Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN WOLVERINE, as much as I wish I did. And I don't own X-Men either.

Summary: Logan wakes up to find himself in a hospital bed with restraints across his arms and chest. Xavier has seemingly betrayed him… memories long forgotten finally resurface. Torture beyond imagination lies in store for him through these memories.

AN: Please review? I want to know what you think.

Blissful Ignorance

Silver Fox… the Professor… Weapon X… Dammit! Why can't I remember my own fucking memories?

Logan's thoughts were interrupted by a low voice. Xavier's. Logan quieted his internal anger and strained to hear.

"I don't know…" The voice faltered and lowered even more. Using his extra sensitive ears to understand the nearly-silent voice of the one man he trusted the most – even if he wouldn't admit it – Logan shut his eyes tightly in concentration.

Xavier was speaking, "… I'm not sure if this is a good idea, Eric. Logan is a very powerful asset and a good friend. If anything were to happen…"

Logan's eyes snapped open as he heard the name of the other man. Eric. Eric Magnus Lehnsherr. The bastard. Logan tried to sit up in anger but to his surprise, he was strapped onto a bed. What…?

Trying to comprehend where he was, Logan turned his head to the left only to see a heart monitor, set up on the top of an IV pole. He caught a glimpse of his chest and realized he had no shirt on. Puzzlement slowly giving way to an alert wariness, but not yet full-blown panic, Logan noticed the small stickers on his abdomen and arms, attached to wires. The wires trailed along the floor for some length and ended at the back of the heart monitor. The steady beep of the monitor was loud; Logan wondered why he hadn't heard it until now.

What had happened? Logan's confusion was evident by the increasing speed of loud beeps coming from the monitor. At least, from what Logan could tell, the IV hadn't gone in yet. The tubes and wires attached to the pump seemed to be ready for IV injection, but whoever's job it was to start the IV, they hadn't gotten around to it yet.

Logan's panic was slightly abated by the sound of Xavier's raised voice in the adjacent room. "Gods, Lehnsherr! Are you insane?! I cannot completely open those barriers on Logan's mind like that; there's no telling what will happen."

Xavier's voice lowered to quiet mutter. Logan ignored the voices and tensed his muscles in silent fury. It was bad enough that Xavier was working with Magneto, but what was he planning on doing with him? Logan had expected to hear fury on behalf of what was being done to him, but Xavier seemed to be cooperating with Magneto, which meant he had was taking part in whatever plan required Logan being strapped onto the hospital bed.

Betrayal was Logan's first thought, but he quickly discarded it. Xavier would never intentionally betray Logan; they had been together as a team for too long and they had gone through too much together. Besides, Xavier seemed to be showing concern for what might happen to him…

Logan's mind continued to dissect Xavier's harsh outburst. What barriers on my mind? Frantically trying to make sense of a single phrase, Logan wondered if it had to do with his inability to remember anything before his life with the X-Men.

Dim memories and short flashbacks were all Logan had of his past. That and the dog tags he always wore around his neck. Logan knew that he had been some sort of special operative in the army, and that they had experimented on him, but nothing more.

Logan had appealed to Xavier numerous times; asking if it were possible to somehow make him remember using Xavier's powerful telepathy, but Xavier had never been able to penetrate the chaotic mess of memories long forgotten.

The revelation that Xavier might have been lying when he had said it wasn't possible struck Logan. He's probably known how to unlock my memories all this time. And now he's working with that sonofabitch.

Logan furiously tried to break free of his restraints. The straps holding him down looked as if they were made out of a tough plastic, probably specially engineered for this moment. Logan was a hell of a lot stronger than he looked, and he looked pretty strong to begin with. When the plastic wouldn't budge, Logan's fury increased and the monitor started flashing as the little numbers recording his heart rate steadily increased.

The furious mutterings in the other room were silenced. Loud footsteps echoed outside and a quiet voice said, "I believe he is awake." It was Magneto's smooth, mellifluous voice, slightly sardonic, and it made Logan, if possible, even angrier.

Logan let out a feral roar as the door to the room flew open. Pulling upwards as far as his restraints would allow, Logan looked up at the figures. Xavier stood alongside Magneto, looking haggard and pale. His eyes, normally a calm, trusting blue, were filled with an emotion Logan couldn't quite place.

Magneto, on the other hand, looked as cruel and unassuming as ever. His wide and muscular frame seemed to contradict his white hair and bony hands; even after knowing him for so long, Logan still couldn't guess his true age.

