Chapter 11
(Professor X)
Scott's physical recovery went as well as could be expected, but his mental and, dare I say spiritual, recovery wasn't nearly as speedy. Perhaps it was seeing so much physical proof that what Logan, and later Angela, had been warning him of right before his eyes was a wakeup call he wasn't prepared for. Not for the first time, I worried that I had done my students a disservice by always pushing for a peaceful, non-violent way to bring about acceptance for us from normal humans. I worried that perhaps by telling them that their powers were no different than any other extraordinary ability was too much of an understatement. And I worried that perhaps by doing those things, my children were going into the world unprepared for the reality of things out there.
I've had these worries before, through the years, but I think witnessing Scott's reaction to being shot, to seeing all those augmented mutants in one place is what brought them all back in full force. The world has become much better for us in many ways, thanks in no small part to the efforts the X-Men have put forth over the years, but we can not take all the credit. We could have done every good deed, large and small, and it still would not have been enough to bring about mutant acceptance. That was something that needed to be given freely by the people of the world and it was through their testimony that acceptance began. But this army of augmented mutants that were coming out of the same program that gave us Logan, Angela and Kyrohyou seemed poised to destroy what little acceptance we had gained.
I think this is what had shaken Scott so badly, even more so than getting shot. He understood long ago that he would be putting himself in harm's way to protect those who were not strong enough to protect themselves. I thought he'd also understood that sometimes, people under his command were going to get hurt. He took every injury, every death very hard, but I think he felt he was somehow beyond all that, since his power would most likely keep him from the front lines. But the placement of the shots and the position of the shooter brought home something new for all of us; sometimes, we would be specifically targeted for no other reason than the fact that we are X-Men.
It wasn't uncommon to see him sitting in the garden near the memorials for hours on end. I don't think he was there to visit Jean so much as he was visiting a part of his life where he still had some of his innocence left, before the people he cared about started getting hurt and dying for our cause. Losing Jean had been a terrible shock to all of us, but to Scott it had represented so much more. Not only had he lost the woman he loved, the woman he had wanted to marry, but he also lost the first of what would eventually be many members of the team. Some of them were grown, others almost painfully young, all of them taken before their time. Losing Jean was the beginning for him, the incident in France was the end.
He came to me one morning as I prepared for my first class of the day. I don't make it a habit of arbitrarily reading the minds of my students, but his thoughts were so loud and so troubled I couldn't help it. "Scott, you must reconsider what you're thinking," I said as he sat down.
He chuckled bitterly. "Projecting that badly, huh? Charles, I can't help it. I can't do this anymore. I close my eyes and I see all those people getting hurt, getting killed and there was nothing I could do to stop it."
"Scott, you can't blame yourself for the choices of other people."
"I'm not just talking about the people we've lost. Those police officers, the soldiers in France never stood a chance and it was like we weren't even there."
"Those men and women were doing their duty, the same as you. They knew that when they are called to the scene of something like that, they may be asked to lay down their lives to protect others."
He shook his head and looked down at the floor. "I know, Charles. That's why I want to resign as the team leader. I'm not cut out for that. I could never ask anyone to do something like that, to die for people who probably don't give a shit about them. Let Totem take the lead or call Storm back and let her do it."
"Will you be leaving the team?" I asked quietly.
"I don't know." He looked up and even with his eyes covered, as always, the pain was evident on his face. "I just…I don't know."
"We need you Scott, not just as a teacher but on the team as well. Take some time, think about it. I'll ask Totem to take your place for a while, but please keep in mind that you are a valuable asset. Think of the lives you've saved over the years before you make any final decisions."
He nodded and walked out of my office as the first of my morning students filed in. I pushed the conversation to the back of my mind for the time being. After what Buzz had shown me, we were going to need him, but it wasn't fair to use that information in an attempt to keep him where he did not wish to be. He would find out soon enough; I only hoped he would forgive me for not telling him sooner.
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
(Rogue)
Evie asked us to find someone to teach her about her powers, how to use them, how to block them when needed. It took some doing, but the Professor got a hold of that same woman, Erin McKenzie, who helped us out way back when we first left the mansion. She didn't want to meet us directly at our safe house, out of fear that she may have been followed. In fact, she didn't even contact us until she'd been in town for almost a week, just to be certain. As soon as she decided it was safe, she sent us a message, again through the Professor. Logan may have to give up the crown as the most paranoid person on the planet.
