September, 1844

A young girl scampered down the steps of her father's grand estate, a large mansion filled with expensive furniture and knickknacks, magnificent paintings, all set in a gorgeous landscape of lush, green grass and tall oak trees. The mansion was owned by none other than William Howlett, father of two youngsters, James and Guinevere. The manor was also accustomed to Victor Logan, a teenage boy, friend of James, who would often visit the boy, partially because of his father's job at the house as a gardener.

Currently, Victor and Jimmy were out in the forest, probably playing war, acting as any two young boys would, when the girl, Guinevere, decided that her dolls were starting to get dreary, and that she wanted to do something else with none other than her older brother. She was now dashing out of the house, hiking up her skirt and showing off her bare feet, heading towards the meadow the boys usually played.

When Guinevere got to the meadow of tall, soft grass, she saw James, or Jimmy, and Victor pointing their fingers at each other and making large boom noises as they "shot" each other.

"Jimmy! Jimmy! Can I play with you?" She shouted, running across the battlefield to them, while Victor rolled his eyes.

When she reached the two, Jimmy told her, "I'm not sure, sister. I don't think you could keep up with us. We're very adventurous, and we don't let anything stop us or slow us down." He puffed out his chest with pride as Victor stepped forward.

"Besides, princess, only guys can fight in wars."

"Who says I can't fight? I can be just as strong as you guys."

Victor stood tall and sneered at her. "Are you sure about that?" he asked. She nodded her head furiously. "Fine," he gave in, "You can hang with us, but if you can't keep up, we'll just leave you behind, got it?"

"Got it!" she squealed, overjoyed.

Jimmy held out a stick to Guinevere. "Here's your gun, private. You're on my team, since we're family. We're gonna try to shoot Victor, alright?"

She quickly snatched the twig out of his hand and pointed t to Victor, pulled it back and laughed, "We won! We won!"

Victor groaned. "No, Jennie. That's not how it works. Us and Victor go to different sides of the field, crouch down, then try to find each other in the grass, and when we do, we shoot at each other," Jimmy told her.

They lined up and played as all kids do, smiling and laughing, even Victor gave a wry grin here and there, until Victor decided it was getting boring, and told the other two that they would be climbing trees now, and compete to see who could climb the highest, knowing he would win.

Guinevere was determined to win, so she climbed and climbed, grasping branch after branch, but she still only got around twenty feet in the air before she was too tired to keep going. Deciding to descend, she threw one of her legs down, thinking she would catch the branch under her, but instead, the tree tore through her calf and she fell a few yards before grabbing at another branch. Terrified, she yelped out.

Victor surged through the limbs of his tree before hearing Guinevere's piercing scream. He slid down the trunk of the tree swiftly, and caught one last branch before dropping completely, landing on his feet.

"Princess!" he called out, "Princess!" By this time Jimmy was able to jump down from his perch on a branch and sprint over to Guinevere's tree, where she was hanging for dear life.

"Jimmy! Help me! My leg hurts soooo much!"

Victor hurriedly climbed up the tree to Guinevere, grabbing her and jumping down to the ground with her in tow, bridal style. He laid her down on the grass, and studied her leg. The gash in her calf was bleeding greatly, and ruining the girl's dress. Victor tore off the bottom hem of his shirt, and dabbed away the blood from the wound. As he tried to heal Guinevere's injury, Jimmy looked on with tears in his eyes, and the girl cried out in pain.

"OW! Stop! Take me back to daddy! You're hurting me!" she yelled. Victor continued.

"Stop struggling, you'll be fine. If I bring you home now instead of treating you, you could get hurt worse, and lose more blood than you should."

"Is she going to be all right, Vic? Mother will kill me if we bring her back dead," Jimmy whispered.

Guinevere stopped kicking her legs and just cried on the ground. When Victor finished, he looked over his handiwork and stood, lifting the girl and starting to carry her back to her home. The girl finished sniffling, and snuggled into Victor's chest. "Thank you."

He just grunted in response. 'See? I can do something right,' he thought to himself.