Xavier quietly cleared his throat, and Logan swung his head to face him. Before Xavier had a chance to speak, Logan violently spit in his face.

Xavier blinked rapidly and Magneto barked out an arrogant laugh. "You see, Charles? I told you he would not remember."

Magneto's words reverberated in Logan's mind, empty of everything but an intense hatred of both Xavier and Magneto. The next words came to Logan as a shock,

"He doesn't realize that he asked for you to do this to him."

Logan's jaw slackened and his mouth dropped open. What? Fury now replaced with indignation, Logan peered closely at Xavier for a reply.

Xavier looked at Logan somewhat forlornly, adding to Logan's increasing confusion. "Logan…" Xavier sighed. "I have always told you that it was not possible to open the barriers in your mind, but… Eric was, and still is, certain that…" he glanced at Magneto and continued in a stronger voice, "That there may be a way. What he had proposed was extremely dangerous but you insisted on trying. I set it up myself…"

Xavier paused and shook his head, lost in the memory. Logan still couldn't recall having ever been told such information.

He took a deep breath and continued, "This all happened four days ago. I tried to go deep, but you blacked out and there were no results. Thank the gods you've finally woken up. I'm afraid that Magneto's idea has not work—"

"Not true." Magneto interrupted loudly. "You refused to dig deep enough. If I had had my way and forced you to—"

"As I was saying Logan," Xavier quietly but effectively cut Magneto off, "That in view of the risks, I am afraid there is nothing more I can to do help this unfortunate situation. We can only hope that, with time, your mind will heal and bring forth the memories you are so desperate to remember." Xavier took a long look at the straps holding Logan to the hospital bed.

"I must remind you, however, that the memories may not actually be what you seek. Perhaps it is better that you not know. Ignorance is bliss, after all."

Logan tensely watched Xavier as he quietly spoke, very aware of Magneto's intense stare. He was unable to remember any of the events that Xavier had described. With a sense of finality, Logan watched as Xavier stepped forward to unstrap him from his restraints.

Suddenly, Logan's mind exploded with pain. Bright colours clouded his senses as memories of untold horrors flooded his brain.

He remembered.

Logan knew, with a sudden clarity, what the Weapon X Project was and why he was without memories. He suddenly knew about the Professor, and all the others who had inflicted unimaginable tortures on him.

He remembered Silver Fox, the woman he had fallen in love with after his fiancée, Mariko Yashida, had died.

Silver Fox brought out the most powerful emotion deep within him. Yet he could not fathom why. Memories were still being held captive in the deep contours of his brain.

Logan's vision swam in and out of focus. Magneto was standing behind Xavier, hands on his shoulders. Incoherently shouting at them, Logan felt another stab of pain; his vision blurred and he saw flashes of colour once more.

With a gasp, he relived one of his most painful and most deeply suppressed memories.

Logan stood, looking far out into the horizon as the orange-red canvas of the sky slowly dimmed with the setting sun. Ears pricked for the slightest movement, he relaxed his shoulders and quietly sat on the mossy boulder on the ground. He was in the Canadian wilderness; a place he had not been in a while, since he had been somewhat-forcefully recruited to the Weapon X Project and Department H.

The fact that he was a highly trained operative for the Canadian government wasn't the part that bothered him, though. It wasn't even the killing of innocents that he took part in every time he had a mission. Logan had been around for a long time and all he wanted now was a place to relax. This next mission was going to be tough; it was personal.

He thought back to all the times he and she had spent time together. Logan had been horrified to find out that she was the mole; Silver Fox didn't seem like the type of person to play the role of double agent.

But the evidence was sound, and when Logan though more about it, he realized that the clues had been there all along. He just hadn't wanted to see them.

Silver Fox was a ruthless woman; her aggressiveness and lack of mercy almost matched Logan's. They had been a perfect match – his love of fighting with reckless abandon and her love of murdering vindictively. But now it would be over.

The funny thing was – and it made Logan smile even in his chaotic and depressed state of mind – that he didn't even know her real name. All he had was an alias; Logan hadn't even told her his own real name, not that he even knew it. The Weapon X surgeons had made sure of that. Logan suddenly wondered if she even knew her own real name.

A twig snapped fifty metres away and Logan snapped to attention. A slight shift of air behind him alerted him to the fact that she had crept up behind him a lot faster than he had anticipated. Logan whirled around.

"Silverfox."

