INVOLUNTARY BONDS

by MidLifeCrisis

Obtaining documents detailing the bonding of Adamantium to his skeleton, Logan is forced to re-live the horror of it all and heal the emotional wounds inflicted upon the woman he loves. Logan/OC. AU.Drama/Torture/Angst. Rating for language and graphic physical abuse.

A/N: Inspired by my dissatisfaction over the telling how Logan's skeleton was bonded with Adamantium. I took up a challenge to write it the way I interpreted the story. It's a combination of comic verse, X1 and X2. X Men Origins: Wolverine was not on the horizon when I wrote this and I'm glad it wasn't for reasons too numerous to complain about here. If you are a devotee of comic verse you may take issue with my interpretation. That is why is I freely classify this as AU with movie verse overtones.

ALERT: For those of you following it, this story will comprise the last chapters of INEXTRICABLE LINKS. I'm offering it now because it's a great story and it's going to be a long time before I write and rewrite the in-between happenings. THIS STORY IS A HUGE SPOILER for the first 2/3rds of Inextricable Links.

xxXxx

"A man could get used to this." I grin and plant a wet kiss on her sweet, soft mouth, grateful for the cold brew she offers. And how! Frosty mug and a fiery woman, it doesn't get any better than this.

Hang on a sec. Something's wrong. I lean against the arched doorframe separating the kitchen from the family room. "What's a matter?"

She sips wine and sorts through a pile of magazines and mail. "Nothing."

Sure there isn't. The scent of it aside, I can tell when Susie's nervous by the way she grabs her lustrous, honey-blond hair and twists it into a ponytail. Even a glass or three of wine can't mask it. I shrug, confident another glass of wine will loosen her trap.

She asks, "Do you want pizza for supper?"

"Nah, had way too much pizza on the road. How 'bout steaks on the grill?"

"I didn't thaw any."

"Well, I can run to the grocery."

She snips, "If you really want steak that much, fine."

Shit! What' up with her? Parsing her scent, she's not on the rag. Been home less than twenty-four hours, no way I could've fucked up enough to warrant this bullshit.

"Hey, c'mon. What gives?"

"Nothing. Sorry." Her tone softens but her scent still says something's wrong.

"I think there's a special on rib-eye at the market. Will that suit?" She cops a baby doll expression and my belly answers with a loud rumble.

"Be back in a couple." I kiss her and taste chardonnay with a strong kick of ambivalence.

She doesn't exactly pull away but she sure doesn't linger, bee lining for the wine instead. Pouring another glass, she asks, "Will you pick up a thing of shredded parmesan?" She takes a hefty belt, "I'll toss us a Cesar Salad."

I stifle a chuckle. At the rate she's going with the wine, she's likely to be tossing up the salad. "Sure babe," I promise heading out the door.

Gunning my bike, I just make out her shouting, "Reggiano parmesan, okay?" What's the frigging difference? I give a thumb up and hope this doesn't mean a protracted, sinus killer search at the cheese counter.

I return after maybe twenty minutes. Susie's busy rinsing a bunch of greens and toasting chunks of leftover bread. She's into home-made whatchacall'em – croutons. Lot of effort but my sensitive taste buds appreciate it.

"Ready for me to start the grill?" I ask and grab another beer from the 'fridge.

She doesn't say anything, just keeps rinsing and ripping the lettuce. I'm doing my damndest keeping my nose in my beer and not the essence of her mysterious, whacked out emotions.

Finally, she dries her hands, turns and faces me. "Logan."

She has a way of emphasizing the syllables in my name that gives me goose bumps whenever I hear her say it, but this time it isn't a turn on. Something in her voice, a scrambled mix of emotion scares me, knocks me off balance. Polishing off the beer, I anxiously search her face, her eyes for clues.

"What's up?"

Those baby blues of hers lock on to my anxious stare. Oh man! I do not like these vibes. Been through something like this a time or two. My nuts go numb. I suck in my breath and brace myself. She's going to dump me.

"I've got this stuff you need to go through. It's . . . really intense."

Huh? Stuff? I let myself breathe, unclench my groin. Not getting the big heave-ho, at least not now. Yeah, I remember. She mentioned it this morning, finding something about my past. Now I'm guarded yet intrigued. But what's she so flaky about?

"What's that darlin'?"

This is weird. She's yanking at loose strands of hair and the pheromones she's pumping out are screwy. "But first you hav'ta promise me something."

Now I'm suspicious. "Okay."

"Don't ask meany questions 'til you've gone through all of it."

Sensing her heart's about to burst out of her chest, two feelings penetrate loud and clear: She's scared to death and holding something back. The animal in me stirs. It's a primal reaction to the stink of fear and deception.

"Why?" rumbles out of my mouth.

She chews her bottom lip and wraps her arms around her middle. "Please, just do as I ask."

Forcing the beast back, I nod.

From the antique secretary in the family room, she retrieves and hands over a thick, heavy brown folder, its edges frayed. It stinks. Dusty and moldy from storage, it burns my sinuses. I stifle a sneeze - barely. Untying the cord, I spill its contents onto the kitchen table. A silvery rectangle wafer slips out, bounces once and lands with a clink on the table.

"Holy shit!" It's half my old dog tag.

My attention is grabbed by a file that comes to rest at the top of the heap. Across its cover, in bold print, is the title: Weapon-X. Stamped over the title in faded red ink are the words, TOP SECRET-Level 10.

"Fuckin' ay," I boom.

Like a mouse sensing a narrow escape from a hungry cat, she skitters away to pour more wine. Don't appreciate her elusiveness but I suck it up, flip open the folder and skim the contents. Right there, first page, in black and white is my code name and designator number.

My expression turns to granite. This is about me and what those bastards did to me. Fury and revulsion tangle my gut into a cold, hard knot. It radiates along my spine and grips my chest in an icy hot vice. It's hard to draw a breath and I stand there frozen like a statue. Struggling to push the words past my paralyzed throat I whisper, "Where did you...?"

Shaking from head to toe, she nearly drops her wine glass. "You - you promised," she stammers, "no questions until you're through."

Finding my voice, it's as cold as an Alberta Clipper. "What's on these?" I thrust a pair of video discs at her.

"You need to see it," she replies with forced bravado.

The video commences and it takes about a second to realize that the poor s. o. b. I'm looking' at is me. "Jesus Christ!" I exhale.

Naked and shackled to a metal grid, I've got marks drawn on the lower half of my body highlighting bone and joints beneath skin and muscle. I'm surrounded by an army of hazmat suited figures. Two crowd me, one wielding a syringe big enough for an elephant while the other screws two insulated wires into my temples.

Adrenalin surges through my veins and scorches every nerve ending. Claws poised to spring out of my knuckles like racehorses at the gate, I grip the tables' edge hard enough to crack the fancy tile border. "Where the hell did you find this?"

She can't answer for crying. What is it about a woman's tears? Genuine tears, anyhow. Lay it on me and I'm right where they want me. Leashing my rage, I slide an arm around her waist. "Ya seen this?"

She tenses for a second then leans her head against my shoulder and nods. "Most of it."

"Jesus! I'm sorry." And I am for her seeing this and dumping my anger on her.

The computer screen lures me back into its electronic thrall. From the fine wires attached to my temples, electricity batters my brain and shocks my spine. Defenseless, my back arches, my head whips from side to side as my limbs go rigid. Don't know how many volts slammed into my head with the power of a whack by a two by four.

Right now it's as real as it was then. Auras of light dance before my eyes and I think my head's going to split like an over ripe melon. On screen I look like a spaz and I want look away but I can't.

I see ivory claws slide from between my knuckles and slice into my thighs. I hear myself suck in a breath and groan. "Uhhnnhh! Fuck!"

A tinny intercom voice demands to know why inhibitors aren't in place. A muffled voice apologizes and slaps on cuffs made of a metal mesh that curl my hands into tight fists.

Can't see it on the video but I remember. Damned cuffs, an amazingly delicate mesh of metal, surprisingly not Adamantium, form fitted to my fists, effectively drove my claws back into my wrists. An ice pick driven by a sledgehammer into my wrists would've been easier to take.

Suddenly the walls in Sue's kitchen seem to contract and I'm sweating like a pig in a sauna. I gasp, "Gotta get some air," and break for the patio.

I'm on edge, can't keep still so I jog toward the woods. A flashback's coming on taking me to a fast train wreck. My mind's reeling with warped images of steel and cement, hulking forms enshrouded in rubber bearing instruments of torture.

Tsunamis of color, blood red, ink black, burnt orange cut with jags of blinding white, flowing into undulating flames obscure my vision reminiscent of a bad LSD trip. Like a hive of angry hornets, there's a discordant buzz in my head fusing into a disjointed cacophony of cruel, mocking voices and raucous laughter. I clap my hands over my ears in a futile attempt to exorcise it from my mind. Searing pain, paralyzing fear and white-hot rage all wage war in my psyche for dominance.

The sound of my name pierces through. Got no clue how I got like this but I'm hunkered on the ground leaning against a tree. Nausea churns my gut. Sweat's pouring off me in streams soaking my t-shirt and curling the edges of my hair.

"Looooogaaaan." Her calling is a lifeline rescuing me from the quicksand of my fucked up mind.

I stagger back to the house. She's paying the pizza delivery man. So much for steaks but I'm in no mind to grill 'em now. Making for the liquor cabinet, got to do something stronger than beer. A bottle of scotch will do.

She cuts me a disapproving glance which I answer with a flinty glare. She sucks in her breath muttering, "Whatever," then gently asks, "you okay?"

Uncapping the bottle, I close my eyes and funnel a deep gulp of liquid courage down my throat. "Aaahhh!" I exhale and belch. "Am now, darlin'."

She wrinkles that cute nose of hers. "Eww!"

Grabbing a thick wedge of meat lover's pizza, I plant my ass in the chair and continue watching this sick, twisted version of This Is My Life. Flashback melds video and now. My vision fades. It feels like cotton's stuffed in my ears. Spaced out by the combined effect, I watch and re-live the relentless, excru-ciating evisceration of my flesh. Laser scalpels slice into my flesh making me howl in agony. Jammed into fresh, oozing wounds are tubes and hoses, some as thick as a garden hose others the size of cocktail stirs.

"Ready with the pre-bond solution." The goon wielding a humongous syringe displays it triumphantly before injecting a translucent blue fluid into each tube stuck into me. Just as he finishes more technicians connect me to an arachnid conglomera-tion of metal hoses.

One of my tormentors states, "Connections secure."

The intercom crackles. "Be certain of the restraints. Better yet, administer the paralytic. It must remain immobilized."

The entire grated platform rotates giving access to my spine. Another rubber-suited technician jams a heavy gauge, long needle between vertebrae. I gasp. Instinct forces me to arch and struggle but in seconds I'm rendered limp and immobile from the waist down.

"Pumps on line?" a rubber suited goon asks.

"Check."

"Pressure?"

"Optimum range."

"Temperature."

"Soups a boilin'."

"Lay off, smart ass."

"Yes sir. Fifteen hundred degrees."

"Excellent. Begin."

The pumps drone and hoses quiver as their precious commodity oozes its way through. My face is a contorted mask of pure terror. If I actually live a million years I will never forget that pump. It sounded something between a dentist drill and gasoline pump. Good thing I don't need dentists because I'd probably go berserk just getting near one. Over riding the pump is my scream. It starts like a breathless "Huunnhh," as liquid metal as hot as the earths' core sucks the very breath from me.

Unaffected by the paralytic drugs my spine arches, my arms wrestle against the restraints. For my effort, I'm rewarded with lacerations that bite into my flesh. Small potatoes compared to roasted innards.

A guttural, "Nnngghh," escapes my throat and morphs into, "Aaarrrgghh," increasing in pitch and volume until there's not a molecule of oxygen left in my lungs to expel. My chest retracts as I gasp for air and wail again and again.

Didn't know a man could produce a sound so insane, tortured, desperate, so inhuman. Another thing I'll never get over is being barbecued alive. I've been torched in fire, doused with acid and napalm, even took more than a lethal dose of nuke grade uranium but that's kid stuff in comparison. Can't think of a word to describe how bones feel like they're vaporizing while flesh feels like it's being peeled off in sheets.

And the stench. My god! My god, my ass! Where the hell was he? Never was much into religion but I know I prayed. I guess the Devil himself was giving' out sneak previews to the afterlife. To this day the stench of burnt human flesh makes me damn near puke my guts.

The pumps stop. My baying, reduced to exhausted, hoarse cries and whimpers, lingers on. Ka-chunk! The grid I'm strapped to lowers. I'm plunged into icy, green fluid the consistency of not quite set gelatin. I howl with renewed vigor but it's extinguished to a gurgle as fluid fills my mouth and nose. Instinctively I struggle to free myself from certain drowning.

Finally, I'm raised but can't utter a sound, draw or expel a breath. Abject panic's plainly etched on my face. Suddenly, I gag and spew green goo in a fountain that sprays the suited technicians. Next, I'm choking and gasping, desperate for air.

