Logan felt sick, felt the same from Teva, and he wondered why this particular memory should be so vivid, so consuming, especially when he'd already remembered parts of it. Why was this one playing out so strongly?

Part of controlling someone was giving them false hope. He and Teva watched as the animal broke free and went on a rampage killing anyone and everyone in his path just for hurting him. It was a purely feral thing. Animals didn't understand human motivations, all they understood was good and bad, and pain was very, very bad. You stop the ones who hurt you and if you have to kill them, you do. So they let him loose and he killed them all, coming finally to the three he saw the most often. The man with the beard and the glasses shot him and then died hard, the bullets doing little more than angering Logan further. He spared the woman, didn't know why, he just didn't want to kill her. She'd been questioning the whole process. Then he hunted down the tall man. He fought and regained some semblance of language, of intelligence, and he killed him. The man, his captor, died horribly.

Logan came to afterwards and moved on, confused, not knowing what had happened. There was a voice that he'd thought was talking to him and he spoke back, gaining coherence until he realized it was a recording. He left that room, wanting to get away from wherever he was and he found a body, a man who'd been killed brutally, a man he thought he recognized. There was blood on his own hands, his body, but he had no wounds. He kept looking at his hands until suddenly, violently, three razor-sharp claws burst from the backs of them, one set per hand, and the horrible truth dawned. He ran, ran like hell itself was on his heels, he wanted to get away from the pain, the suffering, the torture, the animal-

It had all been a lie, a way to test the extent of their control over him, giving him the illusion that he'd escaped when all they'd done was release him out into the compound again, this time to face a tiger. They showed him a light at the end of the tunnel and then showed him it was just a freight train coming for him.

The memory shifted, tilted nauseatingly, so that they stood on a street at night in what looked like a residential neighborhood. Houses lined the street, all dark save a few porch lights twinkling. There was screaming in the distance, helpless pleading, and they looked at each other wondering what was happening in this otherwise peaceful place.

There was an animal growling, snarling, and suddenly a man burst out of the shadows of some nearby bushes. His naked body was coated in blood, his hair wild and tangled, and he turned as if he saw them.

It was Logan. He moved with deadly confidence, a true predator, eyes utterly blank but for sheer feral bloodlust.

The real Logan collapsed to the ground on his knees as recollection hit him, tried to tear him apart. This had been the final test of the brainwashing. They'd already seen that he could kill wild animals. They'd been no match for him, nor had they been expected to. The true test had brought him here to Roanoke, a quiet midwestern town, where he was set loose to massacre the entire population, and he did it with deadly precision. Men, women and children, no one survived against a creature that knew to keep to the shadows, make the kills quickly so that no alarm would be raised, and even if one or two got away they were no match for someone who could track them like a bloodhound. He did it because he'd been ordered to, programmed to. He'd killed innocent-

Teva knelt with him, held him close. Everything else he'd been able to handle but she could feel this breaking him inside, cutting him up where no healing factor could go. She wished desperately that none of this had ever happened, that he'd remained in the dark about his past so that he didn't have to endure knowing that he'd been essentially created to hunt and kill his own kind because, truly, that was the aim of the Weapon X program: create the ultimate killing machine to do the dirty work of shady governments and whoever else could pay the high price for efficiency. The plan had been to sell him to the highest bidder and wipe his mind after every job to ensure he was never compromised. Now there were the deaths of hundreds on his head that he'd never known about and Teva could feel him pulling away, giving up because this, this was just too much.

She pulled him in, cradled his head against her chest and bowed hers over him, stroking his hair. The scene flickered around them as it became unstable with Logan's lack of will to go on. She didn't think any less of him for it because it was such a cruel blow to take. She just wished there was something she could do to ease the passing.

Her head rose as light flared off in the distance. What was that? They were still on that blood-soaked street and the light was out of place in the night sky. She closed her eyes and tried to ignore it but now she could feel it, pulsing, pulling. She touched it and her eyes opened again. Without speaking she took them there and touched Logan's face, wordlessly bidding him to open his eyes and look.