Silver Fox's eyes widened in surprise; apparently she had though she was being completely silent. Then she frowned and brushed some of her wispy dark hair from her eyes.

"Wolverine," she replied, a smile curving her lips playfully. Mockingly. The twinkle in her eyes made Logan's stomach squirm. Even know, she was teasing him for his formality.

But of course she didn't know.

Logan recalled the day he first met her. It had been a wet, cold day in the holographic training room. The room's artificially-created weather had been completely opposite to the weather outside.

He had greeted her coldly, unaware that they would later fall in love. At that moment he was being forced to take her along to be trained in the art of assassination.

The thing that had struck him the most was her eyes. The pale features of her face, and her hair, such a deep brown that it looked black, brought out the colourlessness in her eyes. They were a blue-grey colour, but you wouldn't notice it at first glance. Anyone who didn't know her would think that her irises were clear, or that they were silver. Logan often wondered if this was the reason that she had been named Silver Fox.

Even now, as he contemplated the way he would kill her, he found himself trapped in the depths of her eyes. It was as if she could reach into his soul and read him like an open book, the way she had always been able to.

In a flash of defiance, Logan wondered what would happen if he decided not to kill her. They couldn't force him; he was much more powerful than they would ever be, and they knew it. They had ordered him to eliminate her from the team with swift effectiveness, but now that he faced her; Logan wasn't sure that he would be able to go through with it.

"Logan?" Silver Fox watched him with concern on her face. The irony of the situation made Logan want to laugh.

Her pale beauty was enhanced by the glowing light of the setting sun. In this light, she looked like the radiant goddess Athena, whose description of wiliness and combative personality matched her perfectly.

A shrill bird call brought Logan back to the present. He tore himself away from her eyes and turned towards the distant forest below.

They were on a hilly cliff-side in the northerly mountainous region of British Columbia. Logan had grown up in an area quite like this one, over sixty years ago. He still remembered it vividly and it was the reason he so loved and abhorred the sight of raw wilderness. In a way, it represented his own savage and violent nature.

Turning back towards Silver Fox and silently cursing to himself for acting so distant and distracted, Logan made an effort to act normally.

He looked out across the wide expanse of wilderness and grunted, "This place brings back memories."

Silver Fox looked at him with faint curiosity. She looked as if she wanted to ask him something; she opened her mouth to speak, but after a few moments, closed it again without saying a word.

Logan watched the sunlight shine on her pale skin. He shifted his weight and readjusted his position on the mossy ground.

"Did Cutler give you your new assignment yet?" Dale Cutler was the coordinator for the special operation division of Department H, the Weapon X Project in particular. He had been one of the heads of security during Logan's "rite of passage", the period of transformation. The experiments.

Cutler was the one who briefed the special operatives, most of them mutants who were experimented on and "improved" in some way. It had been Cutler who had given him this mission.

Cutler should have known what had been coming for him from the moment the words escaped his lips. Perhaps he had, and he just managed to conceal his fears and anxiety. Nobody wanted to be around when Logan got angry. He was unstable; often giving way to berserk madness. Lately he had been better, though. He didn't lose control as often. But Cutler's concise briefing had completely unhinged Logan. Cutler had managed to escape from the room without too much damage, however; he had gone to the hospital wing with only a fractured femur, a few broken ribs, and a punctured lung.

Logan smiled in grim satisfaction, recollecting the shocked horror on the junior security officers' faces when Cutler had dragged himself limply from the room after their encounter.

He turned back to Silver Fox, who was frowning in contemplation. "No…" she started slowly, "I was actually quite puzzled by the fact that the superiors had my briefing delayed. They told me that I should go back next week and that I had the weekend off." She looked up at Logan with a coy smile. "Why? Did you happen to do anything to him?"

Logan grimaced inwardly. She knew him so well. With a grin, he replied, "Kind of. He pissed me off."

"Some assignment," she mused. "That bad, no?"

"You bet." Logan's tormented mind swam with excuses, different methods to get out of the situation he was in. But no, if she was the mole, then she should die.

Logan watched as Silver Fox stood up and smoothly stepped across the uneven hill, to the opposite side of the cliff. She sighed. "Beautiful, isn't it?"

Logan nodded absently. All his senses urged him forward. All his instincts told him that now was the time. The time to do it.

The time to kill her.

Logan stood slowly, agonizingly aware of what he was about to do. He took great pains to be quiet, to be stealthy. He came up behind her and made to put his hands on her waist.