Another thing I will never forget: The impotence and raw panic of being submerged. To this very day dreams of drowning still plague a good nights' sleep. Want to see a Wolverine panic? Get me near water over my head. Nah, I'll cope but I'd rather kill the bastard who makes me. Come to think of it, green Jello doesn't win any popularity contests in my book either.

Three men, not shrouded in Darth-Vader look-alike protective gear, appear on screen. Damn! Never made that comparison until right now. Guess that ruins watching Star Wars again.

Two of them are wearing camo-patterned military work uniforms. The thirds in civvies topped with a white lab jacket. "Holy shit!" I exhale, primed to spontaneously combust. After more than a decade, I know these bastards. Just can't put names to them, except Stryker.

Susie clamps both hands on my shoulders and I damn near jump out of my skin. She reeks of fear and something else. What? Smothering over-protectiveness! Toward me?

It freaks me out. I shrug her off and growl, about to say something stupid. Just in the nick of time I think, don't go there dick wad, she doesn't deserve it. It occurs to me this is what happens when someone loves you. Guess she's taking on my pain or at least wants to make it go away.

I see myself struggling to breathe and one of them covers my face with an oxygen mask. For a second I resist but soon I'm calmer and breathing easier.

"Will, thought you said we had sedatives to minimize react-ivity," one asks.

"Hmmm. Clearly we underestimated." Stryker glares at the other. "I thought those gizmos of yours were supposed to regulate behavior."

"Those gizmos, as you call them, are still being integrated and programmed as we go and do nothing for pain control."

I turn my head to glare at Stryker. My face is screwed up in agony and rage. My voice is ragged, breathless. "Stryker, you fuckin' bastard." I cough and bring up a wad of green phlegm, which I promptly spit at my closest tormentor.

He sneers in disgust. "You'll regret that fool."

The threesome steps away conversing in a loose huddle. The pecking order's obvious not only by hash marks on the uniform collars but by their bearing. Tall as me, military perfection down to his bootlaces, is the leader of the pack, Lucien Diebel. Staring at the prick on screen makes my butt hairs twitch.

"It's not quite domesticated," comments the boss before issuing a command. "I want the behavior controls fully implemented within the next twelve hours."

The lab coated man sputters, "Luc, there is no way in hell I can promise that. You want himconditioned not lobotomized."

Stryker smiles like a Cheshire cat. "It's completely under control, Luc."

"I'll take that as your personal guarantee." He stalks off.

"What the hell do you mean telling him it's under control? You're rushing this technology and you know it. If we don't proceed carefully-"

Stryker raises his hand, silencing the lab coat. "You've got your orders Doctor Peabody. Twelve hours."

"Understood. But you better understand that I can't guarantee he'll have any functional gray matter left to program if I push it like this."

"And I can't guarantee that extemporaneous funding will funnel in your direction if you don't." Abruptly Stryker relents, "Diebel's a prick. Just gimme enough so he's manageable and we'll worry about piecing his head back together once we get this outta the way."

"You're all crazy. All right, I'll give it my best shot. Can I make a request?"

Stryker nods.

"I can't do anything about pain control and I think it's having a detrimental effect on behavior and memory modifications. You must come up with something to alleviate at least some of his suffering."

"I'll see what I can do," Stryker replies with a dismissive gesture as lab coat disappears from the picture.

Slowly, deliberately closing the distance between us, Stryker pulls a slim chain from his pocket. I'm jerking furiously against restraints pinning my every joint juncture. His lips move but there's no sound.

Damn! What's wrong with the audio? Frustrated, I slam the table top with my palm. Susie jumps like she's been poked by a branding iron and the pepper mill topples from its tray.

Whatever he said calms me though my expression is a marble effigy of ferocity. I flinch as he slips the chain over my head. Inexplicably, he releases the bonds around my wrists allowing movement of my forearms.

Unconsciously, I reach into my shirt. "Four fifty eight, twenty five, two forty nine," I mumble, the numbers etched into the tags and burned indelibly into my neural synapses. The chain and dog tags imprinted with my code name and number are long gone, submerged beneath tons and tons of water and debris, or so I thought.

A buzz starts deep in my brain. It coalesces from hisses and static into snips of Stryker's' words: Who's got the answers, Wolverine? One day . . . finish what I've started . . . one day.

Drawn like steel to a magnet, my hand clutches phantom tags I tossed in the sonofabitch's face when I condemned him to rot in hell. Remembering my last words to the bastard, I mutter to myslef, "I'll take my chances with them."

"What?" Sue's voice seems miles away even though she's in the kitchen making busy wiping down counter tops that don't need it.

Stryker's words continue in my head sounding like a scratchy, warped seventy-eight phonograph: Eye on the goal . . . Pain's transitory . . . No memory . . . He takes hold of my dog tag and snaps it, pocketing half.

The audio returns. "Wolverine-"

Defiantly declaring, "I . . . my name's . . . ," confusion's stamped on my face. I stammer, "My name's not Wolverine."

Stryker glances up and speaks into a miniature microphone attached to his collar. "Perhaps we've been too quick to judge."

He gives me a sick, twisted grin. "Don't worry, Wolverine." My new moniker oozes from his lips in a measured, steely and ominous voice. "You'll have no memory."

He checks the wires attached to my temples. A satisfied expression settles on him as he steps away. Glancing up to the off screen observation booth he commands, "Hit it, Harlan."

Suddenly my body's twitching and I grunt with each spasm. My head jerks to the side, my eyes plastered wide open. Tiny blood vessels burst turning the whites crimson. Arching my back, my eyes roll back and I'm still.

Crash! Glass shatters and I hear, "Oh my God!"

I jump and twist in my chair toward the racket. "What the hell?"

Susie's eyes, glued to the monitor, are seemingly oblivious to the mess scattered about her bare feet. "How can he - anyone do that to another human being?"

The stink of shock and anger encircle her like a skunk's effluence fueling my marginally regulated emotions. I don't understand it but again there's an underlying tinge of deceptiveness.

Want to set the animal loose? Lie to me. "Gimme some goddamn space," I growl. She better get a clue or-

"I'm s-sorry," she stammers and bends down to clean up the broken glass.

Or what? She backs off just enough but the question remains.

Fuck it! I hurt her feelings. Don't even need to smell it. It's written on her face plain as day. Way to go, dumb ass! "It's okay, darlin'." I mean it but it sounds insincere even to me.

She nods, letting me off easy and goes about picking up the glass. I'm compelled by an unseen force back to the computer screen.

I'm maneuvered onto a gurney and moved to a holding cell that's cramped, utilitarian, cold and ugly. Still out cold, they dump me on a cement slab covered by a filthy scrap of mattress.

A uniformed guard checks security cameras in all four corners of the ceiling. "Got pictures?" he says aloud.

"Affirmative," is heard from no one visible.

"Audio?" he asks.

From nowhere, "Affirmative," booms.

The guard visibly startles. "Don't hafta shout, I'm right here."

I'm drifting in and out of consciousness. My head lolls from side to side as I moan in a low, weary, agonizing tone. Rivulets of blood flow from my nose and ears.

A timer on the bottom of the screen shows six hours elapsed. I open my eyes and blink. My cuffed, fisted hands shake like a palsied geriatric as I bring them to my face and dry wash it. They come away smeared with drying blood. Too fast I raise my head, wince and groan. A fit of coughing and sneezing sprays droplets of crimson over me before I fall back, unconscious for another two hours.

Wiser the next time, I raise my head slowly. Groaning, I haltingly roll to a sit and survey my surroundings. A few feet away, less than a body length, is a commode and sink, the only accoutrements in this hellhole. Oh wait, in the corner there's a depression in the cement floor and a spigot jutting out of the wall. It's a shower.

I swing my legs off the bed. They buckle as I try to stand. Off balance and swaying, I grab for the edge. Healing factor aside, adding that much weight that fast while tendons and muscles regenerate to bear it, didn't happen instantly. After each phase of the procedures I had to relearn to use my body.

Here it comes, phantom pain from my deepest self that defies purging. Muscles and joints ache and burn. I'm shaking, freezing cold yet drenched in sweat just like the first time, just like every flashback or nightmare so many cursed nights.

I see myself taking a few halting steps before doubling over and clutching my belly. Crawling on all fours, coughing and gagging, to the john, I climb into position. Complexion white as chalk, I drape my upper self over the sink and promptly explode from both ends.

Suddenly my guts cramp and I feel weak. It's fucking stupid! I'm doomed to re-live Adamantium toxicity over and over again. Lost count of the times I've awakened, choking in and smeared with my own vomit, just like there's no counting the times I've torn up perfectly good bedding fighting spectral tormentors. Like Pavlov's dog, with the right cue I'm hopelessly lost in an underworld that rivals Lucifer's home turf.

My head's spinning and my stomach's in my throat. Lunging for the toilet, I'm not sure I'm going to make it. Collapsing to my knees, I'm puking so hard pizza chunks come out my nose.

Sue's right by my side but I manage to shake my head and choke out, "Go 'way." Dry heaves got me clutching the porcelain alter like it's a life ring. At least my bowels ain't turned to putrid water like back then.

Don't know how much time goes by but now I'm leaning against the tub. Beads of sweat glisten on my flesh. My chest's heaving to suck in air. There's nothing left to hurl. Pulling myself together, I run water in the sink to rinse the foul taste from my mouth and throat. Filling the basin with cold water, I douse my head exhaling through my nose with each dunk.

There's a war going on in my head. Part of me wants to run like hell. But I can't. It draws me like a moth to a blowtorch knowing full well I'm going to crash and burn. I don't understand why this memory cascade's got me so fucked up. When I rediscovered the compound - when? Shit! More than a year ago, it didn't tear me up this much.

Who freaking knows? But, I've just made myself look like a complete psycho in front of the most important person in my miniscule, worthless world.

I grab for a towel. But, hovering like a mother hen, Sue won't take a hint. She's got it first and reaches to dry and caress my face. Don't want to be touched.

Grabbing her by the wrist I rumble warning. "Don't."

She flushes, hands it over and backs away. "I-I'm sorry," she splutters.

It's me who's sorry now but I'm not in a safe place in my head to tell her. Waving her off I explain cryptically, "Ain't myself. Gimme space."

Don't know how to tell her I could hurt her bad. The right combination of memories, emotions and circumstances come together and - Fuck! Don't want to go there, not with her. I jettison the towel into a corner with enough force it snaps against the baseboard.

She tags a safe distance behind as I make my way back to the wet bar in the family room. Ignoring my roiling gut and grabbing another bottle of courage, vodka this time, I proceed with the video and this exquisite self immolation.

I see myself curled up on cement flooring, shivering, fouling myself and retching. After awhile I sit up, hit my head on the edge of the toilet and curse. I'm sitting in a puddle, not of shit but of blood. Using the sink for leverage I pull myself upright. I growl in frustration trying to turn the spigot. It's rusty and the claw inhibitors only allow limited thumb and index finger movement. After slamming my fist against it, a meager stream flows into the basin and I splash my face. What drains back into the stainless steel basin is bright crimson. I'm filthy and do my best to clean up in the depression in the concrete serving as a shower before shuffling my way back to the bunk. Shaking still, I curl up like a tormented pill bug.

The door to my cell has two narrow trap openings that swing inward, one at the bottom and one at waist level. I spy a cardboard tray on the floor with what appears to be food: Bread, water and some kind of mystery concoction of meat, broth and potatoes. I stagger to it, crouch and sniff. Lifting the Styrofoam bowl with fisted hands is quite a trick but I manage without spilling much and wolf it down. My stomach can't take it and it comes back so fast that the only thing I can do is lean over as it splatters in a stinking, foul mess onto the concrete floor.

Crawling, I make my way back to the bunk. I'm shivering but there's no sheet or blanket so again I roll into a ball. Soon I'm tossing and turning, twitching and raking my skin with the claw restraints.

Adamantium toxicity again, among other miseries, it mimics radiation sickness. It made my innards and flesh feel like they'd been sprayed with acid. I'd have sold my soul to claw the flesh off my bones and rip the guts from my belly.

The video shows me sleeping, I guess, but it isn't long before it reminds me of something else. I'm moaning and crying out. Soaked with sweat, I'm twitching and tossing, thrashing the bedding.

Nightmares! The video doesn't tell but I know. Pain, panic, terror, cant' breathe, can't move, can't think, drowning, sickness- all merging into ugly, terrifying images swirling in my brain. Started then, hasn't quit to this day

Suddenly, I'm awake, in a frenzy and hurling myself all over the cell. I try my claws but the inhibitors make it painfully impossible. No matter. The only moveable object is the mattress and I manage to shred it with my cuffed hands and teeth.

Roaring like a cross between a bull elephant and an enraged tiger, I slam headfirst into the walls knocking myself silly and succeed in splitting open my forehead, evidenced by a ruby flow down the middle of my face that mixes with more blood from my broken nose and split upper lip.