The first thing she did was sit us all down and explain that not all precogs work the same way. In her case, she could only see more than about ten minutes into the future while meditating or dreaming. But when it came to immediate danger, her powers worked just the same as they did that day we met her, when she warned us about the police on the way. Then, as she put it, her power just took her over and she couldn't control it until the vision was over. Evie, on the other hand, had been learning such fine control that she could see things just over a month before they happened. But she'd also discovered that the further away things got, the more likely it would be they could be changed.
Now, that only applies to her waking visions. Her dreams on the other hand seemed to be more or less set in stone. There may be slight variances – different clothing, different weather, Sam instead of Remy being there – but for the most part, they happened just the way she dreamed them. Erin explained that dreams were the one constant for precogs, almost as though dreaming something makes it real. She said it's because the subconscious mind is more attuned to the subtleties of the world than the conscious mind, that it sees things most people simply discard from moment to moment and recognizes their importance. Once it gets enough pieces to form a whole, it gives the information to the precog in a dream so that it can't be ignored. It sounded oversimplified to me, but it made sense to Evie and that's all I care about.
So now the two of them can be found sitting in the backyard, meditating under the cherry trees while Erin tries to show her how to control it. She has some telepathy, strictly short range and "low volume", whatever she means by that, but it's enough for her to "walk" with Evie through her waking visions. It's also allowed her to strengthen the shields the Professor taught Evie back when her powers first manifested, although she did warn that very strong visions can't be held back by anything. It was odd, watching the two of them sit out there and think at each other for hours on end, but after the first week Evie seemed much calmer. After the second week, Erin told me and Storm that she was going to be very powerful. Probably not Omega level, since that would imply she'd be able to see to the end of time if she wanted to, but she did imply that Evie's effective range would far exceed any other precog she personally knew of. And the most powerful one she knows to date could see over three years into the future at will.
It seems to me a terrible power to have, to see things before they happen. How tempting would it be to try and be there to change everything? I was under the impression that some things are just meant to be. That by not saving the boy that was hit by a car in a vision, a serial killer will never grow up to begin his reign of terror. But how would someone decide what to change and what to leave alone? We're only human and there aren't enough X-Men to change everything. Erin explained that the really powerful precogs could see not just the event, but the possibilities following the event. That they can see what that boy would grow up to be and could choose to do nothing. But isn't it our responsibility to not only save the boy from the car, but to save him from his own madness as well? I've given myself headaches thinking about it.
But it was Evie who explained it to me the best. She said, "It's not that we don't want to save everyone, we just can't. So if I had to decide between saving one boy or saving a hundred kids in a fire, I'd save a hundred kids because there's more of them. Even if I knew that the boy was supposed to grow up someday and be my husband, because I can't do things just for myself. I have to do what's right for everyone." Logan and Angela sure created one wise little girl.
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
(Evie)
Dear Diary,
Eight months, four days, two hours and nine minutes since mom and dad sent me away.
Erin is REALLY cool! She's been helping me with my powers and since she has the same one, she can make a lot of things make sense that Uncle Charles had trouble with before. She also told me that it's called LUCID dreaming, which means I can be in control even while the dream goes on around me, or that I can dream about whatever I want to dream about when I go to sleep. She also taught me how to meditate, which is keeping my mind and body quiet so I can make the visions come if I want to. That part's not so easy. I'm just a little kid, I can't help it if my head keeps thinking even when I don't want it to. But I'm getting better at it and I hope that by the time I see mom and dad again, I'll be even better at it than dad is. And he's REALLY good. He can sit there for HOURS and not even hardly breathe. It's kind of scary sometimes, 'cause it looks like he's dead or something, but since I'm pretty sure he can't die, I never worried about it for very long.
Erin is a telepath too, like Uncle Charles. She's not as strong as he is; if he's like a bright spotlight shining in your eyes, she's more like a flashlight. One that needs batteries. Soon. But if she holds my hand, she gets brighter and it's easier for her to walk with me through my awake visions. She said that I'll be able to control the awake visions on my own soon and that she thinks I'll be able to see farther away than anyone else she knows. I asked her about what she said that one time when we were on our way here to this house, about how I was gonna be important someday. She told me that she dreamed about me once, a long time ago, and that I was helping a bunch of people with the X-Men. She said she knew I was that same person when she saw me, even though I was a lot older in her dream. She said there was a lot of people fighting, that some more bad men were trying to hurt a bunch of people in a city in the desert, but she heard me say something to one of the other X-Men about watching out for the missiles and that the Sentinels would be coming soon. She said she knew we were there ahead of time to stop as many people getting hurt as possible, and that she knew I was the one who saw it.
I also asked her where she was in that battle and she said she wasn't actually there, she just dreamed about it and me. I asked her if she knew how it ended and she said she didn't see that part. But I think she might have been lying about that, because she seemed kind of sad talking about it. I wanted to ask her more, but she said that we had to get back to work and I didn't get another chance to talk to her about it.