They were back at the Weapon X compound. The tiger lay on the ground, gutted, its ribs jutting out at ugly angles, its mouth still open in savage promise. Guards came out with their prods to herd him back inside and they failed, dying out in the snow like the tiger had. And now what he'd done in the false memory of escape happened for real - he hunted down those who'd hurt him, this time in absolute coherence and cold blood, vengeance the only thing on his mind. No one survived, because not a single person there had done a thing to help him. The last one died gurgling, choking, and as he headed back for the exit he heard something.

Logan lifted his head at a sound. Who had survived? He followed the noise, head down as he stumbled to the source. There were wolves still penned up, ones that hadn't been chosen to face him in some sick and deadly game, and they watched him with wary eyes, knew him for a predator like they were. Without hesitation he extracted his claws and cut the latch to free them, watched them bound out into the snow that fell heavily, making the world seem made of white, a blank canvas. It was a pure color and the wolves blended with it, became the wraiths they were meant to be as they took to their freedom. And he followed.

Teva heard a whisper, felt a kiss on her forehead. "Thank you."

Bright light pierced her eyelids, made her groan and try to cover her face with her hands. She found one trapped, whimpered and tried to get it free, panicked a little until she felt something move to let it go. Where the hell was she?

Slowly Teva's eyes opened to a room that wasn't actually all that bright, but after having her eyes closed for God knew how long, it felt like the surface of the sun trying to stab her retinas. Sight resolved finally and she found herself in her own bed rather than the medbay. It had been the blankets trapping her arm because she found herself alone. And there was that panic again. Why was she in the room she shared with Logan? And where was he?

The bathroom door opened and a cloud of steam rolled out along with the man wearing not a stitch of clothing. "Hey," he said quietly when he saw she was awake. Wordlessly she held her arms out to him, could feel tears burning her eyes and nose and it only became worse when he came to her, gathered her carefully into his arms. He smelled clean, his skin still slightly damp from the shower as she pressed her lips to his neck. "It's okay, sweetheart," he said, stroking her back.

"I'm no dead, am I?" she asked, sniffling. She heard him laugh softly. "It's no a stupid question, you insensitive arse."

He sat back on the bed, completely immodest in his nudity. "I think if you were dead you wouldn't still look like you'd gotten in a fight with an angry cat."

Teva touched her face, found healing cuts beneath her fingers. "You saying I'm ugly?" she asked, squinting at him.

"Never that." He was definitely trying to keep a straight face.

"How long has it been?" She struggled to sit up herself, felt pain in her left leg but not nearly so bad as she remembered it being before she'd gone into Logan's head. That alone made the panic rise again; had she been in a coma or something? Was that why her leg didn't hurt as much?

He made a shushing sound to soothe her. "Just a couple days. Turns out we weren't in there but a few hours."

"What? A few hours?"

"It felt like an eternity. Chuck said it's 'cause time runs different on the astral plane." He hadn't stopped touching her since he'd sat down next to her, stroking her hair or her back, carefully touching her arms or her face, rubbing his thumbs over the palms of her hands. "Y'been out this whole time. I woke up yesterday."

She let that sink in, breathed deeply and slowly. "I thought we'd reached the end, I thought I was losing you." She looked up, saw him grimace at the painful memories. "What changed?"

Logan got up and went to the dresser, pulling out a loose pair of pants. "The last bit," he said, pulling the pants on. "The last memory. Of freein' the wolves." He stood there, looking down at his hands before he looked back at her. "You gave me a reason to hang on."

"I almost did'nae see it. I did'nae want to lose it once I did." She shifted again before throwing back the covers, scooting to the edge of the bed despite the protesting pain. She wore only an oversized T-shirt and a pair of underwear.

"What the hell are you doin', woman?" he asked, quirking an eyebrow at her. She loved that expression. She was damned glad to see it again.

"The hell does it look like I'm doing, bub?" She pushed herself up onto her feet and would have fallen flat on her face if he hadn't moved quickly enough to catch her.

"Looks like you're makin' it worse for yourself."

"Just shut up and hold me, Logan." She hooked her arms around his neck, felt him slide his around her back. "How are you holding up?" she asked.

He shrugged. "Still dealin' with it. Got the headache from hell, first one I can remember havin' that didn't come after gettin' my ass handed to me by the Hulk or Juggernaut. Not that that happens very often, just sayin'."

"Oh, to be sure," she said, humoring him.