Holy fuck! I do look like an animal, a crazed, sick animal. I'm foaming blood and spittle from my mouth. People who know me, seen one of my berserkers, say I'm intensely focused, efficient, and fast. What I am seeing here - this isn't me. This is something else, wild, chaotic, rabid. That's it. A dog or something in the last throes of rabies will attack anything including itself. The video witnesses me sinking to the floor and curling into a fetal position, bloodied and bruised, a soul-wrenching cry of anguish explodes from my lungs.

A stifled gasp distracts me. She's still hovering.

"Look," I snap, "Will ya get the hell away?"

She's defiant. "No, this is too important."

I shrug. "Suit yourself." Don't have clue why she's so insistent but I can't pay heed. I'm trapped in this hell trip down memory lane.

The cell door swings open with a creaky moan and I pounce. They're ready and hit mewith stunners putting me down in seconds. I'm sprawled on the floor gasping when one of them presses it directly against the small of my back.

He jokes, "Wanna see if he lights up like last year's Christmas tree?" and pulls the trigger.

The metal amplifies already potent voltage and I'm convulsing. My lips are moving but I there's no sound. I pass out and they haul me like a wet dishrag onto a wheeled stretcher and back to the augmentation chamber.

A rubber-suited flunky marks my arms, ribs, sternum and shoulders just as I regain my senses. I'm restrained but it's not enough to stop my struggles and roaring.

It's the same basic procedure as before: Insert tubing, administer the blue stuff, check the connections and then turn on the pumps.

I articulate my agony in eerie, protracted wails and one of them complains, "Can't you shut him up? I can't concentrate."

Another one presses a taser to my throat and pulls the trigger. I choke and scream but with vocal chords paralyzed it's just a raspy rush of air. They laugh and continue their work.

A voice booms warning, "His pressure's dropping." Almost before he gets the warning out my struggles abruptly cease and I'm turning a dusky blue gray.

A goon thrusts his arm toward the ceiling. "Damn!"

"He moved on us."

"Think we've got a bleed."

"You think?" says the intercom.

"It shouldn't pose a major problem."

"We don't know that for sure."

"What you want us to do, sir?"

"Quickly!" It's the intercom voice again, "Find it and stop it. I don't want to be the one to tell the Colonel his timetable's fucked."

"Yeah, and this batch of Adamantium's gonna be trash if we don't do it quick."

They rip the tubing from my chest and fillet me like a fish. Retracting flesh and muscle with metal clamps, they work fast suctioning copious amounts of blood from my chest cavity. One of them shoves a gloved hand into the incision and presses his fingers around the bleeder. "Here it is. Cauterize or suture?"

"Cauterize."

Bzzzzt. It's done and my color improves. They slap together and tape my chest with something that looks like clear duct tape before the tubing's replaced, checked and bonding is resumed. I don't even twitch.

Redundant to machines surrounding the perimeter of the augmentation chamber, the intercom voice ticks off my vital signs. "Pressures not coming back. Oh-two sat levels are eighty five. Core temperature of one hundred fourteen. Move it gentlemen."

They lower me into the tank. "Temp's down to one-oh-five."

Someone alerts, "Heart rate's two twenty with V-tach."

"Sonofabitch!" They raise me.

"Got a pulse."

"He's not breathing."

Someone snakes a tube down my throat and pumps thick fluid from my lungs and stomach. I'm still as a corpse.

"Heart rate's one-eighty. Still in V-tach"

"Get a line in, now. Lidocaine, one hundred, IV push." Someone grabs my arm, wraps a band around it and jabs in the intravenous tubing.

"Back off. See if he converts on his own." Clustered around me they're sweating, looking like they've just laid their last chips on a rigged roulette wheel.

A sudden shrill electronic tone and shouts of: Lost the pulse and V-fib, we're losing him, clash for dominance. Voices trip over themselves, cursing and shouting orders.

From the observation platform, Stryker's voice joins the party. "Goddamn. Get that crash cart over there."

"Negative with a chest full of metal," warns Peabody.

"Half a billion bucks investment versus theoretical fatal electrocution? Think again."

A fist crashes into my chest. The goon it's attached to howls, his bones no match against my new Adamantium armor. Somebody takes over pushing on my chest while somebody else squeezes what looks like a balloon shoved into my face.

"Bolus of Epi, stat!" He empties a syringe into a port in the IV tube.

"Damn! Nothing."

The scene repeats: Drugs, pump my chest, cussing and shouting for thirty minutes, so says the timer on the screen.

Stryker commands, "I don't give a shit about theoretical electrocution. Ready defibrillator."

"Clear."

Pow! My on screen body twitches and so do I watching it. A machine squeals a nerve-grating monotone as a horizontal luminescent green line slithers across its screen.

"Again", Stryker demands.

Same thing only this time I don't flinch out of Sue's kitchen chair.

"One more time."

"Hold up. Will, lemme try something."

Stryker glares at Peabody then backs off. Not saying a word Peabody slices open my chest just under my right nipple. He says something the audio doesn't pick up and immediately somebody shoves something that looks like a midget crowbar into the cut.

Holy Shit! Peabody stuffs his hand into my chest.

The video is dead silent except for an electronic blip, blip, blip keeping time with the dancing green line on the gizmo keeping track of my heart.

"Feels like a bag of worms," Peabody comments.

"What the hell's that mean?" Stryker echoes the question inside my head.

Peabody bobs his head. There's stress and fatigue written on his face. His arm, stuck in my chest visibly shakes. Stryker turns, seems like he's talking to somebody but his words aren't audible. Peabody ceases his effort. It's only a second before the monitor goes flat again, droning a monotonous trill.

Peabody changes bloody latex gloves for a fresh pair. Comman-deering the defibrillator again, he orders, "Quickly, suction the area." Next, he stuffs a single paddle into my side. "Set for sixty." There's a high pitched whine followed by a beep. "Clear."

He might as well be shocking a heap of ground beef. I don't react. Peabody shakes his head. "Again, please." He shocks me a couple more times, then quits. "I'm calling it." He glances at a nearby monitor. "Time of death ten-forty-two."

Sonufabitch! They actually did it. They fucking killed me. I'm looking at my own goddamn post-mortem.

"Goddamn," Stryker mutters and strips off his gloves. "My career and half a billion down the drain."

Somebody switches off the sound on the heart monitor. Only thing obvious is the flat green line. Personnel begins stripping off and ditching their bloody over-clothes. Somebody has the courtesy to toss a reasonably clean apron over my face before the video quits.

There's maybe fifteen seconds, enough to seriously think what the fuck, before I see myself on screen laid out on the bunk, hooked up to IV's and one of those breathing tubes, the kind they shove down your gullet. Well whadaya know? I ain't dead yet! And, real charitable of 'em, I didn't rate a new mattress.

The time indicator in the corner of my screen tells me three days elapsed. February eleventh, I look like some kind of reject from the morgue - cadaver gray, bruised and gaunt. The incisions on my chest are vivid, scarlet and festering. February twelfth, my color's returned to normal and my chest is healed save for a pale pink scar. The breathing tube is gone, replaced by nose prongs. The IV's are still there. By the thirteenth, only the IV remains and I look like I'm sleeping.

I'm witnessing a time lapse of my healing factor doing its thing. I mean, yeah, watching my knuckles close up or even a gunshot wound are kind of routine but to see it like this, with as bad as they had me fucked up, is freaking amazing.

Miracle? Curse? Can't help thinking in the final stretch it's a curse. If I'm nearly immortal I'm doomed to an endless cycle of helplessly watching loved ones age and die. What the fuck did I do so bad to deserve this tailor made purgatory?

At close range, I see my eyes snap open and blink like a camera shutter. "Aarrrgghh!" I groan and sit upright. My head pivots from side to side, up and down. Ripping the IV tubing from my right arm I fling it away. A vermillion bead wells up and I wipe it away. Nostrils flaring, I sniff the air. Springing from the bunk, I pitch forward. Only by throwing my arms out do I narrowly avert slamming face first onto the cement floor. Slowly, I push myself upright and stand. Swaying at first, I posture defensively, slightly crouched, arms bent ninety degrees, hands curled into tight fists, every muscle taut.

The look on my face is vicious, irrational, and inhuman. A thin lipped snarl reveals a set of sharp teeth. My furrowed brow hoods eyes that are hyper-vigilant and glowing with a savage inner fire.

There's another cardboard tray by the door. I creep toward it, crouch and sniff then grab a fistful of mystery meat and devour it whole. I toss the bread aside but soon retrieve it and wolf it down in one gulp chased by a Styrofoam cup of water. I drink it down so fast it dribbles down my chin.

I pace as frustrated growls rumble from my chest. Suddenly, I freeze, raise my head and inhale deeply. They're coming for me. Tantalized by the stink of their fear and snippets of nervous conversation, my lips curl into an anticipatory leer.

"Cripes! Here we go again with this creep."

"Ya think they'd drug his grub or something. Make our job easier."

"Quit yer grousin' Pete. They said he's been down and out for a couple o' days."

"Right."

"'Sides we got stunners. If he's gonna give us any shit it's only gonna be for a minute or two."

"Just want ya to know Ed, I'm really comforted by that thought."

"Hey, take a look at 'im." One of them points to a monitor mounted to the ceiling. "Don't look like he's down and out to me."

"Looks fuckin' weird if ya ask me."

"Think those cuffs'll do the trick?"

"Have so far. Geeze Mac, yer gonna give yourself an ulcer worryin' like that."

"Better an ulcer than carved up like Sunday's roast."

He chuckles anxiously. "Set stunners on max, just in case."

"Roger that"

The door swings open and half dozen armed goons stand ready. So am I. Teeth bared and snarling, I launch with everything I've got, scattering them like bowling pins. From multiple directions, they hit me with stunners and I go down fast to knees and elbows, forehead plastered to the floor. My limbs tremble and I'm grunting and wheezing for breath.

Gathering around my prostrate form one quips, "That was fun," and kicks me in the ribs.

Before I can protect myself another nails me square in the balls. "Ooofff!" I gasp as oxygen's forced from my lungs and curl into myself.

"What the hell ya do that for?"

"Why not? He's always been a cocky son of a bitch."

"Save your vendetta for-"

I raise myself from the floor. Despite the restraining cuffs my claws spring from my knuckles. I face them, savage and possessed.

"Sweet Jesus!" one them gasps, "he's outta his mind."

"Thought you said the cuffs—"

With a guttural roar, I spring and crash into the pack. Oblivious to their stunners, I tear through them stabbing, slashing and thrusting my claws.

"Fall back!" one of them bellows as I sink my claws into his belly. I twist my fist into soft flesh and he grunts. He looks down as crimson soaks through his shirt, looks back at me in shock and whimpers, "I'm dead." He sinks to the floor like a deflating swimming pool toy.

Sue gasping, "Oh my God!" distracts me. She beats a hasty exit. Guess this is the part she didn't see. I can't miss the stink of her revulsion, shock and fear.

Revulsion's something I got over a long time ago. I've seen and probably done it all. Shock? Not unless it's from an electrical source. Nothing surprises me anymore. Fear? Don't like to admit it but, hell yeah, sometimes I scare myself.

I don't want her to be afraid of me. I love her too much, but she doesn't know what I'm capable of. The man she lovingly calls Bright Eyes is a fucking cold blooded, homicidal monster and the proof positive is playing in graphic detail right here and now.

Quick as lighting, I slash and connect with a neck. Arterial blood sprays vivid red, coating everyone and everything. A stunner crackles and I take it and its wielder's hand. Only bone prevents slicing cleanly through. He stumbles away, cradling a spurting stump close to his chest, screaming in agony. Before they escape, I stab another in the shoulder and ruin the bastard who kicked me in the balls. I hurl myself at the door a couple more times raking my claws against the metal. It makesan earsplitting screech heard above my roars and growls.

The guy I speared moans. Out for blood, I pounce like a rabid wolf. Again, I plunge my claws into his belly and come up with fists full of guts that I fling viciously aside. I drive my claws into his heart. His blood spurts like a fountain and I roar. Hacking and slashing at what's now a corpse until there's nothing left but macerated body parts scattered about my cell, I'm coated head to toe in blood and gore — my victim's. This time my face twists in demented glee.

In the recesses of my mind I know this is what I am. But, god help me, seeing it, re-living it - fuckin' ay! It's a reaffir-mation I don't want right now. Drives a reality stake into my gut.

Stryker was right when he said people don't change. I'll never totally quit the beast within. It's in my psyche, in my genes. As much as I fucking hate it, I know it's been my free pass to survival. Can't somebody give me the damned key to lock the animal away? Fucking pipe dream, Wolverine and you know it!

Chest's heaving as I pace in circles. I hear myself grunt and my face reflects pain as the claws retract. Weak from earlier near death and drenched in sweat, I sink to my knees, hang my head and rock back in forth.

