Disclaimer: I don't own the X-men, do ya think I own the X-men?!

Thank you Jessywhisper, Jinx of the 2nd Law, StarlitStar, and Guinessia for reviewing! I pushed myself to get this chapter out tonight because of all of you!

Chapter 4: Healing

The rescued mutants were beginning to transition back into society. The X-men would take them into town for short trips, first to open parks with few people, then slowly into more crowded areas and shops. They were very careful in case the rescues became overwhelmed, and would leave immediately at any sign of panic.

The feral Lynx, after a few outings, decided he'd rather go into the mountains on his own. Xavier gave him a truck and keys to a cabin in Wyoming, although there was no guarantee the man would go there.

The others began to think about where they'd like to go. Some had family and friends who they desperately wanted to see again. However, the professor wanted to make sure it was safe. Most of them had been kidnapped or tricked, and he knew that sadly, some of them had been betrayed by loved ones, whom they may not suspect even now.

Therefore, the X-men had a new mission: investigating the circumstances of these abductions. Finding out who had helped the complex, and why, and if there were other accomplices or loose ends they should know about.

Of course, the professor made it clear they were all welcome to stay indefinitely. But only a few who were young and interested in attending the school to finish their education took his offer. The rest, though grateful, were beginning to want their independence. Xavier was in contact with friends all over the world who could act as hosts and help them build new lives. With so many options available, the rescues became excited about their future.

As for Amber, she had a telepathic conversation with Xavier and told him she felt safe at the mansion and wished to stay, to heal, and to work. She was insistent that she be allowed to help in some way. The professor would never make her earn her keep, but he knew she would benefit from having a meaningful job to do and sense of purpose.

He made an agreement with her that once she was out of the wheelchair, she could help with the stables. The main reason Xavier kept horses wasn't for the luxury, but for therapeutic value. Abuse was not uncommon in the mutants who had come to his school over the years. Many of them had found solace in caring for the horses, in giving the animals what they wished had been given to themselves.

An eager Amber began walking more. Hank became worried lest she overdo it and cause a new injury to her right ankle, which was mostly healed, but still weak.

Logan was enjoying a cigar on the terrace when Amber came walking out of the kitchen. She gave him a smile as she headed slowly towards the steps leading onto the grounds, favoring her ankle.

Hank came running out after her. "My dear!" He called, his expression distressed. "At least take a crutch to support yourself, and don't go too far! What if you get tired? If you'll wait, I'm sure I can accompany you in an hour."

She smiled at Hank as he continued to stress the dangers of overexerting herself, then she glanced at Logan and rolled her eyes. Logan grinned.

Looking back to Hank, she put her finger to her lips in a shushing motion. When he quieted down, she unzipped and shrugged off the light hoodie she'd been wearing, turned her back to him, and fluttered her small wings through the hole in her tank top.

Smiling over her shoulder, Amber went up a few feet in the air, turned, then stopped her wings and held them open, floating back to the ground, where she landed gently on her left foot.

Hank was surprised into silence. He knew from the files Remy had unencrypted that she could fly, but he'd wondered how it could be done with her wings so small. Now as she flew down from the terrace onto the grass, he observed the motion of her wings. He realized that while they looked like a moth's, their movements were more like a humming bird's and their speed made up for their size. In fact the wings moved so rapidly they were almost invisible and he could hear them softly whirring.

Logan had to laugh, partly at Hank's face, and partly at Amber's actions. Ororo had told him she still slept by the open window in her room and he had to admire her stubbornness.

"Well…" Hank said. "I suppose if she gets tired she can fly back. But what if her wings get tired? Logan, I have a class to teach, could you..?"

"She'll be fine." Logan told him. "But if she's not back in half an hour I'll track her down."

Hank thanked him and went back inside.

After a half hour had passed, Logan walked towards the woods where he'd last seen Amber. He wasn't worried and he didn't hurry, he was just keeping his word to Hank. He found her scent along one of the trails and followed it. Sometimes her scent went off the trail, but then returned. It wasn't long before he spotted her, sitting in a tree just off the path. He watched as she slipped out of the tree, dropping just a bit before her wings picked her up and carried her to another tree. She did this a few more times, ignoring the trail below and heading directly towards the school, one tree at a time. He followed until she came down to the ground and started walking again, then he called out and joined her.

She smiled at him as they headed back to the school in silence. Logan noticed Amber walked quietly, and not just because she walked slow, she kept her steps light, avoided twigs that might snap underfoot, gently moved branches out of her way, and just as gently let them go. You'd think the woods were covered in carpet, she walked so softly. Logan was a quiet man himself, he didn't understand why some people could never shut up, why they couldn't stand five minutes of enjoying another's company without talking. He was enjoying Amber's quiet when he remembered why she was mute, then he swore at himself.