"Hush. You asked how I'm doin'." She touched his hair, still damp as she sunk her fingers into it. He closed his eyes against the familiar touch and a slight, quiet growl rumbled from his chest. "Still angry with you for pullin' such a stupid stunt an' comin' in after me -"

"Logan, I -"

The growl got stronger, now less contented and more fierce. "But I know why you did it. You saw somethin' good in me an' you didn't want all those bad things to drive me into the grave." The growl stopped and he sighed, shaking his head to detach her fingers. "Weren't for you, darlin', they'd've had me, not just my body but my soul."

"You know I'd do it again in a heartbeat."

"I know. Doesn't change how grateful I am." His arms tightened around her. "Not a lot o' people have seen a lot in me that's worth a damn."

"Lot of people have'nae crawled into your head and made themselves a little burrow. Logan, the people around you see it, too, maybe no as clearly as me but they see it."

"Guess I'm not doin' my job makin' people think I'm an ornery bastard, then."

Teva snorted at him, couldn't help smiling. "Oh, you're still an ornery bastard, but you're an ornery bastard with friends. Family. Any one of them would go to the wall for you." She kissed him, gently, body memory waking up fully. "Ah, hell," she said, shivering. "I've just been through hell, I have'nae showered in three days, I have an injured leg and still all I can think of is rolling around on the floor with you."

"I'm just that good, baby." He grinned at her. "Hank wants you down in the medbay so he can get a look at your leg."

"Mmmm, but I wanna stay here," she said, pressing her hips into his and pouting at him.

He laughed, and it was the best sound she'd heard in a what felt like an eternity. "Damn, woman, I didn't know I was that addictive. You are gettin' a bath and then you're goin' down so the doc can check you out. No whinin' and no excuses."

She kept whining, all the way into the bathroom, until he promised to wash her hair for her. No way would she ever turn that down.

Logan looked at the scans of Teva's body as Hank took them, the furry blue doctor making noises of interest and surprise. "What is it?" he asked.

Hank glanced at his shorter teammate before turning his gaze back to the computer screen. "It appears that what you told me about Teva mimicking your healing factor holds in the real world as well. There has been accelerated healing of her leg though not on par with yours, the regeneration rate seems such that it'll take weeks rather than months for the injury to fully heal."

The shorter mutant nodded. It made sense. "She got cut up some in the astral plane and I watched the wounds heal but it seemed like, I dunno, a weak copy or somethin'. Like if you fax somethin' enough times it don't look like the original anymore."

"A reasonable analogy, my Canadian friend." Hank continued looking at the scans, pointing as various views of Teva's leg came up. The site of the wound was done in shades of red to indicate injury among the healthy tissues illuminated in blue. "You can see here the muscle and nerve damage is repairing itself, when I took the scans a week ago after surgery the red portion was much more extensive and it was darker to show just how extensive it was." He tapped the screen and brought up the previous scan and, indeed, the difference was striking.

The small bed that Teva lay on inside the scanner slid out as the scan finished. "So what's the verdict, Hank?" She sat up with only a small struggle, her left hand pressed to her injured leg to ease the pain she still felt.

"Your theory of mimicking Logan's healing factor bears out but I'm afraid it won't completely repair the leg." McCoy beckoned her closer and she grabbed the cane he'd given her to aid her in walking so that she could see what was on his monitors. "I explained to you that there was nerve damage. This cluster here," he said, pointing with one claw, "was completely destroyed, and while the healing factor is taking care of damage that had not finished taking care of itself, the muscle fibers and tendons that had begun to knit together prior to that will not be affected by the change in your, ah, status."

Logan put his hand on the small of her back, offering silent support. He felt how tense she held herself, both to offset the pain and because she was expecting bad news, anticipating it and hoping to not be too disappointed. She moved into his touch, bumping her hip up against his.

"So basically, any damage that already healed is permanent, but anything that was still in the process will get the benefit of the healing factor." When the doctor nodded she sighed, sagging a little against Logan. He kissed her temple.

"Your prognosis is considerably better now so don't lose hope."

"But there's still the chance I will'nae get back full use of the leg, even with rehabilitation."

"Well, yes, that is a possibility. I wouldn't lie to you and say otherwise."