April 2008

"Twist him around a bit, or else he won't fit through the door," Kate told Logan as they were pulling Sabretooth into the med bay for examination. Already in the medical room was the resident Beast, Ororo, Jean, Scott, and entering behind Logan was Professor Charles Xavier, who had already had a discussion with Logan at the door, agreeing that he could come in, only if Xavier accompanied him when he woke up.

"Where are we putting him? That table?" They lifted him onto the table, Kate gently, and Logan

not so gentle. Beast immediately stood and walked over shyly to the beast, bending over just a bit to study the side of his head where the injury was rapidly healing.

"Well, it seems as if it is healing normally enough, but I'm not sure how long he'll stay unconscious. I am not very familiar with his healing capabilities," Hank stated, trying to reassure the girl.

Kate took a step forward, tapping on Hank's shoulder. "May I see him, please?" she asked with a smile. When she saw him nod she knelt down and gripped his head in her hands, twisting it around. "He'll be just fine, I'm sure. But he'll stay passed out for a few minutes even after it's healed, for the brain to reboot." She took a few more moments to look at his head before saying, "My name's not Kate."

"What?" Logan questioned, snapping his head to attention.

"My name isn't Kate Johnson. It's Guinevere. Guinevere Howlett. I told you different because people aren't named Guinevere so often anymore. I called myself Kate Johnson to fit in."

"Howlett? That sounds familiar."

"Well, damn it, it should. It's your name, Jimmy."

Logan stood and glared at the girl. "What are you saying? Just come out with it. Tell me straight."

Kate stood up to look at Logan. "Your name is James Howlett. You're my half-brother, and his half brother. But Vic and I are on different sides of your family. We share a mother. You and Vic share your father, even though I really doubt that."

Logan was speechless for a few moments. In his months travel he's only gained snippets of his life, nothing serious. Now he has a sister, and who knows what she could tell him about himself. After he fell out of his awestruck phase, he grew doubtful. The only words he could think of was: "Prove it."

She stared at him with her mouth wide open. "No way. You are the most stubborn man in the world. Why do you always doubt whatever is told to you?"

"Well do you really expect me to do? Believe you? You're fuckin' buddies with my worst enemy! Am I supposed to just go with it? I want to know this before I fall into a trap set up by you, damn it!"

At this particular moment, Creed chose to wake up and growled. As he opened his eyes he saw where he was and jumped up from his seat and roared. He did not move, but he still stood with his claws out and ready to slash out at anyone who moved. Guinevere, standing beside Victor, stayed still and calm, glaring at her brother. She slowly lifted her arms up to his shoulder and side, patting them and then softly pushing him back down to sit. "Relax, Vic. Don't kill anyone."

"What the hell am I doing in here? You never told me that you were going to do this." Victor snarled, coming out flustered rather than angry.

"Well I wasn't planning on bringing you in here but when Jimmy tackled you and half of your brain splashed out of your thick skull. I had to think quickly," she laughed whole-heartedly. "This is my solution."

Logan grunted. "So, back to what I was saying before reckless here decided to rise and shine," Logan glared at the beast, "How can I trust you?"

Guinevere glared at him, "You want proof? I got it, but it's all in my room so if you don't fucking trust me enough to go in there, well, then I guess you're screwed."

As the team filed into the mess of a room, most found it hard to stand on the carpet. Photos and random papers filled with bills and job applications (mostly for bars) were scattered over the floor. Other than the clutter that filled the room, the furniture was mostly normal. It was the same furniture in every professor's room: wooden bed frame with blue sheets, nightstand, bookshelf, desk, chair, and dresser. What were odd in the space were the items surrounding the furnishings.

The bookshelf held, instead of books, a photo frame and boxes of bullets. On top of the nightstand were three small handguns, a six pack of Sam Adams, and another two photo frames. On the desk were sticky notes, plastered to every nook and cranny of the table. All read reminders of jobs, and some that explained what happened that day, whatever day she wrote the note. Many were dated. Dozens of Polaroid's were pinned to the walls, with captions written underneath them.

"You have weapons here!" Scott exclaimed, pointing to her nightstand. The room audibly gasped and turned their heads to the dreaded things.