He glanced at her and wondered if, before the complex, she had talked much. He had a hard time imagining her as a chatterbox.

"You miss being able to talk?" He asked her.

She nodded, but held her fingers up in a gesture meaning "a little".

"Not a big talker before, huh?"

A shake of the head and a smile.

"Still, be easier wouldn't it? I don't talk much either, but it'd be a pain to go into a bar and order a drink with a notepad instead of just telling them."

Another smile and a nod. Amber had a notepad and pen for communicating, but rarely used them. In fact she often forgot to keep them with her. She'd told Jean telepathically she didn't have much to say anyways.

"You going ahead with the surgery?" He asked. He knew Hank and Jean had been talking to her about removing the scar tissue from her throat and seeing what they could do about her vocal cords.

She nodded again, looking worried.

"Still scared of the room?"

A huge nod for emphasis. She'd been slowly facing her fear of the medical ward with Hank and Jean's help. First by going into the lower levels and just looking into the room, before quickly heading back to the elevator. After doing that a few times, she stepped into Hank's lab, which was smaller and didn't have any gurneys, just lots of equipment and work counters. But she couldn't step into the med ward yet, she'd tried, and her flight or fight instincts had kicked in. While a part of her knew it wasn't the same room, it wasn't at the complex, and they weren't going to experiment or torture, that Hank and Jean were friends and wanted to help her, the rest of her couldn't forget the three years at the complex. Like a reflex or a muscle memory, her heart would race and her hands shake when she came near the threshold, everything in her screaming to run.

"You know," Logan said, "I was in a lab once, still have nightmares about it."

Amber stopped and stared at him, shock on her face.

"Yeah, I woke up downstairs in that room when I first came here. Total panic, I almost ripped Jean's head off." He frowned at the memory. He still regretted it, he had apologized to Jean, but she had brushed the incident off like it was nothing.

Amber reached for his hand and squeezed it, which took him by surprise, the Wolverine was definitely not the hand-holding type. "Still makes me nervous sometimes, but you gotta decide who's stronger, you or the room."

He let go of her hand and looked at her. "So what's it gonna be?"

Her worried eyes met his, then she held up her arm and flexed her small biceps, giving him a smile.

Logan chuckled and when they came in sight of the school, he chuckled again at Hank. The large blue man was on the terrace looking like a worried mother hen.

"Did you get tired my dear?" Hank asked Amber.

She shook her head.

"You don't need to worry so much, she's tougher than she looks." Logan told him, and Amber smiled widely in agreement.

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After the surgery, Amber was recovering in her room. The anesthesia made her groggy. Jean and Hank were very proud of her, she'd needed deep breaths and taken tiny baby steps, but she had walked herself into the med ward and sat on the gurney before they took her into the operating room.

The professor was sitting with her, reading from a favorite book of his, The Once and Future King. He detected that Amber was thirsty, so when he came to a stopping point he asked if she'd care for tea. She nodded her head, and he left for the kitchen, returning soon after with a tray and two cups. He had earl grey for himself and chamomile with a honey straw for her, knowing her throat would be swollen and sore after surgery.

As they were enjoying their tea, she began to think about Logan, and asked the professor a question with her mind. He decided the best person to answer the question would be Logan himself, so he reached out telepathically and found the man opening a beer in the kitchen. He asked Logan to join them, inviting him to bring his beer, since he and Amber already had drinks of their own.

Logan came in to Amber's room feeling confused, then he saw the tea cups and smiled. "Nice one Chuck." He said as he gave a salute with his beer bottle. "Whatcha need me for?"

"Amber had a question about you, and I thought it best you answer it yourself. It's about the lab you were in."

Logan took a slow pull from his beer. "What d'you wanna know?"

Amber looked at the professor, her brows furrowed.

"She says you don't have to talk about it if you don't want to, she herself hates to even think about the complex."

Logan nodded, "I'll tell you what I can, I don't normally talk about it, but…since you were in the same sorta hellhole..."

Amber gave a sad smile, then looked at the professor. He cleared his throat, then told Logan, "She says, and I quote: Hell of a thing to have in common."

Logan barked a laugh, partly from the statement, and partly from it coming out of Xavier's mouth.

He could tell they were having a telepathic conversation and Amber gave him an apologetic look, then the professor turned to him and said, "Amber's given me an idea, rather than me translate what she wants to say, I could telepathically connect with both of you. Then you could hear her yourself."

"Can you do that?"

"Yes, but I don't do it often, it can be disorienting, and some people can't focus, they let their thoughts reveal more than they mean to."

Logan thought about it. "Go ahead."

The professor got a faraway look in his eyes.

"Hello?" Logan heard a woman's voice in his head.

"Amber? Did you just say hello to me?"