Teva nodded. "I know, Hank, thank you. Is the mimic permanent?"

"Meaning will you always have the ability you copy?" Hank shrugged. "As it has only been a few days since we discovered this power, it's difficult and too early to say. I am sure that Charles will want to explore it, to see what the full capabilities and limits are." He patted her arm. "For now you're still healing more rapidly than you would otherwise so I feel it safe to say that you can hang onto the power for at least a little while."

He gave her more painkillers and sent them on their way.

"Back to our room?" Logan asked, slowing his stride so that Teva could keep up. She was muttering curses under her breath at the cane and her uneven gait because of it and her leg. When he offered his arm she glared at him. "Geez, sorry, was just tryin' to help."

Teva sighed heavily and stopped, leaning her shoulder up against the wall as she closed her eyes. "I'm sorry, Logan, dinnae ..." She devolved into Gaelic curses as her face screwed up and she sucked in air.

Watching her like this had its own related pain aside from what he could feel over the link, in his heart where he just hurt for her, for whatever he'd caused her by letting her into his life. It almost hadn't been a conscious decision, his heart deciding it wanted her, needed her even with everything he'd been through; his brain hadn't jumped in until it was too late to remind him that his life was dark and dangerous for anyone that wasn't him, that he was better off alone without inflicting his own brand of sadness and torture on someone else. By and large he'd already sort of ignored that voice just by being an X-Man, accepting his teammates as friends and family. But another voice was telling him, This is what happens when you fall in love, you drag them down to your level. You get them killed, and sometimes you even do the killing.

He reached out and touched her, unable to do anything else, his heart so far gone it almost didn't matter anymore and he had to comfort her for pain he'd caused. He touched her arm then drew her in against him when she turned to him, seeking relief. "Pain that bad?"

She nodded. "It's like a slo-mo of your healing factor in excrutiating detail added to everything else."

"I'm sorry, baby, sorry I got you into trouble."

Her fist thumped on his chest, hard. "Damn you! D'ye never realize that I love ye and every bloody time ye apologize for somehow damning me to a life o' tragedy and despair you're just insulting me?" She pushed him away, scooted awkwardly away along the wall. "Faigh muin, if ye dinnae stop this, Logan ... I cannae do this. I cannae keep telling ye what ye dinnae seem to want to hear." Her voice shook with grief and anger and she slapped at him when he tried to touch her again.

"No. I'm done. You - I need to focus on not falling flat on my face, on getting better and I cannae do that if all ye do is tear down what I've tried to build with ye and question this, question us. Gods above I have seen what's in your head, in your mind, I have walked through hell and back for ye because I love ye, not some misplaced sense of obligation or masochism or whatever the fuck ye think it is."

He never seemed to learn that she knew what he was thinking, what he was feeling, and if those things were strong she was going to pick up on them even more. He didn't have to say a blessed word for her to be able to react to it. "I'm strugglin' with this, Teva, with finally gettin' every memory back I thought I wanted to know. A lot of it's shit that's cuttin' me up inside to the point I don't even know if I'm the same man I was two weeks ago. I may not even be the guy you fell in love with, the one who fell in love with you."

Logan could feel her eyes on him, hear her harsh breathing as she fought to stay in control of herself, of her emotions, but between the two of them she was losing. "Maybe it's better we end this now 'fore it gets any worse." Something in him knew it was the wrong thing to say, the wrong thing to do, but he was better off alone. She was better off without him in her life.

Teva made a choked, pained sound and when he met her eyes he could see everything that he already felt from her: betrayal, rage, loss of direction. "Ye bastard. Ye son of a bitch."

He felt something snap inside of him, not his beast but something in his heart, in his mind. It made him stagger. "What was that?"

"Me shutting off the link. I cannae sever it but I can shut it the fuck off if I need to." Her hand lifted, her finger pointing towards the elevator down the corridor. "Walk away, Logan. Tuck your tail between your legs like the fucking coward ye are and walk away or I will by God make ye regret it."

For the first time in nearly a year she was gone, out of his head and the loss was an ache, a void. He drew on that pain, that darkness. "You're better off, Teva."

He turned away and ignored the part of him that wanted to turn around, crawl back and beg forgiveness. The sound of her crying as she broke chased on his heels.