him to the may and being down with him like he did with everyone else. Certainly he wasn't doing it because of me.

I stood by his corner and waited as he pulled the mans arm behind his back, saying something in his ear, then pulling back harder and with a loud 'snap!' popping his shoulder out of joint. Most of the bar-goers cheered, but I turned my head, not able to watch. It wasn't too much longer before I heard him hit the ground and Sid announced Wolverine the winner yet again.

"Hey," I heard him call to me from his corner.

I turned around to look at him and handed him the glass through the wire. "Here," I said.

"Forget about them after this," he said, before tipping it back and drinking it down.

"Are you sure?" I asked as he gave me the glass back.

I looked up at him and his eyes suddenly captivated me. I had never seen anything like them before. They were slightly intimidating, but felt safe. I didn't know why I had never noticed them before.

"Yeah," he said, taking a puff of his cigar and jolting me from my staring.

"Alright then," I said, going back to the bar.

For the rest of the night Tom went easy on me, he let me just wait on people at the bar. Once the fights were over, Wolverine got dressed and came up to the bar and say down, just like he did every night. I grabbed a beer and sat it in front of him, not bothering to ask what he wanted.

"Thanks," he said.

"No problem,"

"How's your hand?" he asked.

"It's alright; it was just a small cut,"

He nodded his head and took a sip of his beer. "I'm sorry about earlier,"

"For what?"

"When I yelled at you outside,"

"Oh, no, its fine, I've had people yell at me before, I think I'll live," I said, not able to help myself from smiling at me.

"I'm Logan," he said, reaching out his hand.

"I'm Chloe," I said, taking it in my bandaged own, shaking it.

"I know,"

"You've heard it yelled a few times, huh?"

"Just a few," he said, taking another sip.

"Did that guy ever get his shoulder back into joint?" I asked.

"I don't know, but I didn't think you could watch stuff like that?"

"I can't, but I didn't have much of a warning, you sort of just had him in a hold and then snapped it,"

"He deserved more that that, but he wouldn't stay up,"

"Why do you think he deserved more than that, you beat him half to death," I said, expecting him to tell me that he deserved to be beaten more because he had pushed me, making me cut my hand, but apparently alcohol didn't make him sentimental and mushy, because he just gave me another one of his coy smirks.

"He made you drop my whiskey,"

"Oh well, I can't believe you let him live after that," I remarked sarcastically, turning to wipe down the counter. "If you need anything just yell,"

"I would think that you would know by now that I don't ever need anything else,"

"Well, I guess I'll just see you tomorrow then," I said with a smile.

"Yeah, I guess so,"

As with every night before, Wolverine had finished his beer and left by the time I had gotten to his seat. When I lifted his bottle there was another twenty-dollar bill folded underneath it. I quickly tallied up all of the money that he had given me and I was happy when I realized I had enough money to buy a new pair of shoes and some other clothes for school, which started that coming Monday and it was already Friday. Viv was supposed to take me shopping the next day, so I quickly headed to bed, tired from the hectic day. I lay down on my mattress which was slightly lumpy and probably should have been replaced a couple of years before.

My room was small, only big enough to hold me bed and a dresser. Although I did have my own bathroom, which was also small. It just held a shower, toilet and small sink.

As I was falling asleep, my mind wondered back to my thoughts from earlier that day when I was looking into Logan's camper and wondering what my life would be like if I lived with him and realized that my ideas had changed quite a bit in those six hours. I decided that he would get me a nice house with my own room that was really big. He would let me have a Golden Retriever puppy, and would enjoy it too, but he would pretend as if he didn't. He wouldn't make me clean up after him and he would let me spend my summer days however I wanted. Maybe when my father got out of prison he would let me live with Wolverine instead.