CHAPTER FOUR
The first thing Laura does when Elena returns to the motel is smell her.
She barely has a second to set down the grocery bag, her phone and spare change before Laura grabs her hand and snifs her palm, deeply.
"Mama?" Laura inhales again, nostrils flaring. "You smell..."
Elena chuckles a little. "Do I smell bad?"
"No."
"Then what is it?"
"You smell...familiar."
Familiar? Elena doesn't know what to make of that. "Should I be worried, Laura?"
The girl shakes her head, staring at Elena's hand with an odd expression which Elena eventually decides to ignore.
One thing at a time, she thinks, while removing the items out of the grocery bag. She hands Laura a granola bar and bottled war, two slices of bread and a cut of cheese. The girl is all but shoving it down her mouth, manners be damned. If she can live long enough to see Laura to safety, them both to safety, she'll worry about teaching the child etiquette then.
Elena sits down on a chair by the door, her face turned to the window and releases a deep sigh.
She's trying to remain strong for Laura. She's trying to keep it all together, the memories, the pain, the isolation of Transigen. But it feels as if it's all dangling in front of her like a thread about to break now that she's finally coming down from the high of escape.
"Charles says hello." Laura says between mouthfuls of bread and cheese.
"Tell Charles I say hello." Elena sinks down further into the chair, her thoughts on other things though she doesn't mind humoring the child.
She stares down at the hand she'd placed on the stranger in the alleyway.
When was the last time she'd touched a man willingly?
The last seven years have been filled with the threat of violence and death, focusing solely on the physical health of the children and praying with the other nurses that they'd find a way out of that hell. Anyway out.
And then that night with Pierce.
She's pushed it so far down her mind that the memory is like a bully, resurfacing when she shuts her eyes to sleep.
Don't think about it, Elena breathes in deeply.
Seven years of holding children, her Laura, soothing their emotional aches as best as she could. Seven years of not seeing her family, of not seeing her friends, not hearing a voice from her past.
The internal loneliness is welling up, threatening to choke her from the inside out.
It is the sound of a vehicle parking outside that has Elena rushing to the window later that evening. She spots Laura immediately in her red coat, no longer playing with her red ball. Instead, the girl is tracking the tall man who steps out of the limo.
Elena's breath is a sharp intake, shocked, when the man comes into view.
This time he is dressed in a worn black suit and white shirt. He is still walking with an unsteady gait and looks just as tired as before. Just as irritable and gruff.
The Wolverine.
Elena would have liked to say that her heart was moved, but that isn't true. It feels more like a strange creeping sensation that causes the hairs on the back of her neck to stand, a hyper awareness of some-sort along with the stunning realization that the man from before was him.
She almost lets out a hysterical laugh. No wonder Laura had said she smelled familiar. Of course she would. They would share similar scents. They are feral creatures, after all.
Moving away from the window she opens the door before he can knock.
She sees the moment he recognizes her and somehow still manages to distractedly notice Laura lingering somewhere behind him. Elena sees the edge of her red coat before her gaze is swinging back to his. Those arched brows are pinched downward with narrowed eyes. The gesture is so like Laura that she has to bite her lip from the hysteria that threatens to rise again. Or maybe the correct way to think of it is that Laura is so like him.
"You - "
"I...I need a ride." Elena cuts him off, hoping she sounds firm but is doubtful.
She's not thought through to this part. The part where they finally meet and she tells him that the girl lurking behind him is his daughter via stolen DNA. Oh, and can he please help them escape to Canada? But first they need to get to North Dakota. What a mess this is going to be, she thinks.
The finding the Wolverine part had always been a gamble. She knew that out of the X-Men that died at Westchester last year, he would be one of the only ones to be able to survive such an event. From what Elena knows, the Wolverine is practically immortal.
But as she looks up at him, she gets a terrible sinking feeling that something is very wrong with him now.
"I ran into you earlier." His voice is growly and surly and causes her toes to curl in her worn shoes.
"Yeah, what a coincidence, eh?" The minute she lets an "eh" slip out her eyes widen a fraction. This is not the time to be caught out being a fellow Canadian. "I mean - I mean, yeah, what are the odds, right?"
His arched brow climbs higher.
"Look, just tell me where you need to go, lady, and I'll take you there." His jaw clenches briefly as he stares down at her with a closed expression.
"My daughter and I," Elena gestures her head to Laura behind him who remains mute, staring up at her father with the same closed expression he sports now. "We need a ride to North Dakota."
He lets out a sharp laugh filled with disbelief. "Are you fuckin' out of your mind, lady? I don't drive out of state for anyone."
Elena panics when he simply turns around to leave and blurts out the only thing she can think of.