She smiled. "Yes, am I coming through clear? Or too loud?"

"Nah, you're just fine." He said, and he thought to himself how soft her voice was, just like the way she had walked in the woods. Amber blushed and he remembered what the Professor said about revealing thoughts, so he quickly tried to focus.

"What'd you wanna ask me?"

"In the woods, you said you were in a lab too, and it surprised me. You're so strong, I can't imagine you being in a place like I was. I was wondering how they caught you, and if the X-men rescued you too?"

He snorted, "The X-men didn't rescue me, I broke out and escaped. As to how they caught me, I dunno. I can't remember anything from before then. Even my escape is hazy. We found the place where I was experimented on, and the guy who ran it." He gritted his teeth at the memory of William Stryker. "He told me I was a volunteer, but I didn't trust the guy. He was psychotic. Attacked the mansion and took some of the kids." He gritted his teeth again, this time remembering the soldiers he'd gutted in the very hallway outside.

Amber looked horrified and Logan immediately felt bad, she didn't need to be seeing those memories. He was about to ask Xavier to stop the connection when he heard, "It's not that, you were protecting your family! But the children! Did you get them back?!"

"Of course darlin'." He said, and felt her relief in his mind as he watched it flow across her face. Then she looked nervously at the door behind him, and again at the open window. Through the connection, he could tell she was imagining soldiers coming for her in the night. Debating whether or not to start closing her window, the thought of which she hated.

Her eyes focused on his and she started to ask, "What did they…" Then stopped.

"Yeah?"

Amber swallowed. "I was going to ask what they did to you, but you don't have to answer."

He shrugged, "They put the adamantium in me." He extended his claws.

She looked at them appreciatively. "I think I remember, you used those to cut my chains off, right?"

"Yeah."

She beamed at him. "THANK YOU, Logan!"

"It wasn't a big deal." But he couldn't help smiling back.

"Did the adamantium help you escape?"

"Yeah, I think so. I'd rather have my memories back, but…I don't really regret having it, just the way it was done to me." Broken memories of people looking at him, clinking champagne glasses while he screamed in a tank of water flashed by. Then other memories hit him of bright lamps, cold metal, tight straps around wrists and ankles, scalpels and blood dripping on a floor, into a drain, while people in surgeon masks chatted about sports or played a radio. Then it was like a wall went up in his mind.

"Sorry." She was looking at her lap, and he realized those other memories must have been hers. "Sometimes, I think the worst part was how they made me feel like a thing, a bug. Like it didn't matter if I could feel pain." She looked up at him with a haunted expression in her eyes that bothered him more than tears would have. "Hell of a thing to have in common."

"Yeah darlin', but remember, we lived. They didn't, I killed them all." He smiled grimly at her and she grimly smiled back.

There was a tap at the door as Hank came to check on Amber. The professor warned them he was breaking the telepathic connection. "Maybe I'll talk to you again, with my voice." Amber told him.

"I'd like that." He replied, then he noticed she was looking nervously at the open window again. "And don't worry, you can leave your window open. Anybody tries to attack this school again, I'll rip them in half."

Hank gave him a shocked look, but Amber just threw her head back in a silent laugh.

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Jean and Scott were away, helping some of the rescues meet up with their families, the ones who truly had loving families that had looked for them after they disappeared. Later, they would help the rescues who'd been betrayed by their families confront them if they wished.

Hank stayed behind to cover Jean's classes and work with Amber. He had her doing throat exercises, similar to what singers do. The only difference was her silence. He warned her not to be discouraged, that it would take time for the muscles to strengthen before she could make any sound, also swelling from the surgery would make it hard at first.

Every day he looked down her throat, and was pleased to see she was healing well, with no new scar tissue forming.

About a week after surgery, Hank had woken up and was dressing for the day, when he smelled Amber outside his door. Concerned, he opened it to find her grinning and bouncing on her toes, her wings fluttering with excitement. Before he could speak, she pointed to her open mouth and a whisper soft "Ah, ah, ah" came out.

"My dear!" He exclaimed, smiling so all his teeth showed. He was so delighted he picked her up in a huge hug, and she squeezed him back.

All that morning she was practically dancing as she fluttered about, whispering vowel sounds "Ah, ee, oh" as she brushed the horses and cleaned their stalls.

At lunch time though, she ran up to Hank looking alarmed. The professor sensed her concern and telepathically communicated that she had been unable to make any sounds for the last hour. Hank immediately took her to his lab and looked down her throat. He then assured that everything was fine, that she probably just overdid it and should take it easy. She looked sad and held her arms out, in the universal request for a hug. He hugged her tightly and stroked her back, murmuring more assurances.

That evening she was able to whisper "Ah" again and went to bed with a smile, gently humming to herself.