"Relax, stretch, I'll unload them." Guinevere proceeded to swiftly disassemble each weapon, dropping the useless pieces onto the floor below them.

"What are you doing with guns in my school? You must know they are strictly disallowed," the professor calmly dropped a guilt bomb onto her.

She cringed. "Sorry Xavier. It's just that, well, Vic here is a little over protective. He wanted me to be safe if the mansion was attacked again. I would never use them against anyone here. If you don't want them here, I could 'donate' them to the danger room."

"I understand your reasoning, and in any other case I might have let you keep them, but concerning your connections and your past dishonesty I cannot let you be near them outside of the danger room. Please turn them in sometime after this situation."

"Yes, Professor," she said with her head held down while Victor mumbled something sarcastic about how "fucking forgiving" the Professor was.

While Victor and Guinevere had a small quarrel of how Victor wanted to get the fuck outta there, Logan went exploring. He went to the desk first, reading one of the notes stuck to the side of the wood.

4/09

Had leftover mashed potatoes for breakfast.

Nightcrawler made me laugh with his stories of the circus during dinner.

Getting really crazy with the sticky notes, need my Journal back.

I need to get a friend in this place, this room is too messy to stay in for more than a couple minutes.

He put that one back, the same place he found it, and picked up a new one.

6/20

School's out for the kids, I'll have even more time on my hands.

Jimmy's still a dumbass.

No sign of Jimmy today, as usual.

Vic said he thinks the bastard will be longer than I expected.

I'm starting to agree with him.

Logan put that one back too, looking back to Guinevere, now punching Sabretooth playfully in the arm with a wide grin. The others were also looking around, mostly at the pictures hung up on the wall. He turned back to the desk, picking up a frame from the bookshelf above it. It held, in worn down, brown paper. What was the outstanding part were the two men underneath the glass. It was him, with a full beard and mustache, but obviously him. Next to him was a man who bore a striking resemblance to Creed, with shorter, darker hair and an evil smirk on his face. They were both looking regal in blue, buttoned uniforms. Logan knew he was in a war or two, but these uniforms looked too old.

"That, one hundred percent, is my favorite picture. It's a photograph of you and Vic that you got in the Civil War. It came with your medals."

"Medals?" He asked, turning to see her glowing face smiling at the photograph.

"Well, they had to give you two something, sometime. You and Victor were completely unstoppable when you worked together. They offered you promotions all the time, but neither of you wanted them. You liked working on the field."

With that last remark, Logan had had enough. He roughly dropped down the picture frame, and strode out of the room, nostrils flaring. Guinevere was left gawking, open-mouthed at the door. "What a dumbass."

"I told you," Victor taunted with a smirk.

"Yeah, yeah, you won. I'll give you the bet money later. For now, I have to make sure I didn't do all this for nothing," she said while hurrying out the door. On her way out, she quickly turned back to Victor, shouting, "Don't kill anyone!" into the room.

Logan had just about made it to the end of the long hallway when he heard someone shouting at him. With all the ferocity in the yell, he was sure it would be Victor when he turned around. Instead, he saw a fuming young girl just a few yards behind him.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Getting the hell out of here, what did ya think?"

"I think you would have a little more sense than you're using right now. Think for a minute. You have been searching for some hints at your past forever, haven't you! And now you don't need to go on fruitless missions anymore! I can tell you everything that's happened to you since you were born! Why are you running away from me?"

"I'm not running away from you!"

"Oh yeah? Then what are you doing?"

"I'm running away from him!" As Logan shouted the frames on the wall rattled, but Guinevere stood her ground. "I can't be related to that… that bastard! I'm nothing like him!"

She looked at him, about to cry, but no tears fell. "Look, Jimmy. I don't care about any of the issues you have with Victor, but he's your brother, whether you like it or not, and I really hope you would stop hating him, even if he deserves it. You have to know that he's saved your life more times you could count, mine too. He's our big brother. Friendships will come and go, but family's forever. Now would you please just stay?" She looked up at him pleadingly.

He groaned. "Fine. I'll stay"