Right now, my knuckles ache in empathy watching my other self flex and massage his hands to relieve the agony. If it were just that easy, massage the pain away. But it's always there, in body and soul, a curse cast upon me 'til the day I die.

Aww, shut the fuck up asshole. Nobody gives a shit.

On the video, loud clanging and the clatter of boot steps steal my attention. Sniffing the air I tense and growl, primed to detonate.

They're prepared. More of them, armed to take out a battalion with stunners, tranquilizer guns and high-powered conventional firepower, are suited up with gas masks.

A brushed silver canister, about the size of a beer can, is lobbed through a trap door within the main door. Instantly, I recoil and clamp my hands over my mouth and nose but it's too late. The canister ruptures with a distinctive pop. Gas hisses and I'm enveloped in a suffocating mustard fog. In seconds I'm choking and blinded, swollen eyes gushing tears. I stumble, drop to my knees. Noxious dragon fire blisters my throat, scalds my lungs. I gag, raking my throat, my chest, desperate for air. Finally, I'm on all fours, arching my back, mouth gaping. Acid sears its way up my blistered throat. My last meal erupts like a geyser.

The pack burst through the door. They take aim. Pop! Pop! Pop! My body jerks as uncountable tranquilizer darts pepper my hide. Chin dripping vomit, I raise my head and force out a menacing growl. Seconds later, moaning defeat, I collapse face first into my own slop.

Back to the augmentation chamber, strapped down, though on a gurney instead of the grid. This time instead of the usual tubes and hoses there's multiple fine gauged wires attached to my scalp and face.

There's a heated debate going on. "Doctor Peabody, did I not issue an order that the subject was to be completely under control three days ago?"

"You did but that was before your butchers damn near bled him out and put him into cardiac arrest."

"Inconsequential."

"Bull shit, Luc! In my judgment, if we put him through any more . . . well, let's just say we probably won't be debating it."

"You're not paid to use your judgment and there's no debate."

Turning the Stryker, Luc continues, "I'm putting you in charge. Correct this unfortunate and costly delay." Pointing to my prostrate form he commands, "Do what you must but tame it. Now."

Stryker snaps to attention. "Yes sir."

Diebel stalks off. Before exiting the chamber he turns and issues, "Failure is not an option."

Coast clear, Peabody complains, "Appreciate the backup, Will."

"When're you gonna learn there's no arguing with Diebel. You work around him or suck it up and do it."

"Which category you fall into?"

Stryker briefly postures to clobber Peabody in the mouth. "You're damned lucky you're a civilian because if you weren't you'd be sitting in the brig right about now. I suggest you get up there in that box and do your job."

"What, electrically lobotomize the man?"

"Apt description as any. Yes. Can you do it?"

"What level of vegetative state you want?"

Ignoring Peabody's grave inflection, Stryker chuckles. "Mashed potatoes."

"You're a sick bastard," he mutters and retreats to the observation booth.

Approaching my semi-conscious form Stryker bends down close to my ear and murmurs, "Wolverine."

"Unnnhhh." I'm groggy from being gassed and shot with tranquilizers.

"You really are an animal. That was a spectacular display back there."

"Grrrrrraaaahhhrrr."

"Yes indeed. Physically you're almost there. I had hoped to be more selective in reprogramming your mind but it seems I'm over optimistic." He snickers. "This is gonna hurt you a lot more than me."

Stryker touches the microphone on his collar. "If you please, Doctor Peabody."

My response, "Grrrrrr," is snuffed. Muscles go taut, spine arches and limbs lock as hundreds of volts propel me into a ceaseless, ferocious seizure. My head jerks left then right. My eyes, blackened orbs dilated with terror, stare unfocused and then blink uncontrollably. Foaming saliva dribbles from the corners my gaping maw. Blood trickles from my ears and nose. The whites of my eyes are a crimson roadmap of broken blood vessels. Oxygen starved, my complexion is grey-blue

"Will," Peabody's voice crackles from his station. "We gotta stop. His blood pressure and heart rate is out of this world, even for him. You're risking another C. A."

Stryker glances up and nods.

The spasms subside gradually. I'm able to gasp for breath just as my eyes roll back and I am limper than overcooked pasta.

Stryker calls to Peabody, "Head call. Watch over him. Soon as his vitals stabilize lemme know."

Two hazmat suited technicians stand watch. Suddenly a voice, "You!" Both guards startle and look up.

"Check the monitoring equipment," demands the voice.

The taller man glances over blood pressure readings, electrocardiograph leads and connections and gives thumbs up.

"Hit reset," booms the voice.

Unexpectedly, my arm twitches causing the nearest technician to recoil. I open my eyes and exhale a low moan.

Moments later Peabody's by my side. He shines a penlight into my wide, unfocused pupils and slowly shakes his head. Muttering, he checks the leads himself and punches reset again.

"Damn," he mutters and grabs a nearby telephone. "Where's Diebel and Stryker?" Fine. Transfer me." His fingers drum on the console housing the monitoring equipment. "Gentlemen, we have a problem."

The video jumps to show the triumvirate clustered around me. They've got me propped up and the IV's are back. My eyes are vacant, glassy, unfocused.

"His vitals returned to relative normal for a brief period," Peabody explains, "but the sudden drop a few minutes ago portends problems. Lack of reactivity in his pupils isn't promising either."

"What did we get from the scans?"

"Exactly what I warned you about. ICP caused by hemorrhaging in his frontal lobes and cerebral cortex."

I call across the room to Susie. "Darlin, what's ICP?"

"Huh? Oh! I dunno. Why?"

"Just somethin' here," I point to the screen, "I don't get."

My question is just the opportunity she's been waiting for. She bounds off the couch faster than one of those cats of hers. "Show me."

I hit playback: . . . warned you about. ICP caused by hemorr- haging . . ."

"Oh, that ICP. Intra-cranial pressure." She proceeds to give me a mini-dissertation, way more than I want or need to know. Thrusting my palm inches from her face, she freezes mid- sentence. "Too much information?" she asks sheepishly.

I nod.

"Sorry."

Hitting play, the next scene startles both of us. It shows me projectile vomiting all over myself and the gurney I'm strapped to. "Let's see, squirrelly vital signs, low ocular responses, projectile vomiting. I'd say intra-cranial pressure might be a reasonable diagnosis. What in god's name did they do to you?"

"When I figure it out you'll be the second to know."

On screen, Stryker, Peabody and Diebel back up like the plague's just been unleashed. "Wonderful!" Stryker laments. "More fun and ga—" I spew a few more times for good measure and they retreat further.

Diebel barks, "Get somebody in here. Tube it and clean it up." He targets Peabody, "You're the neurosurgeon. Recommendations?"

"Deep brain scan. Once we know what we're dealing with than I can tell you if there's a fix."

Diebel sucks in his breath and tosses his head back. "No ifs. Fix it and make it quick."

He turns to Stryker. "Get him stable enough and then double time the rest of the bonding. We've got scrutinizers about to breathe down our necks. I'm not taking the hit if this timetable's blown. Understand, gentlemen?" Diebel turns on his heel and stalks out.

Peabody looks shocked and sick. "You're all pushing the envelope too far." Gesturing with his hands, he speaks at a rapid clip. "I'm telling you Will, this super robot or whatever it is you and Diebel are trying to forge isn't gonna be worth two wooden nickels without a functioning brain. Coded last week and gorked today, how much more you think he can take?"

"Plenty more," Stryker answers confidently. "I thought you read Ruchinsky's report-"

"Yes, I did."

"All tests indicate it'll survive anything short of being on ground zero of a nuclear blast, and that's only because we haven't tried nuking the s.o.b. As far as brain damage, given time, that'll heal too."

"All that at once, though?"

Rubbing the back of his neck, Stryker looks away. "He has to. Out of three prospects, he's the best candidate."

Peabody's jaw drops. "Unreal!"

"Let's face it Harlan," Stryker exhales, "you've got completely different expectations." He leans in very close and clearly states, "The criterion is to have your basic attack dog. When I say, sic 'em boy, I expect instant response. As long as it does that I don't give a flyin' fuck about anything else."

"That's what I'm saying. I'm damned concerned you won't get that."

"What do you mean?"

"You wanted mashed potatoes, you just might get it. What if he does have an unknownthreshold?"

Stryker scratches his scalp. "Will ya quit with the he? You'll drive yourself crazy. It's a weapon, a thing, with a designator number and a code name."

Peabody shakes his head, dismay plastered on his unnaturally youthful face.

Stryker confides, "I've bet the farm on this and I've no intention of cashin' in my chips 'til last call."

"Sucker's bet, man. All right, gimme a hand. Gotta scan him, uh it and work up a treatment plan."

The video jumps again. What the hell got cut out? Whatever it was must've been pretty bad because I'm looking like a grade C sci-fi movie zombie. They shaved part of my hair. I got that out-to-lunch-for-life look plastered on my face and there are tubes coming out of my mouth, nose and arms. Oh hey, there's the boss man himself back on screen.

"Status report," Diebel demands crisply.

Peabody shakes his head. "Once we relieved the ICP everything went normal. Physically, he's perfect."

"And his neurological state?"

"He's catatonic."

"Excellent." Diebel plucks a sharp probe from a nearby tray table. As casually as one might spear a slab of steak from a platter, he plunges it into my shoulder.

"Geeze, Luc! What the-"

It happens so fast the image is blurred but it seems before Diebel could pull the spike from me I react with a swipe to his face with my claws. He screams, "Aaggghhh," and falls to the floor his hand covering his right eye, cheek and jaw. Instantly Peabody and Stryker gather the hideously wounded man up and beat a hasty exit.

Nothing happens. I stare blankly at the bloody ivory spikes sticking out between the knuckles of my left hand. Gradually they retract but for the longest time I continue to gawk. Finally I drop my hand to my side and close my eyes.

What the fuck! I should be going ballistic. Get up ya pussy. Geeze! I'm losing it. Sitting here cheering my on screen self into action like some cheesy World Wide Wrestling match.

Another momentary blackening of the video and I'm back on the grid strapped down from any and every point imaginable. I look stoned with glassy, unseeing eyes and a torpid expression.

Diebel's back, swathed in bandages covering half his face and right eye. He glares at me, the other half of his face twisted with vengeance. "You may not ever remember, you low life cocksucker, but I will. You've ruined me and I'm going relish watching you squirm and scream every second."

He reaches for two probes, "But first it's time to declaw the beast," and thrusts them in just below my elbows. "Power," he commands and a second later bone claws and a gush of blood shoot from between my knuckles. My witless expression transforms into a grimace.

"Luc, what the hell are you doing?" Stryker's asks.

"They're coming off anyway." A malicious grin smeared over his lips, Diebel reaches for what looks like a miniaturized power saw. "It took two hours to stitch up my face, you know. Want to bet how long it'll take to amputate those daggers of yours?"

He touches a bloody tip. "You know these are jointed. If I use slow speed and nip them off segment by segment, bet we could stretch it to an hour. You know what else? I haven't the slightest idea how long it's been since this blade was sharpened."

Blistering hatred radiates from my expression. A throaty growl resonates through the chamber. My muscles go taut straining against the bonds.

Bzzzzzsssshhhh, the saw whirs to life. Gritting my teeth, I project a flinty glower aimed at concealing the magnitude of my dread. Blade makes contact and I swallow a gasp. Beads of sweat pop up on my forehead. From clenched eyes hot tears of agony trickle down the sides of my face.

One by one, claw tips fall between the grid and plop into the tank below. With each dissection my control diminishes until, "Aahhuuhhnnnnnoooo!" A thundering roar of pain and rage explodes from my core drowning the saw's harsh din.

My raving's loud enough that Sue's back hovering.

Diebel's silent yet his eyes gleam steely cold and his mouth set in a rictus of delight over my suffering. Inch by agonizing inch, he chips away at all six claws until only small, oozing bone stubs protrude beyond my knuckles. My supplications for relief are reduced to muted, gravelly moans.

Hovering over my range of sight, his voice is a repugnant parody of seductiveness. "Was it good for you Wolverine?" His face becomes a mask of ghoulish pleasure as he positions the saw just above my groin. "For my next trick, let's try neutering the beast."

I turn ashen and my feral keen echoes throughout the chamber.

"Damn them, damn them all to hell!" Susie shrieks and points to Diebel's image. "He didn't have to do that. He's deliberately . . ."

My shoulder's burning and I realize she's got her slender fingers dug in like talons. Control slipping, I wrench her hand away with force as powerful as a vice grip.

Don't need her to tell me it was fucking deliberate. I can feel my own piss-off meter going red line stimulated by our combined pungent fury flowing like the relentless tide. My eyes flash danger. We're frozen in place. I can't let go and she's staring at me like a deer in the headlights of a tractor trailer.

She gasps. I'm hurting her. I smell her fear and pain. Damn me to hell! Got to put a choker on the animal inside. Releasing her hand, we become repellant magnetic fields.

