I Made It For You
((A short little piece that takes place not soon after Childhood Part One. What Asher did on Father's Day.))
They say that when you're six everything is no less than fun and games. Now is the time when you own no worries, when your wide innocent blue eyes see no more than what is good in the world, what is innocent itself.
When you're six you don't know about the big bad men who prey on the virgins to the world or the reason why you don't have a dad and never knew who or what he was.
This is the age of acceptable naivety and if it's one wish most respectable people have it's to keep it that way for as long as possible.
But there are the exceptions.
She sat in between the two people she knew the best, the two people she was happiest with, Holly and Lupin.
It would always be that these two could make her smile no matter the occasion of sadness. Today the occasion was Father's Day.
Staring aimlessly down at her slice of folded blue card she first let her eyes travel over to Lupin's glitter soaked piece then Holly's gold star gift.
Again her eyes rested on the blank piece of card before her. Lost in their own creative flow neither friend noticed as Asher's card donned its first decoration, a single confused tear.
She wiped her heated face feverishly, never wanting to show her distress to anyone before her in the class.
Slowly looking around the table for something to work with she grabbed a thick black marker and held it tight as if for security.
She stared at it and it stared back almost as if a challenge had just been made. Nodding silently to herself and the pen with her face set in strong determination she pulled free the lid and began to scribble.
For fifteen concentrated minutes she scribbled and glued, spilled and stuck, worked so hard that by the end of her creation she couldn't help but feel proud of herself.
Sliding off her small red plastic chair she slowly walked up to the front of her teacher's tall looming desk and spoke up in a shy held back voice.
"Mrs Grendal?"
The old tight-faced teacher looked up slowly from her tall pile of half marked papers down to Asher's glitter covered face.
"Yes Asher?"
Asher tried not to let the slight edge of annoyance in her teacher's voce detour her determination.
"Is it okay that I made this card or someone who's not my dad because I can't make it for my real dad, he's dead?"
The simplicity of the statement made at the end of the question would have chilled near any person's blood but the old grey haired teacher just nodded offhandedly waving her hand in allowance to Asher's simple request.
Hugging the card as if afraid to loose it she quickly sat back down waiting ever patiently for the school bell to toll the end of the final hour.
It did ten minutes later and in the middle of a horde of hyper screaming little children walked three relatively calmer bodies, treading towards the same spot that they met whoever came to bring them home every day after school.
To Holly's delight it was Scott who greeted them and a gold star card that greeted him. He read it and smiled, hugging his daughter close and kissing her in loving thanks.
Lupin who was not to be outdone waved his about and was reassured by Scott that Remy would love it as much as he loved his.
All over the playing fields the same ritual was being carried out from children as young as six right up to the pre teens, showing off their own rarely seen affections to their dads.
Asher had no want to wave about her card; it stayed hidden at the bottom of her crushed school bag. Scott never asked, he knew better.
As the car pulled up to the mansion's front doors another ten minutes later Lupin flew out of the back seat waiting for no one as he went in search of his dad.
Holly was lifted up onto her own dad's sturdy shoulders and Asher flowed on behind, quiet and shy.
Once in the mansion she knew exactly where to go. He was always there when they arrived home from school. She didn't know why but it had never occurred to her to ask because it had never occurred to her as unusual.
She wondered if he would be mad, no one ever really came to him whilst he practiced in the danger room. But her set naivety meant she didn't give that a second thought.
It was okay in the end, he was just leaving, heading back up to the lounge probably, or the kitchen.
He smiled when he saw her, ruffling her long white hair the way he always did in greeting. She shook him off as she always did with a grin. Then remembering why she was down here she began to come over as shy again.
"So what brings you all the way down here kid?"
Searching for her voice but unable to find it she instead told him through her actions. Dropping her school bag to the floor she went down on her knees with it and dug about in the mess, muttering to herself as she did.
Logan watched with an amused smile, waiting patiently for what she had to show him. It came in the form of a crumpled thickly glued black marked blue card. She handed it over, blushing slightly.
"I made it for you."
He took the card from her scanning the drawn decoration, which he guessed was a picture of a dog, maybe a wolf, a picture well drawn for a six-year-old anyway.
It was what was inside that got him.
He read: 'To Logan. Happy Father's Day. Love Asher.'
Amazingly he found it hard to hold back tears.
"You made it for me?"
She nodded quietly, still blushing. "Do you like it?"
Smiling widely he bent down to her height taking her in a hug she only too happily received.
"Course I like it Asher, I love it. Thanks."
He kissed her on the head then ruffled her hair again
"Let's go show your mum eh? Bet she'll love it too. Is that a wolf you drew?"
She took his hand walking up the long mansion corridors at his side and nodding happily.
"Uh-hu, because your name use to be Wolverine, see?"
"Ah, I see."
Asher wasn't naïve; she knew how the world worked. But she had accepted that so much more easily than most ten times her age ever would.
Father's Day proved that for her better than anything else ever would.
End