Diary, I wish that I could see what it was she saw, but I don't know enough about it to try and part of me thinks it would be a bad idea anyway. Because if there's one thing I have learned, it's that knowing that something is going to happen and then not being able to change it is a terrible thing. Maybe everyone is right, maybe some things are just meant to be and nothing I can do can make them happen different. I just hope that when stuff like that does happen that I'm ready to do whatever it is I'm supposed to do.
Love, Evie Marie Logan
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
(Logan)
It took me three weeks after we got back from Tokyo. Three weeks of watching, waiting and planning, three weeks of patiently waiting to make my move. In the end, I had to have Grant give me a hand with it, but he's been undercover in this place a lot longer than I have and he had resources at his disposal that I still didn't have the clearance to get to. But since he was on the base security team, he had access to all areas at all times; if he didn't, he wouldn't be able to get to where he needed to be when he was called upon. Fortunately, "Andrew Smith" was assigned as a status tech in one of the research labs in the levels below the base and rarely left except for meals and the occasional trip into town. Grant figured it'd be easy enough to grab him the next time he went out, though he didn't understand why I wanted to talk to him so bad. He found out soon enough.
But before I got that far, there were new operatives to train, in pairs and larger groups. They were showing up faster now, a new pair every two weeks or so, and it worried me. It meant the Director was stepping up the program for some reason and that couldn't be a good thing. But Angela and I did our jobs, trained the operatives and talked about our fears at night when we were alone. We didn't have all the pieces of the puzzle - for all that we were the highest ranking operatives here, we still weren't told everything - and until we had them, it made planning anything that much harder. But the pieces we did have didn't add up to each other, either.
"...and at the rate that they're coming in, this place will be full by Christmas," Angela called from the bathroom one night. "I wish we knew where the rest of them were, so we could at least warn Bennington."
"Preachin' to the choir here, darlin'," I replied, stretching out on the bed. "There ain't nothin' we can do til we get done here an' you know that."
"I know," she said with a sigh. She came out of the bathroom toweling her hair, then tossed the towel aside. She'd colored her hair back to its normal chocolate brown, though she was still wishing she could put the streaks she used to love back in. But Colonel Sidowski wouldn't have it and she grumbled about it every day. "But it worries the hell out of me. What's he planning anyway? He can't be creating two thousand of us just to take on the X-Men. They're tough but not that tough."
"I wish had some answers for ya, but I don't," I said as she curled up next to me. "I'm bettin' even Sidowski doesn't know what the ultimate plan is."
"We need more information, but I don't know how to get it without raising too much suspicion."
"We'll come up with somethin'. We always do."
A week later, after a particularly grueling training session, the Colonel called us into her office. We hadn't really seen much of her since the incident with Shatter, outside of regular debriefings, so we were more than a little wary that she wanted to meet with us now. But we went to her office as soon as we received the order, then stood there waiting for her to finish looking over a file before asking us to sit. She closed the file and folded her hands on top of it before she began. "I've just finished reading a report from Dr. Lee that says our new operatives aren't going to last and that of all those with natural healing factors, which only number about two hundred of the total, only a quarter of them are equal to the two of you in resilience."
"Yes, that's true sir," I said cautiously, "but I don't see what we can do 'bout that."
"He says that it has something to do with specialized cells in your blood that are fighting the adamantium poisoning. What I don't understand is how come these cells didn't transfer over when the serum was developed from your blood, Wolverine."
"Ya got me. I ain't a scientist, I'm just the muscle 'round here."
"Well, as of now, you are assigned to Dr. Lee for the next two weeks. You will report to the research lab at oh-eight-hundred tomorrow morning." She leveled her gaze on Angela. "You'll have to do without your...husband...for training the troops in the meantime."
"Yes sir," she said with a sigh.
"Very good. Dismissed." She grabbed another file off the stack and opened it up while we showed ourselves out.
I couldn't believe my fortune. I knew that "Andrew Smith" was assigned to those restricted areas and I had just been handed clearance to them on a silver platter. I started to hope that maybe, just maybe, I could pull this off. I said as much to Angela later that night and she agreed.
"But the real question, lover, is how do you get her to agree to help you?" She asked.
"I'm gonna haveta cut a deal with her," I replied, taking a drag off my cigar. "I got a feelin' she's here to find out more about Magneto an' I'm positive we can get that info from Grant."
"Logan, you can not tell her where he is!"