Sucking in a calming breath, I murmur, "I, I'm sorry."

Tears pool in her eyes and she shakes her head before wordlessly slinking away.

Mumbling, "Be right back," I need a head call. Good place to regain some calm. Besides, I got to piss so bad my molars are floating.

Curled up safely on the couch, her fear's receding and I sense something else. Tenderness? Sympathy? Forgiveness? She gives me guarded smile. "Doing okay?"

Suddenly I'm feeling ashamed and guilty. I don't deserve any of it. If I were her, I'd be showing me the door and tossing my shit out on the street after me. I answer flatly, "Hangin' in there," and close the bathroom door behind me.

I finish my business, swing by the wet bar and pull out another libation. Susie's reading through a bunch of folders. She gives me that look again and I just shake my head. "Hey, I'll replace it."

"Logan?"

"What?"

"If alcohol doesn't really do anything for you then why not drink water?"

She's got a point but I'm in no mood to engage in debate. Scuttling a rebuttal from her I reply, "Don't like the taste."

"Uh! Um!" she sputters, "I suppose that's good as any reason."

Ensconcing myself on the kitchen chair, I lose myself again watching, How Many Ways to Fuck a Wolverine.

Diebel laughs raucously and turns to Stryker. "Play time's over. I expect you to make the necessary adjustments to stay on schedule. Move it Major."

Disgust is etched into Major William Stryker's mug. "Yes sir," His reply is crisp, emotionless.

"You heard the man," he commands idle personnel, "Let's hop to it."

Technicians assume their positions and set to the tasks. Conversation is sparse, businesslike. "Gimme a hand here, he's heavy."

"Make doubly sure it's restrained."

"That line," one points left, "over there. It's cracked. Get it replaced now."

Two new characters, women garbed in surgical scrubs, enter the scene pushing wheeled tray tables. Briefly flashing their identification badges, one commences administering an IV as the other's tearing into packets of translucent tubing and lining them up just so.

"Doctor Diebel this order reads point five milligrams of pancuronium bromide. Is that correct?"

"It is," Diebel declares firmly.

She nods obediently but shoots a questioning glance to the other woman who's tasked with clamping an oxygen mask over my mouth and nose.

"I didn't hear that!" Susie's voice breaks through—just barely. "That's enough paralytic to stun a herd of buffalo." The next moment she's hovering over my shoulder again. "Can you back that up a sec?"

My response is a simple click of the mouse accompanied by a grunt.

"Are they freaking insane!" she shouts right next my ear.

"Babe, I'm right here."

"Oops! Sorry Logan. That much Pancuronium will completely shut down the central nervous system."

"Tell it to them," I grouse.

"Logan, have you ever thought of something as ordinary as filing suit over this? It was government sanctioned, for heaven's sake."

If that isn't the blondest thing she's ever said to me I don't know what is. Can't help laughing. "Darlin', ya can't sue dead people."

I'm used to her using humor to finesse the blackest of situa-tions but this is way out there even for her. It's not like me to bust out laughing like that either. Both of us must be getting punchy.

"What are they doin' now?" I ask, watching the nurse stuff two long cotton tipped sticks up my nostrils.

"Prepping you for nasotracheal intubation."

Oh fun! Hey, I'd make a good extra in an episode of ER. "Why?"

"You won't be able to breathe on your own once the paralytic takes effect. Paralyzes the diaphragm and lungs, you know."

Both nurses struggle positioning my head. Looks like I got a little fight left. Despite restraints and supposed catatonia, I'm struggling.

Darth Vader's cousin steps in with a firm hand on my forehead and under my neck. With just the right pressure in the right place the son of a bitch could snap my neck with no trouble at all.

In short order a nurse stuffs a clear flexible tube into my left nostril and I grunt. "Can you feel that?" she asks.

"Uhhnnhh."

Diebel's laughter's heard off screen. "He's desensitized to anesthetics."

The nurse's head snaps up in surprise. "We can't continue then. It's far too traumatic and dangerous. What if—"

Diebel's laughing his ass off as he reappears on screen. He bends close to my ear. "Hear what they said? Far too traumatic and dangerous." His glee in tormenting me is obvious. "They don't realize the fun's just getting started." Suddenly his face hardens. "Continue."

Sweat beads on the woman's forehead, her lips form a taut line and her jaw quivers. My eyes water and I'm grunting and gagging as her steady hands thread the tubing through my nose and down my throat. Suddenly, I cough and her posture and expression visibly relax. She leans her ear toward the tube extending from my nose. "Good breath sounds. It's done."

Diebel turns his attention to the other woman. "Administer point five-oh Pancuronium."

"Doctor, we've not hooked up oxygen yet."

"I'm well aware nurse. Follow orders."

"Luc," Stryker cuts in, "What the hell?"

Diebel gestures dismissively while the nurse juices my IV.

A groan escapes my lips as a memory gathers momentum like a thunderstorm. That drug, seductive and insidious, compelled my body to relax despite claxons sounding off inside my brain. It drew me into to its suffocating grip, paralyzing my lungs, able to neither inhale nor exhale, crushing my chest beneath an invisible monolith. As carbon dioxide concentrated in the bloodstream, my lips and nose tingled then numbed to ice. Jackhammers pounded my brain from within and without. Sounds distorted, wavering frenetically in volume and pitch. Pinpoint specks of light tap-danced across my retinas before vision blurred, narrowed and finally faded into a colorless void.

Diebel's voice on the video pulls me back in. He's lording over me, his expression vengeful. "Payback time again, Wolverine," he says gesturing to his bandaged face. "You know, sponge divers can hold their breath for extraordinary lengths. How long can you hold out?"

Primal fear's etched on my face as my complexion goes dusky. He snickers. "Feel the snap, crackle and pop? That's your brain starving for air." Briefly my eyelids flutter then close.

Stryker shouts, "Goddammit, Luc! What the hell you tryin' to do?"

Diebel's face is twisted into a nauseating smirk and he gestures indifferently. "Administer oxygen."

Minutes later, suited goons loosen the restraints, flip me over onto my stomach and position my face into a cutout in the grid. An alarm sounds. "Trache tube's kinked," one of the nurses warns. "Reposition his head."

Black lines drawn down my back show every bone. A cardiac monitor canters, blip—blip—blip. Some kind of gizmo shoots slender tube-like protrusions into my spine. The cardiac monitor gallops, Blipblipblip.

"Feeling it Wolverine?" Diebel queries.

Sure as fuck I could feel it, every single minute to prep every single bone. And Diebel's got something to say for each one. That's twenty-five more reasons for me to kill the bastard. When it's done I resemble a freaked-out razor back hog.

Finally, a complex network of progressively larger tubes are hooked together eventually merging into a substantially larger conduit. Then, it's the same old routine: recheck the connections and Adamantium temperature, inject the blue junk and continue with the barbeque. Lucky me, I'm still the main course.

Got to be desensitized or actually getting drunk because I can step back from myself and admire the ingenuity of the process. How many brilliant minds it must have taken to dream this up? Before I left the bastard to die, Stryker said I knew all about Adamantium, that we'd worked together. Was I one of 'em? Did I really have a hand in designing my own personal clusterfuck?

A nurse warns, "Sir, his heart rate's over two-fifty beats per minute."

Diebel shrugs. "Nothing we haven't seen before."

Stryker chimes in, "Don't want another C A bogging us down, Luc. Might wanna—"

"Major, this is going to be finished today or he's going to be finished."

"Know what Diebel, I'm not putting my career on the line just because you've got a personal vendetta."

"Career? If I recall you were on the fast track for a dishonor-able discharge. I gave you back a career with this project."

Turning beet red, Stryker hisses, "If we lose this one there's no other candidate and ourfunding's pulled."

Suddenly conciliatory, Diebel suggests, "You worry too much. Everything's going almost to plan."

"Sir, subject's temperature's one-twelve. Tach's up to two-seventy five."

Diebel moves closer. "Only three more to go. Step up the pace."

"Negative," Peabody barks. "If we get this wrong it won't matter how fast it heals." His tone turns acerbic. "Mobility and agility are part of the specifications are they not?"

Diebel exhales, frustration furrows his brow. "Move as quickly as you can. Will, I want your phase ready to go at sixteen hundred." He exits. "I'll be in my office," filters from off screen.

The grid and I are lowered into the green stuff once more. The only indicator I'm still alive is the incessant blip of cardiac monitor and the muted whoosh of the respirator.

Someone reports, "Temperature's down to one-o-five."

In short order they haul me out, rip the tubing from my back and flip me over. An eyelid is pried open while a pen light bores into my eyeball. "Reactive," the nurse reports. "Reduce oxygen ten percent."

They're gathered around in a loose circle staring expectantly. "That's good. Back off another five."

"Ooops! Cyanotic. Increase five." Thirty more minutes elapse as they slowly decrease forced air and I'm finally off the respirator. My eyes are open but I look like a robot instead of a living, breathing organism

"Tilt his head," the nurse orders one of the goons. She gets in my face and instructs, "On the count of three I want you to cough. Do you understand?"

I barely nod.

She takes firm hold of the tubing protruding from my nose. A flick of her finger turns a valve. "One, two, three. Now cough."

The tube comes free with a spray of blood and I don't simply cough. I'm choking and gagging and fighting it with all I've got. It's wasted effort. The paralytic's still exerting powerful control.

"Ladies," Stryker says coolly, "your task is complete. Please report to the Director for exit debriefing."

I slam my hand on the kitchen table. "Oh no! No!"

"What?" Sue peers over the back of the couch.

"Nothin'," I mutter, lost in another ugly remembrance that I don't want to share. Exit debrief was a high-level internal code word for termination. Low level, expendable personnel weren't privy to the codes and were executed to prevent any possible breach of security. Christ! How the hell do I know this? My stomach knots, a physical manifestation to the horrific reality my mind conjures.

They tattoo my face and place a halo-like device around my head. It's fastened with screws set into my lower and upper jaws and right and left forehead, more screws at the two and ten o'clock position and one in the top center of my head. Again fine tubing's inserted into my face and head.

Pumping commences. I don't move but my eyes go wide and I wheeze as liquefied Adamantium connects with living bone. A tortured, wretched howl escapes my lungs. I clamp my eyes shut against tears of agony and despair.

The video skips and Stryker's fussing over me like a nursemaid directing the goons himself. I'm bound again around the chest, waist, shoulders, and just above the elbows. Different this round, my forearms are placed into form fitting metal splints and secured. Smaller splints are placed over each fingertip and metal bands wrap around the second knuckle of each finger.

"We're almost through. This is the last alteration," Stryker's voice oozes.

A technician dons gloves and selects a slender knife from a tray. He lances into the top of my right forearm from wrist to just short of elbow. My eyes blink furiously and I gasp. A low moan escapes when he repeats the procedure on my left arm. A second technician swabs away blood while the butcher pulls skin, muscle and tendons back with what might as well be pliers. Five millimeter-thick rods connect at theincision in my wrist, thread through a notch in the finger splints before extending several inches past my fingertips.

"Seal off these bleeders," Stryker orders. Clicking his tongue he practically purrs, "What would a Wolverine be without claws?"

Suddenly I blink and my eyes seem to focus. The look on my face is anything but sure and I slur like I got cotton packed in my mouth. "M' name'shh ...nah . . . Wol—fff . . ."

Activating his communicator and glancing up at the glassed observation booth Stryker shouts, "Dammit Harlan! Did you hear him?"

"Affirmative. Look Major, some memory bleed's inevitable. I think-"

"Don't think, Peabody," he spits contemptuously. "He's to have zero memory. You got that?"

Stryker looks to a different goon clad in surgical scrubs. "You ready?"

The man nods, snaps his gloves and plucks a small power saw from a tray. He's skillful, efficient and despite my howls of protest, in minutes he's extracted the natural apparatus housing my claws. Without pause he repeats the operation on my other arm. Dispassionately he says, "I recommend local paralytic before proceeding with the next step."

"It's desensitized to everything we've got."

"Then we'll do it the hard way." He plunges a metal spike into the incision.

"What'd you do?"

"Severed medial, radial and ulnar nerves."

Stryker looks stricken.

"Pull your head outta your ass, Stryker. This'll probably be healed before we're done. Let's get on with it."

From another tray table Stryker lifts a towel revealing an astounding pair of apparatus: Gleaming sets of three elongated, slender swords connected at one end by a complicated array of bioelectronics and spring mechanisms. The opposing ends comprised a simple ring of Adamantium surrounding the blades, which in turn come to rest in hollow shunts.

Holy fucking shit! I've seen X-rays of my claws but this blows my mind. A click of the mouse rewinds and then freezes the image. "Babe, this thing got a zoom in function?"

"Right click," she instructs from the couch.

I gasp, "Whoa!" as the image reveals remarkable secrets.

"What?" Susie's on her knees leaning over the back of the couch stealing a look. "Oh my gosh! What is that?"