But he didn't. Instead, he stroked her back slowly, to abate any suspicions she might have. Then, with a metallic scrape, he quickly unsheathed his claws and swiftly plunged it into the small of her back.

Silver Fox made no sound. Her only reaction was a sharp intake of breath and a shallow exhale. Logan didn't know what else to do. His senses told him that he should finish it off, kill her, but Logan couldn't bring himself to do it.

He detached his claws from her body, slowly retracting them into his knuckles. Silver Fox collapsed to the ground. Logan just stood above her, letting the pain of what he had done wash over and consume him.

The pain was excruciating. It dulled all other senses. Logan could hardly believe he could feel so much and so little at the same time.

Chaos engulfed him. Logan let out a roar that echoed throughout the wilderness, mocking his internal suffering.

After a few minutes that seemed to last several long eternities, Logan heard a dry cough. He emerged from his self-inflicted comatose state to realize that she was still alive.

Logan got down on his knees and gently lifted her up, turning her onto her back. The deep gashes had been sliced upwards, and blood was pooled on the floor where she had been laying.

He cradled her to his chest, getting blood all over his chest and arms. Thick blood oozed from the deep wounds that extended from the back of her body straight through to the front. The deep red blood, contrasting so greatly with her pale skin, completely soaked her. She was seeped in blood; some of it dripped onto his legs and feet.

Her eyes were still open, watching him quietly. There was no accusation in her eyes. She looked at him, teeth grit in pain, but she said nothing. Her shallow breaths wheezed through her gritted teeth with rasping sounds.

Finally, she coughed again, spraying blood all over his down-turned face and said in a low voice, "I knew something was wrong the moment they told me I had no assignment. Then when I found you here…" She paused; a dry, hacking cough shook her frame. She continued, "I realized something was wrong. You were so quiet, so distant… and then I knew."

"But…" Logan was at a loss for words. His own suffering was inhibiting him; his mind was working sluggishly.

Remorse flooded him. He had no idea what she meant. Was she really so willing to die?

Silver Fox closed her eyes and said, "I knew this would happen eventually; Weapon X couldn't allow my survival. I betrayed them. And you." Her eyes opened and she looked at him coldly. "I knew what I was doing and I'm not sorry I did it. But if it's either you or me, I'd rather you live."

Logan stared at her, and another wave of pain washed over him. He held her tightly, in shock.

Logan stayed kneeled on the ground for a long time, his arms around the woman he had loved, and had killed on orders. During this time, his mind slowly shut down.

Growling like a feral beast, he let himself go, until he no longer recognized the woman lying dead in front of him. He gave way completely, to savage madness.

Logan let out a savage howl, and with a rush of deeply-felt emotions mirroring those in his memories, he threw himself forward.

His mind seemed to be playing tricks on him. He could see the deep red, thick blood of his long-dead lover all over his hands and arms. Stripes of blood splattered his chest, and Logan felt almost certain that, if he were to look in a mirror, he would find the blood she had coughed onto his face.

Something deep inside Logan told him it was a hallucination, yet it all seemed so real…

In the distance, alarms sounded and shrill beeps filled the air. A flurry of activity behind him dimly reminded Logan of where he was.

His vision swam in and out of focus and the blood continued to spill all over his hands and arms. It was as it she was still bleeding in his arms…

Logan's mind was in a haze; he was slowly drifting into unconsciousness.

Surrendering gratefully into the deep abyss of blackness, Logan heard Xavier's horrified exclamations, and he was vaguely aware of Magneto's harsh replies.

In the din, Logan heard a female shriek and the shattering of glass. Frantic voices snapped orders,

"I need an IV start on pump three, he's going into shock."

"So much blood…"

"…to stop the bleeding…"

"Get a surgeon in here; we need to plug the wounds…"

"…not possible… won't heal fast enough…"

"…blood…"

The last thing Logan heard was an exclamation of horror as someone, probably the surgeon, he thought dimly, entered the room with a bang of opening doors.

"My God! He's ripped himself completely through the restraints!"

Logan's only reaction as he was ensnared by the enticing emptiness of the unconscious mind was a deep sense of relief at the realization that the pools of blood surrounding him were his, and not Silver Fox's.

Then he surrendered into oblivion.

A/N: Good? Not good? Tell me what you think! I'm glad to say, that after about two months of having this file on my laptop, I have /finally/ decided to post it. Anyway, reviews make me happy, so... make my day?

kthxbye ~ Kida