"I'll give you fifty thousand dollars!"
That freezes him, but not for long, as Elena realizes that Laura is in full view in front of him.
Oh god.
"She your daughter?"
"Yes." Elena watches Laura's blank face still staring up at him. It is impossible to figure out what the child is thinking.
He shakes his head, turns back to her. "I can't just take off - "
"Please!" Elena is willing to get down on her knees and beg, but there's too much to say - too much to explain. Where does she begin? How does she start this?
"Look, I don't know what kind of shit you're involved in but I can smell it." His eyes darken suspiciously. "And I want no part of it, you got that? So get someone else to drive you to wherever the fuck you wanna go."
Then he turns, his long strides taking him back to his car and Elena is left almost speechless, grasping at nothing but air.
No.
NO.
She runs to him, passing Laura's bizarrely calm expression, and without thinking and acting out of sheer desperation, she catches up to him and makes to grab him - but instead ends up wrapping her arms around his middle.
For a split second all she can feel is something akin to steel before he whips around furiously, shoving her arms away from him.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" He looms over her, an incredulous look of rage on his face. "Are you fucking crazy?!"
Elena thinks, yes, I am crazy and I have no pride left. So the word finally spills from her -
"Wolverine."
His face tightens visibly at the word - the name - and he actually backs away from her.
"I know you're the Wolverine! P-please! I - we - need your help! I...I...there's no one else we can turn to." She knows she is babbling now, but she doesn't care. "My name is Elena. I was a nurse from Transigen in Mexico City. There is a man - Pierce - who is after us. He wants to kill us. I-I'm begging you, begging, please help us. I can give you twenty thousand dollars now and when we get to North Dakota you can get the rest. Please."
"You shouldn't have told me your name," he spits out. "I don't need your shit. Whatever you're involved in is not my fucking problem. I've got plenty of my own."
"My daughter is a mutant!" It comes out as a furious whisper. "Transigen is a cover for mutant experimentation. She was born in the facility along with other children designed to be weapons. She's like you - "
"Shut the fuck up," he growls darkly and steps forward. "I don't give a shit about other mutants. It'd be best for all of us if you forget you saw me and I saw you. Find someone else."
What had she expected? Growing up she'd heard stories of him, the Wolverine. He was a hero, an integral part of the force that saved thousands of lives over the course of his life time.
His legacy is a stark contrast to the man who before her, a man nearly past his prime who is cynical and tired.
You were expecting a good man, she thinks to herself.
A good man.
"I know you're still good -"
"You don't know shit about me." This time he touches her, grabbing her by the arms. Elena can feel the bite of his fingers, so very aware of the deadly claws that lurk beneath. She glances backward at Laura who has now moved forward, her little nose twitching, small shoulders tense. She is about to tell him to let her go when he shakes her, hard, her teeth knocking together painfully. "There's nothing good about me, do you understand?"
"L-Let me go. Laura - " she begins in a helpless tone, not knowing how to say that the child close by is prone to deadly rages. She is starting to feel lightheaded.
In his anger he has actually hoisted her up so her feet are dangling. Like this, Elena can almost stare him eye to eye. She is so afraid, afraid for them and of him. She can't help the tears that threaten to spill. She wishes she is stronger than this. But running on empty for so many years has not helped.
"Do you understand?" He is breathing harshly now, not letting her go.
Looking into his eyes does something strange to her. A fleeting feeling of tenderness washes over her and she wants to scrub it away as quickly as it came. Perhaps it is because Laura comes from him, she's not sure.
"But you've done good things," she whispers not knowing that her words are like an anvil around his neck. "I know you've done good things."
Time feels suspended between them, as if they're on the precipice of something.
And then he lets her go like she's burned him. Her knees buckle and she catches herself by the palms on the rough pavement.
"Fuck!"
Elena flinches at the sound of his contained curse. She knows he wants to scream but instead it sounds like a furious whisper. She struggles to stand, wiping her scraped palms against her jeans when she suddenly feels a small hand wrapping around her wrist.
Laura is next to her with a deep frown on her face, brows narrowed, a look of murder on her small face. Elena recognizes that look. She wonders what the girl's first impression of her father. Absently, she think maybe she'll ask her later.
"Laura -"
"You've got your wish," the Wolverine snaps in her direction. "But I'm not taking you today. I'll be back tomorrow - noon. If you're not ready by the time I get back then you better find your own fuckin' way north."
With that, he turns around, leaving her speechless with exhausted elation. It is a minute later that she realizes she is still staring blindly after his car has long screeched out of the motel parking lot, still in disbelief that he said yes.
And with that realization, Elena turns to Laura next to her, gathers her into her arms and finally cries.