"My claws."

"That's . . . amazing."

"No!" I bellow. Raising one fist, I slide them out. A thin line of blood flows down my forearm. "These motherfuckers," I point at her, "are weapons, just like me."

"No Logan," she shouts back. "They're only weapons if you use them that way."

"And you better never forget it-" I continue over her. Suddenly what she said sinks in. Snickt! My claws slip back and I choke out, "Because I never can."

Silence hangs heavy. I'm past emotions and words. I'm sick of this but I can't quit and like an addict needing another fix, I turn my attention to the video.

Reverently, Stryker hands a set off to the surgeon who carefully works it into the space between the long bones in my arms. "If everyone's done their homework the fit should be perfect," the surgeon comments.

Stryker nods and then leans close to my head. "You remember all those computer bone scans and MRI's we did? Oh, of course you don't. Least wise, you better not. Any way Logan - scratch that, Wolverine, without boring you with needless details, once these things are in place you'll be the envy of every samurai worth his kabuto wari." A strange, reflective look crosses his face. "Had a penchant for those people. Wasn't your wife a cute little Nip?

My gaze, venomous and vengeful, fixes on Stryker. "Fuck you."

Whoa! What did I just hear? Backing up the video, drumming my fingers on the table, I hear those few words: Your wife a cute little . . .

My mother's recent words ring in my ears: What about your wife and son? Thought the old bat was testing me 'til she pulled out a damn convincing letter penned by me. Still, don't quite believe I'd forget a wife and a kid, but I did. Now here's another confirmation of something-someone whose existence and memory are lost forever. Hell no! Not lost. Stolen, ripped out of my mind like weeds.

Stryker's voice drones on. "With your power to heal, your Adamantium skeleton andthese claws you're virtually immortal and lethal."

After attaching each metal rod into a notch at the tip of corresponding hollow shunt the surgeon says, "Ready for fusion."

Stryker inspects the handiwork before speaking to me again. "I'd like to think someday you'd thank me but that would imply memory of the event. Just like you, I keep my promises. You won't remember."

Shaking his head, a fleeting look of regret crosses his face. "It's kind of a shame the process isn't more selective though. You brought valuable knowledge to the program."

No way in hell! He's lying! But his words from the last encounter at Alkali Lake loop incessantly in my mind: The work we did together . . . work we did together . . . together.

No! Eyes clenched, I exhale slowly fighting a wave of self-loathing so potent I think I'm going barf again. Yes, deep down I know the bastard's right.

After attaching each metal rod into a notch at the tip of corresponding hollow shunt nameless goon says, "Ready for fusion."

Stifling a yawn, Stryker pulls his glasses off and rubs his eyes. "Good, let's get it done."

"Yeah, let's get it done."

Nameless approaches with a pair of the biggest, baddest syringes yet, over a foot long with barrels the width of beer cans and needles half as long. With the same care a grease monkey uses adding oil to an engine he plugs the needles into the apparatus. The pumps start up and in a few seconds, I project an agonizing scream as magma percolates into my arms. While I rave, he breaks a sweat working to precisely conjoin the claw mechanism to already bonded arm bones.

"Dammit Stryker!" he pulls back. "He's moving too much. Seda-tion, stat!"

"It won't last long," Stryker warns.

"Three minute's all I need."

A goon moves in on Stryker's directive, places a rubber tie around my lower leg and promptly main lines the first visible vein. "Ten, nine, eight, seven . . ." he counts off and I'm out before he utters the s in six. Relief's unmistakably stamped on the surgeons face as he completes the amalgamation of machine to man.

Instead of a dousing in the tank, fluid is hosed into the incisions. The surgeon turns away as a column of steam rises like a cobra. Precipitously, muscle, tendon and skin are pulled together and taped.

"Release the traction rods," Stryker demands. All five are yanked from my wrists just as I stir and groan. Their tips are melted and smoking. Like droplets of blood, beads of Adamantium well up in place of the rods.

A goon plucks the remaining splints from my fingers before boring wires into my temples once more. They retreat and moments later I'm engulfed in electrically induced fits. When it stops I'm shaking from head to toe, grunting and gagging. Instinct force me to crane my head to the side as vomit sprays from my mouth and splatters in the tank below. Next minute, my eyes flip back and I'm out cold once again.

Time lapses. Goons return with a gurney. Taking to either side of me, they release my bonds. Deep down I know what's coming next. Fate, luck, major fuck up, who knows? The actual memory's pocked full of holes.

Suddenly, defying explanation, the platform drops. I reach out for and grab both goons and we fall together into the tank. Shouts, splashes, the sound of bone snapping accompanied by a grunt, one goon goes limp, his neck angled unnaturally. In a blink, the same fate's served to the other.

I rise from the tank, with a guttural roar, muting alarms and blaring commands to seal the augmentation chamber. My expres-sion, jaw set, teeth bared, eyes burning with unfathomable rage, is full attack, kill or be killed mode. Hyper vigilant, I survey my surroundings.

At that moment, a battalion of goons burst in, guns and stunners pointed and ready. I roar warning and without conscious effort six, brilliant, sleek, razor-keen claws shoot from my knuckles.

"Fire!" Booms over the intercom

I leap as the first volleys slam into my torso. Stumbling, I catch myself and in the process etch three perfect slashes with my claws into the concrete supporting the cursed tank. Instantly, I'm back on my feet charging like a Prop Forward playing the rugby match of a lifetime. Their ordnance penetrates my hide but I barrel ahead. Cutting through bodies like sponge cake, a gory swath of gutted, decapitated and limbless hunks of human waste testifies to my ruthless, manic vengeance.

Immediate threat eliminated, my movements are swift and efficient. Proceeding directly to a bank of computers I slam my claws in, showering myself in sparks and flame. Pausing briefly to study the power conduit, I snarl and plunge my claws straight in. Thousands of watts arc through and around me creating a cosmic blue aura. Suddenly everything turns black.

My computer screen goes blank. It's done. Finished. Silence reigns except for the computers hum and my own breath heaving in my chest. Drooping my head, I groan and dig my eyes with the heels of my hands. I feel ancient and weary, sick to my stomach. I know what happened next.

Right now I need something else. I fulfilled my part of the deal. There's a gigantic piece of the puzzle missing. I turn to the one person who can solve it. "Now tell me," I demand. "How the fuck did you find this?"

Her eyes lock with mine. Trembling, she reeks of fear and guilt but her voice is steady. "These were in my father's personal effects."

My head whiplashes. "What?"

Her father? Her father! The concept detonates in my head like an aneurism. Every nerve ending is blazing, juiced on adrenalin. Pyrotechnics of questions explode in my brain more vivid than Bastille Day and Fourth of July combined.

Who the hell was her father? What role did he play? One of the big three? Oh fuck, yeah! Had to be. Don't come by this kind of classified shit without a ranking.

Despairs frigid hook seizes my heart. I scour her with my eyes searching her face, her physique, looking for clues. Please, if there's a benevolent force in the cosmos, don't reveal any.

There's no such thing - a benevolent force. Not for me, anyway. Some are born under a rainbow and a silver spoon in their mouths. Then there's me, born under a toxic fog and hey, bend me over and shove that silver spoon in sideways where the sun doesn't shine.

A strangulated, incongruous chortle rumbles from my depths. The woman I think of as my saving angel, entrusted my most intimate soul to, is the spawn of a mortal enemy! The beast, aroused, sustained by rage, is rattling its cage to escape and inflict mayhem and murder. All sense of reason's vanishing under phantom pain, repressed fury, frustration and hate.

I feel a familiar burn between my knuckles. "No!" I bellow. My claws spring automatically from my knuckles. I thrust downward shorting the laptop and splitting the kitchen table.

She freezes, gawks in terror at me then the table and back at me. "Oh my god!" she gasps and retreats.

My blood is boiling. There's a load of rocks churning in my belly. A vortex of emotion is simultaneously whipping me around and tearing me apart. My throat's gone dry.

I wrench the question out one word at a time. "Who was your father?"

xXx

Sssshhhnickt! That sound: Metal against metal and the wet squelch of flesh parting.

"Oh my God!" I'm in trouble.

Like nothing I've ever seen, even observing him a Danger Room simulation, his muscles are bunched and tensed to explode. Flinty, dark eyes and lips forming a cruel gash bisecting his face make him into the beast he's warned of. If looks could kill is a mocking cliché. His words, "Who was your father?" are cold and mechanical.

The reply he seeks sticks in my throat, "I . . . I . . . He's . . ." I make a move toward a stack of tablets. He lunges, those claws poised for maximum effect.

"Please," I beg expecting any moment to be skewered. I'm praying for my life and wondering where the hell Charles is with the protective link he promised. Is Logan so possessed that Charles can't reach him?

Slowly, cautiously, I reach for a monogrammed leather bound tablet. Quivering and sick with terror, desperate to keep clear of his claws and unbridled fury, I set it on the counter. "I found these in his study at the Ranch."

Eyes darting wildly between me and the book, a beastly growl rises from his chest. Sights locking onto the book, he mutters, "W A S," like the engraved lettering make no sense to him.

Uttering the name, "William Aloysius Stryker," sickens me to the core.

"Stryker!" Dropping to a crouch, the claws retract and he folds in on himself like he's been punched in the chest. Breathing in shallow, quick huffs it's difficult to know if he's about to be sick or cry or erupt in violence.

His voice is deep and harsh. "Your father was Stryker?"

I feel consumed with guilt and nod. "Logan, please believe me. I had no idea."

His nostrils flair, no doubt testing me for the truth. His hand vibrates reaching for my fathers' journal.

I'm jello and can't keep from crying. "I'm . . . so sorry."

Face twisted in wildly fluctuating emotion, he growls, "Shut up."

Hands still shaking, he thumbs through the pages as his eyes dart over the handwriting a mile a minute. I can't read him and I feel like a mouse sitting on the edge of a trap ready to snap. Suddenly, he laughs. It's an odd, strangled sound, like a mortally wounded animal.

Through marginally controlled tears and ignoring my fear, I reach toward him. "Logan. . . I didn't know . . . How can I make you understa-"

Snarling, "Get away from me," he hurls the journal in my face and bolts for the door. Yanking it open, it's a small miracle he doesn't rip it off its hinges. He stares for a moment at the cracked panes of glass and shakes his head. Muttering, "Go t'fuckin' hell," he stalks away.

Feeling like I deserve his vitriolic diatribe, I tag what I hope is a safe distance behind. "I'm sorry, I love you," is the only thing I can think to say.

Every muscle in his body cinches tighter than a noose. He stops dead in his tracks and turns. Without a word or sound, he strides menacingly towards me, his dark eyes spewing murderous intent.

Dear god, what is he thinking? Charles, help me. I trip on the threshold trying to back away.

Suddenly, he roars and springs the claws. Inches from my head, he slams them into the doorframe. Folding into myself, I scream as splinters prick my cheek and neck.

A breath later, I'm still alive and suddenly find my own rage. With nothing and everything to lose, I answer fire with fire. "I am not William Stryker. I did not do this to you."

Just inches away, his breath hot in my face, the only sound is his raspy growls and my heart pounding in my ears. My courage flagging, it takes everything I have to continue. "I hate what he did as much as you, if not more. For god's sake, he destroyed my brother, too."

Thank god! He retracts the claws.

"He stole everything from me." Logan's voice is unnaturally pitched, tinged with the same fury driven mania carved into his face. "Now, it's payback time." There is no misreading the intent to harm in his eyes.

I shove hard against his chest, "Hurting me will not fix this."

He responds, wrenching and pinning my arms to my sides, a satanic grin stretched across taut lips. Instinctively, I react driving my knee into his scrotum.

"Oof!" he releases and hunches over.

Mama didn't raise a fool. I'm beating a path for the front door, creating distance between us. It's not enough.

Fast recovered, he closes in. He's furious! All traces of reason are gone.

Panic reasserting its grip, I scream, "No! No! Stay away!" but he doesn't seem to hear. Oh god! What to do? No chance using physical force against him twice.

I don't see as much as feel the rush of wind as he rears back with a fist packing the force of a wrecking ball. What will it feel like to have my skull crushed? Too far from an exit and out of options, I shield myself with my arms and pray.

Time flows like chilled molasses, the fist of doom frozen in space. I peer into his face, seething with unbridled fury. Nostrils flaring, his eyes suddenly grow wide. It almost seems he's been struck by an invisible force. Charles?

Arms dropping to his sides, the rage seems gone, replaced by a dazed expression that defies interpretation. Eyes study me from head to toes. Gently clasping my hand, he draws my wrist to his face and breathes deeply.

Tilting a brow, he stares at me muttering, "Aw no." An inexplicable curtain of withdrawal closes over his face. Head bowed, he whispers a ragged, "I'm sorry," spins on his heel and is gone.

Confused and traumatized to the point of numb, I slide onto the floor. Cutting through my sobs, I hear the roar and squeal of motorcycle tires as he rockets down the street.

xXx

Ten hours straight, my ass glued to the saddle of my bike, numb doesn't begin to describe the sensation. Don't know why, almost wish I hadn't, but I managed to avoid three major crack-ups. Any one of them might've been the one to push my healing factor to the limit. When bad luck's what I want can't even get that to come my way. Out ran a couple radar traps. Good thing too because with the mood I'm festering any cop stupid enough to catch up to me might've ended up a statistic - a very bloody, busted up statistic.

Haven't figured out where I'm going. North. North West. It's where I gravitate when it's time to move on. Think I might try a change of scenery and go south where it's warm, laid back, easy? But nah, it's like there's a magnet pulling me on to cold, harsh and dangerous.

Got to stop soon. Gas tank's below E running on fumes. I split without much dough in my wallet, just enough to fill the tank. Definitely not enough for a flea bag motel and probably not enough for something to eat. I'm not in the mood to pander for an odd job and I don't know these parts well enough to find a sleazy joint where I might hustle a game or fight. Guess it's going be a long night.

xxx

Ssstrryyykerrr!"

Snickt!

Snackt.

I'm awake, disoriented, drenched in sweat, heart's fit to bust out of my chest, feel sick - again. Reflexively, I start to dry wash my face but halt mid-motion. No joy to accidently slice myself open even if I do heal in no time. The familiar, dull ache between my knuckles fades like the familiar, searing nightmare.

Damn! Shredded the survival blanket. Could be worse, like spear my own legs or something.

Standing, I stretch, pop my joints and groan. There's a heavy, urgent feeling centered in my groin. An unlucky tree a couple yards from my campsite gets a piss shower.

Can't make up my mind whether to hit the road or try for another hour or two of sleep. Feral instincts attuned to the temper-ature, dewfall, calm, the particular scent of an emerging new day tell me the time better than any watch. Think I'll set a spell longer. Catch the sunrise.

Lonely and beautiful, a whippoorwill's lullaby relaxes my mind. There's a rustling and the faintest squeak. I sniff and pick up

the scent of a mouse scampering through the pine needle forest floor. Above, an owl flexes it majestic wings, no doubt ready to make breakfast of the mouse. Crickets set up a soothing chorus. I try counting the chirps. Supposed to be able to calculate the actual temperature by how many cricket chirps a minute. Don't have a thermometer to prove it but bet I'm close enough. Nature's a tranquilizing tonic and soon I feel sleep tugging at the edges of my mind. Half-aware, I feel my head bob as my chin settles on my chest.

xxx

"Fuckin' coward! Wake your ass up."

Wham! Fireworks explode inside my skull as something solid collides with my head.

I roll and spring to me feet, claws deployed and aimed. What the fuck? Nothing's there! Sniffing, there's nothing but the heady scent of the forest, a whisper of rain on its way and the faint essence of a distant skunk.

"Clueless fucktard! Wanna smell me, check out your pits."

Bang! Something pounds my kidneys forcing me to my knees.

Grrraaahhrr! I slash wide with my claws. "What are ya? Invisible 'r somethin'?"

I feel a wisp of wind brush past my face. "Close but no cee-gar," the voice torments.

"Who's the fuckin' coward?" I bellow. "Show y'self."

Smash! Something jabs me sharp under the chin driving my teeth into my tongue. "Gah!" My howl echoes through the trees. Expecting blood, I spit but there isn't any! "What the fuck are you?"

"Take a wild guess, shit for brains."

"Huh?" I duck, expecting another wallop.

This isn't real. Got to be a nightmare. Hallucination maybe? Must've picked the wrong damn wild mushrooms for that rabbit stew I cooked up for supper.

"You wish, bub," it says landing a potent jab to my gut that sends me sprawling on my ass and gasping like an asthmatic.

I feel a presence, like something standing over me. Thrusting my claws upward, they contact nothing but thin air.

"Get a clue dickwad! You can't slice and dice your own conscience." Thin air swirls. Picking up dirt, moss, dead leaves, a form congeals before my eyes and I'm staring at myself.

Holy shit!

Shapeshifter? Nah, even the best trail a scent. Nothing computes the way it ought to and that always equals a whole lot of bad.

"Grrraaarrrhh!" Claws extended, I spring, aiming to split my doppelganger in half. Takes a microsecond to realize he's a fucking copycat, too. Braced for a world of hurt, I'm stunned to find myself sprawled flat on my stomach, spitting dirt. I went right through him, like he was a ghost.

Roaring, "Enough o' this shit ya pig headed numb nuts," he breaks into millions of vividly hued geometric shapes.

Reforming, like a pixilated movie character, he becomes she.

Tall and sexy with flowing red hair, piercing emerald eyes and that voice, as smooth and cool as satin sheets. "Maybe you'll listen to me."

"Holy shit! Jean?"

"No."

"This ain't real. I'm dreaming."

"Yes and yes." Her tone is as mocking as her grin.

"Huh?"

"I told you, Logan. I'm your conscience."

Now I know I'm dealing with some kind of weird ass mutant. "Can't be darlin' cuz I ain't got one, least ways, none that'd look as good as you."

"I can look like whomever you want." She transforms into a hulk of stringy, smelly, tawny gold fur.

Growling, "How 'bout this, runt?" Sabretooth is poised for a smack down.

Itching to oblige, I jab for his gut with the hardware.

Whoa! Snackt, back goes the claws as I stare into ethereal doe eyes, one obscured by a strand of silver-white hair.

Hands resting on her hips, chin set in a stubborn line, this sassy little girl-woman lips, "Ah kin look like this but ya wouldn't pay me no mind."

What is this? Mystique in my tent, act two? Fingers laced together, I stretch out my arms and crack my knuckles. "Got that right."

"Would you listen to me, Bright Eyes?" The voice is thin and broken, matching the bleak expression dulling Susie's usually vibrant face.

Goddamn! Low blow. Effective, too. Clenching my eyes does fuck all to block the image of Susie cowering in abject terror.

Pinching the bridge of my nose, I feel a throbbing settle in the middle of my brain. Goes good with the acid corroding my gut. "What the fuck do you want?"

"I'm here to talk sense into you." It's Jeannie again, moving toward me like a sidewinder pursues a rat. "But time is limited so let's get down to business, shall we?"

"What? Ya turn into a pumpkin at midnight'r sumthin'?"

"Not exactly but if your sleep pattern changes - pfft, bye-bye dreamland."

"Makes about as much sense as everything else." Somebody gimme back the old nightmares. At least they're predictable. "Okay, Jeannie 'r conscience 'r whatever, what the fuck ya doin' in my dreams?"

"I'm trying to save you from making the biggest mistake of your life."

Retrieving the ass I laugh off, I deadpan, "Don't need savin', darlin'."

Hands on those curvy hips, she rolls her eyes and sighs. "When are you going to quit letting dead men control you?"

I grab her by the shoulders, "Nobody controls me!" only to end up clutching air.

She leans against a tree grinning like she hasn't got a care in the world. "You can't lie to yourself, you know."

"Go to hell."

"After you." She curtsies then continues the inquisition. "So, what are you doing out in the middle of nowhere, existing like a vagabond and tearing yourself to pieces?"

Don't want to go where she's leading. Aiming to stall, I rummage through my saddlebag looking for a smoke. Damn shame my flask is empty.

Comfortable perched on a log, "Sweetheart," I explain between draws on the cigar, "we're talking normal state of affairs for the Wolverine."

"Looks to me like somebody's yanking your chain and you're doing exactly what you always do.

"And what's that?"

"Cut and run."

"Fuck off, whatever ya are." I blow a couple of smoke rings for the hell of it.

"If you run again then Stryker wins."

"What the hell do you know?"

"I'm you so I know everything you know. Difference is, I'm going to let you off the hook."

I want to pound the sympathetic look off her face as she seems glide the short distance between us. "You've come so far, begun to build a good life," I flinch as she lays a soft hand on my shoulder, "formed connections and attachments."

"And look where that got me." I swat her hand away. "No thanks, darlin'. The little domestic experiment was doomed from the start."

"You do defeatist better than anyone I know."

"Had lots o'practice."

"Fine," she snaps and stands over me. "Save your pity party for another one of your inner selves."

"You done yet?" This time it isn't a smoke ring but a cloud of it in her face.

"Almost."

"And I bet ya ain't gonna shut up 'til ya've said your piece."

"Of course not and you know why? Because you've got it in you to get through this, get it right."

"Jesus Christ!" I stomp the cigar stub into the ground, "What part don't ya get? I lost control. I almost killed her." I'm on fire, gesturing like a nut job.

Dream-Jeannie doesn't bat an eye leveling, "But you didn't."

I want to puke just thinking about it. Primed and ready to smash Susie to a bloody pulp, if it weren't for-

"Does the reason really matter?" cuts off my thoughts.

"Dunno. Might not've pulled back."

"No, you wouldn't have punched her. The wall, maybe."

Head bowed, staring at my worn boots, I'm not so sure and hate myself for it.

She's all compassion with, "Like I said before, I'll let you off the hook."

Sure ya will. "Listen up Red, you and your fuckin' dispen-sations can go straight t'hell."

Her arms fly over her head. "Dammit Logan! There you go again." Suddenly, she's in my face, a fist emphasizing each word with sharp jabs to my chest. "Okay, I'll set the hook. Better yet, let's go for gut and filet."

Face twisted with withering contempt, she hits me with, "What about the baby?"

Fuck! The question pierces like a harpoon, jacks up my piss off factor. I crush the cigar stub under my boot. Hell if I know.

"Maybe she'll get lucky and lose it."

Jesus! I squeeze my eyes closed and dip my chin to my chest, wishing against hope to take back what I said.

"It's your dream."

Takes me a minute to figure out what she's saying, but her tossing a lifeline or not, I rip sarcastically, "Just click my heels together three times, eh?"

The enigmatic smile on her face says plenty.

Feeling more like the worm on a fishhook, I squirm for an out. "Her getting knocked up never should've happened, ya know."

"That's a bit beside the point now, isn't it?"

"Pretty much." I laugh bitterly.

Her casual shrug makes me feel like a fool. I ignored my senses, got careless and now I'm laying the blame on anybody or anything but where it belongs.

Obviously reading my thoughts, a disgusted sneer twists her lips. "Right. There's your rock to hide under."

"Ain't hidin' under any rock, darlin'."

"Bullshit!"

"Whatever, Red. You may not be done but I am. Fuckin' bug off, will ya."

"Sure Logan, whatever you want. But before I go, here's a challenge."

"Stubborn bitch, aren't ya."

"Of course. I'm your conscience, remember?"

"Still think you're a bad mushroom 'r something."

Her lips curl into an amused smirk.

I fidget, tilt my head and crack my neck. Finally, with all the enthusiasm of a man facing the gallows, I expel a breath. "What's the challenge?"

In my face, she gently presses against my chest. "Figure out your heart and your head." Then, cupping my chin, her expression turns absolute and cold. "And do the right thing."

I jerk away. "And what's the right thing?"

"Depends." She shifts mood gears again, placating this time. "Whatever it is, make it your choice. If it's leave, have the guts to admit to her you can't make things work. If it's stay then get back there and work it out."

Dry washing my face, I'm thinking there isn't a chance in hell fixing things. "She's gonna tell me to hit the road."

"Maybe, maybe not. Are you too much of a coward to find out?"

I scuff the ground with my boot, heave a deep breath and gaze into the sunrise breaking orange between the trees. "Yeah."

"Honest answer, that's good. How about another honest answer?"

"What's the goddamn question?"

"Answer this for yourself and you'll know what you have to do." Jean's body, or image, wavers. "Do you . . ." Fragmenting into splotches of shimmering colors, her voice becomes a ghostly echo. "Love her?"

Poof! She's gone!

My eyeballs pop open. Springing to my feet, arms outstretched, I yowl like a crazy man. "Yes, goddamn it! Yes! I love her!"

xXx

Slipping the Jag into the garage, just back from extra rounds that I volunteered for - anything to keep my mind off things, I spy Vic Marquez' dark blue pickup truck parked in my backyard driveway extension.

"How are ya?" I call out in Spanish, paying more attention to gathering up my laptop and an armload of scrubs and so forth fresh from the cleaners. There's no answer, so I assume he can't hear me.

"Oh crap!" I mutter realizing there are three of Logan's shirts in the mix. One more trip back. Never mind, I'll have Vic drop them by Logan's office. His problem if he doesn't claim them.

Two steps past the utility room and into the kitchen, offers me a clear view of the kitchen door. I gasp and nearly drop the laundry. It's not Vic.

"What are you doing here?"

"Fixin' what's broke." Deep lines on Logan's brow say he means more than splintered wood.

Unnerved, I mutter, "Oh." Heart pounding, I hurry to hang the laundry in my closet, silently praying he doesn't follow. Anxious and angry, I feel sick to my stomach. Telling myself I can get through this, I take inordinate effort hanging my scrubs just so.

Returning to the kitchen via straightening towels in the powder bath, adjusting the window blinds in my study, rearranging cushions on the couch, I hop onto a stool by the breakfast bar. Picking at an imaginary hangnail, I stare absently at anything but him. Humidity and tension is oppressive. Finally scrounging a smidgeon of courage I focus on him.

"Is it past fixing?"

Sweat beads across his forehead. Soaking through his undershirt, the frayed, dingy material sticks like plastic wrap to his chest and the small of his back as he inserts a crowbar between the doorframe and wall.

"Dunno."

Crack. The wood pops off and he tosses it aside. Pausing, he catches my eye. Rocking back on his heels, he adds, "Hope not."

So exposed and bleeding his expression, it takes my breath away. I know he's making an overture but I just don't know whether I can meet him in the middle because I keep replaying that awful moment when his fist was poised to pound my head to mush. I'm afraid.

I watch him take measurements and sort my feelings for the zillionth time. I'm hurting and offended - no, angry that he came so close to physically harming me. And then I remind myself I expected such a reaction. I threw gasoline into a furnace, so I got off easy.

"It's going to take more than a fresh coat of paint."

"Yep." He makes busy marking the new lumber, popping a claw and shearing it cleaner than the finest power saw. "Gotta strip it down to bare wood."

"That's done."

"Nope," he says fitting the header and sidepiece together. He mutters, "Shit," picks through the toolbox and commences to file the lumbers edges. "One more layer to scrape off."

"Scrape too much and you'll ruin it."

His mouth forms a tight grin as the pieces fit to his satisfaction. "Never get a-" Pop! Pop! He triggers the nail gun. "Perfect finish-" Pop, pop, pop! "-if ya don't."

"No such thing."

This is so strange. Logan doesn't beat around the bush like this. I keep quiet, simply watching him work. I'm irritated by this inane word game but wholly unsure what to say or do next.

He swipes his arm across his forehead. "Can a man beg a cold one?"

That's not what I expect him to say and it takes a minute to sink in. "Oh, sure." I produce two plastic bottles, which he eyes suspiciously.

"Where's m'beer?"

"I . . . Well, I thought you might not be back."

Up go his brows into his hairline. "Ya tossed it?"

"Oh no. Not that. It's your beer. I gave it to Vic to give back to you."

"Hmmph!" He grimaces. "Water it is." He flips the pop top and I watch his Adam's Apple bobble, guzzling it in one long gulp. True to form, he rips a loud belch and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. "'Scuze me."

"Men!" Grinning, I shake my head and wave him off. A break in the tension is what I need to summon more courage. "Logan, why are you back?"

Exhaling, he leans against the doorframe, hazel brown eyes darting everywhere and nowhere. He straightens and crosses his arms over his chest. "What happened . . . What I . . ."

His dark, earnest eyes seek mine. "I know what I did and I swear to ya-" He reaches out but I stay rooted beyond his grasp. "Oh god! Darlin', ya got every reason to be but please, please don't be scared."

"Give me a reason not to be." I want him to hear my anger and indignation but I fail. Tremulous delivery and scent are a dead give away to his feral senses.

Tears damming behind reddened eyelids, he hangs his head and looks away. I feel the same slither down my cheeks.

He faces me. Sweat and perhaps a tear or two bead on his face, channeling in the crinkles around his eyes before hiding among the whiskers on his cheek.

"Fair enough. There is no good reason I can give you, except-" He swallows hard. "I will never treat you like that again." Somehow, he closes the distance between us and reaches to caress my cheek.

Ducking away, "Please don't," I'm being spiteful bitch but I can't stop myself. A small part of me needs to witness him suffer for my suffering.

Withdrawing like he's been bitten by a rattlesnake, fists clenched at his sides, he looks like he might chew through his bottom lip. "What else can I do?"

I cross my arms, nervously kneading my skin. I want to extract an impossible promise, exert unreasonable control. And then I look at him, really see the remorse in his face, slicing into him as painfully as those damn claws do every time he extends them.

"Nothing, Logan. I know you won't."

He seems to uncoil but he still looks like a man who's desperately clinging to a frayed rope. He nods and silently gets busy caulking the trim.

I catch him steal a gaze in my direction every now and again but he's not offering any clues what's happening inside. What I wouldn't pay to be telepathic just now.

My thoughts are whirling faster than a Texas twister and sitting still suddenly gives me a case of the heebie-jeebies. I make work for myself re-arranging a pantry shelf. I'm not afraid — well, of him anymore. I'm not quite as angry. But it feels like my insides are made of jelly, that weird, shaky sense of antici-pation, not necessarily the good kind.

After alphabetizing the canned soups by type, purging stale spices and lining up bottles of flavored oil just so, I work up my courage to grab the bull by the horns. "You're here to do more than fix the door and apologize for nearly knocking my block off."

"Uh huh." He smoothes an errant glob of caulk with his finger. "Lemme finish then I'll tell ya."

He takes his time, not deliberately fooling around but method-ical and just a little bit particular. I've watched him build things for Charles, lend a hand to Ororo with her spectacular gardens, Logan's got plenty of know-how and he's proud of the fact.

He caps the tube of caulk and sets it aside. "Mind if I clean up?"

He's halfway to the kitchen sink before I censure, "Ick! Not there. Use the washtub in the laundry room."

He drapes the worn out drying towel over his right shoulder and leans against the nearest kitchen counter. "To answer your question . . . I . . . uh . . . came back to see this thing through."

"What exactly do you mean?"

"It means there's still lots o'shit to work out." Stoking his chin, his eyes are glued to my face. Is he looking for a reaction?

"You took a helluva risk showing me those files. If we're gonna have a chance to get past this . . ." He pauses and rubs the back of his neck. It's painfully obvious he's struggling for words. Heaving a deep breath, he continues. "What do you know about your father's death?"

"What's that got to do with anything?"

"Trust me, it's important."

"Well, you know. The official blah-de-blah, died in the line of duty and so forth."

"And ya bought into that bullshit?"

"At first I did. Well, not really. I just didn't care enough to question it. But once I found out it was he who attacked the school . . ." Hugging my middle, I turn away. "Oh Logan, I don't want to go here."

Now it's my turn to pace and gesture uncomfortably. "I've read the debriefings, talked with Charles at length before you got back."

He raises an eyebrow, exhales and rakes his fingers through his hair. "What I gotta tell ya isn't in the debriefings. Even Charles doesn't have the full story."

"Do I really need to know? I mean is there any good to come from it?"

"Yeah. Maybe. The way I see it is we either lay it all out right now or we walk away."

"Phew! Pot of coffee or bottle of whiskey kind of conversation?"

There's not much humor in his chuckle. "Just sit down, let me say my piece then you can decide what you need to do."

He sighs. He paces. He bobs his head from side to side, obnoxiously cracking his neck. "Stryker . . . your father . . ."

His face twists into a hateful expression.

"Shit!" he mutters, visibly struggling for control. Tight with strain, he stands ramrod straight with his hands in tight fists at his sides.

"He didn't hafta die at Alkali Lake. I was the last one to see him alive, chained to a wall, by Magneto, I think. There was time. I could've hauled his sorry ass out. I didn't. I didn't say anything to the Team and I left him."

Logan's candid admission stuns me to the core. Feeling like there's a hand closing over my throat I whisper, "Why?"

"Because I could."

Shattered, I feel like I'll crumble to pieces at any moment. "Revenge?"

He nods, his voice and expression chock full with conviction. "No authority was ever gonna punish him like he deserved."

I find my rage and glare at him like he's suddenly sprouted horns and a forked tail. "You don't know that for sure."

His head bobs. "Yeah, I do."

I laugh, a sound tinged with derision and repugnance. "So, you appointed yourself judge, jury and executioner."

He slams one fist into the other. "Yes and truthfully I'd do it over again the same."

"Dear Lord!" I shiver, repulsed by yet more evidence of his violent tendencies. A believer in the process of justice, I'm outraged by his self-serving arrogance.

Certainly misguided, warped — if not just plain sick, I still feel some sort of tender emotion for my father — or the man as I'd like to remember him. A part of me hates both my father and now my lover. And yet, putting myself in Logan's place, if I can even imagine what he suffered, presented with the same oppor-tunity, I might have done exactly the same thing.

My father had and made choices. At the hand of my father, Logan was stripped of everything, including free-will. Even so, the concept of lethal revenge, deserved or not, makes me want to vomit.

Inside my mind, all those previous nagging little warnings- Logan's not my type, Logan's a head-case. Ours is a severely unbalanced relationship. We're too much about sex and not enough true intimacy — flash like a migraine aura. And this doesn't come close to considering the five hundred pound Gorilla I've naively ignored. Logan was forged into an unstoppable, conscienceless assassin.

What did he say one night after lots of alcohol? I'm the best there is but what I do best isn't very nice. He's even said he's not sure he's overcome all the mental programming foisted on his mind.

The undeniable truth is that we may be - oh come on, we are incompatible. And yet, many things we've shared, experienced, debated and discussed, good and bad, flash through my thoughts. I can't quite slam the door.

"What happens now, Logan?"

"Up to you."

No, no, Bright Eyes. Don't make me do this. The weight of it all overwhelms me. I don't want to think. I don't want to feel or decide. I want to turn back the clock. Undo it. Somebody, Logan, pull me into your arms and tell me it's going to be all better! Heartsick and hopeless, I fold up on the kitchen floor, hugging my knees with fresh tears gushing down my face.

"I just don't know." I groan, thrusting out my palm.

I hear him murmur, "Okay," heave a long, slow sigh and begin gathering up the tools.

Still hunkered on the floor, I watch him methodically place Vic's tools in the nubby metal box in the truck bed. Shoulders stooped, he moves like he's in pain. His face is blank, eyes dull. He mutters something about making sure the woodwork gets painted.

"It's not important," I say between sniffles, "but thank you."

He's going to leave. For good this time.

No! The reality cuts like a knife in the heart. I don't want it to be, to end like this. He said it's up to me. Fine. It's high time we both quit being victimized by our past.

He slams the toolbox shut and hops out of the truck bed. Hesi-tating, he glances over his shoulder.

I leap to my feet. "Logan?"

Leaning against the truck, his back to me, he's motionless.

Driven by some mysterious, dynamic inner force, I tear across the patio, halting an arm's length away. "Stay."

It feels like forever before he slowly turns to face me. His expression, except for a slight twitching of his jaw, is empty indecipherable.

My hands pressed together in prayer I beg, "Please," before flinging my arms in open invitation. I'm shaking, full of doubt over my rationality and astonished by my impetuosity.

He stands straight and still, his expression intense and probing. His nostrils flare and I see him shudder drawing a sharp breath.

In slow motion, we come together. My arms circle his waist. His arms wrap around my shoulders. A choked cry bursts from his chest. "Susie, darlin' . . . thank you . . . I love you!"

Barely able to breathe for sobbing, I can only bob my head, hiccupping. "Uh huh . . . love . . . you."

Rocking back and forth, holding on for dear life, we weep like the abused and wounded souls that we are.

EPILOGUE

We talked. She cried. So did I – again. We made love. We set boundaries, made plans. We cracked morbid jokes, laughing at our mutual pain and made love again.

Now, it's past o-dark thirty and I'm wide awake thinking and trying to figure out the right way to do the next right thing.

Yeah, and I better do it – ask her soon because it won't take her long to figure things out. I just have to make her under-stand that no matter what the circumstances, baby or no baby, I'm hers for the long haul.

The long haul! Shit, for the last fifteen years or so long haul was a week or two at best. It wasn't 'til Susie came on the scene that I even considered Xavier and his band of do-gooders more than a day to day gig. Bored with one night stands, and needing to put down roots, playing house with her was okay – better than okay. But, it's not a game anymore and truthfully even without a baby this is the way things were heading.

Corny as it sounds, she completes me. I felt it almost from the first moment I set eyes on her. But why her? Is it fate, chemistry, conspiracy? I've thought through this a hundred times over the last day or two and I still don't have a clue.

Never in a million years did I really believe she'd take me back. She knows what I've done, accepts what I am and she still wants me. I chuckle to myself over the irony. It was a Stryker who stole my past, a Stryker who's given it back and saved me in the process. Now a new generation adds to a tangled chain that's impossible, short of dying, to undo.

She smiles in her sleep as I brush her lips with mine. Tasting of salty tears mixed with lingering doubt and fear, I wonder if it would surprise her to know I feel the same.

Can I do this?

Maybe.

Probably.

She rolls over taking more than her share of the covers and frees my arm and shoulder from terminal pins and needles. "Mmm, again?" she mumbles as I drape an arm around her waist and mold myself to her.

"Sshh. Sleep, darlin'."

Cat-like she stretches, sighs and drifts back to sleep. I do the same, awed and grateful and content to be inextricably linked to this woman.

~The End~