"I don't see where I've got a choice, darlin'. 'Sides, if the Director's really gonna use this army o' his on the rest o' the world, then Magneto's 'bout the best weapon we can muster to use against 'em." She scowled at me and I took her hand. "I don't like it, I really don't. That asshole's got plenty to answer for, startin' with what he did to Rogue an' the Professor. But we gotta be sensible 'bout this. That girl, Polaris, she ain't got what it takes to handle two thousand people with metal skeletons on her own. But with Lensherr there to help, they might have just enough power between 'em to bring 'em to a screechin' halt."
"And then what? We just turn around and kill all these people we've been training? Some of them are hardly old enough to shave, much less be used this way."
"I know, believe me I do. All we can do is hope that we can find someone to help Chuck reverse whatever telepathic conditioning's been done to 'em so we won't haveta kill 'em. But we ain't gonna be able to do that if we don't get someone close enough to the Director to either bring him to us or kill him for us."
"Uh-uh, no way. I'm not letting anyone get the satisfaction of killing him before I get the chance. I owe him for what he did to my Emma." Her face was stony, an expression I recognized as her "I will get my way on this" face. "And we owe him for what happened to Evie."
I swallowed hard and nodded, a lump forming in my throat as it always did whenever Evie was brought up. God, I missed her so much, my beautiful little girl. "I know, darlin'. An' if there's any way to make it happen, I'll do it. But I'm prepared to let someone else do it if there's no other way." She scowled again and I smirked at her. "Besides, if it does come to that, we can always have Grant on hand to 'discover' Mystique in the act an' we'll have two problems taken care of at once."
She sighed and leaned into me. "There you go again, making sense. What have I said about that?"
I chuckled and kissed the top of her head. "That it ain't fair an' kinda scary. But I keep tellin' ya, I do that from time to time."
"Yeah well, stop it."
"Whatever you say, darlin'." She wrapped her arms around me and kissed me, then slid her hands up inside my shirt. I dropped my cigar in the ashtray and walked her over to the bed, still kissing her and we fell onto it and didn't worry about the Director, Mystique or anything else for the rest of the night.
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I got up a bit early so I could catch Grant at breakfast before reporting to the lab. I slipped him a note as I passed him in the mess line, letting him know that I had an idea but I would need his help later in the day. From that point forward, I knew there was no turning back; the path was set and we had to follow it to the end, no matter what that end would be. I was surprised at the sense of calm that came over me with that thought. It no longer really mattered to me what happened to me personally and I know Angela felt much the same way. We now had our own players on the board and the rules to the game had changed, even if the other players had no idea.
I made it to the research lab with ten minutes to spare. Doctor Lee was already there, preparing God only knows what for me. He turned as I entered and smiled. "Good morning, Mr. Logan. Did you sleep well?"
"Cut the crap, Lee," I snapped. "What's this really about?"
He sighed and motioned for me to sit down. "The Colonel seems to think that the original team who developed the artificial healing factor were somehow remiss in their failure to also isolate the specialized cells you have that counter the adamantium poisoning."
"So what, she wants to see if you can do better?"
"Precisely. I've already tried to explain to her that the original team took years to produce the serum that's already in use and that I simply do not have the time to develop a new one in the time allotted."
I raised an eyebrow. "When do they want it?"
"Before the new year." I let out a long breath and leaned back in my chair. Dr. Lee sat down on the edge of the desk beside me and picked up a thick file. "Now, this is all the research from the old team and I assure you, they were quite thorough. However, I do believe I know what they did wrong."
"What's that?"
"Rather than trying to work with your blood in whole, they developed the serum using your X gene alone. Now, I could probably come up with a stopgap in the time they want by cloning those blood cells, but there's another problem that they refuse to take into consideration." He paged through the file and pulled out a several sheets. "These are the results of a battery of tests they performed on you just a few days prior to your escape from Alkali Lake. As you can see, they introduced every type of toxin, sedative and stimulant they had at their disposal to your system and your healing factor adapted to all of them." I scanned the first sheet and nodded. "Now, if you'll turn the page, you'll see they weren't satisfied with stopping there and started injecting you with everything they could get their hands on - ammonia, bleach, things of that nature. Your healing factor dealt with those as well."
"I know all o' this, doc, or did ya forget that I was there?"
"No, not at all. But it was that aspect of your healing factor they were the most interested in. Unfortunately for them, as they completed your augmentation, you went berserk – probably because of the pain – and killed many of that original team before they could complete their analysis. They didn't know that your mutation would create specialized blood cells to deal with the adamantium poisoning."
"So how does this affect what they want from you?"
"That team did create an amazing thing, really. The true shame is its dependence on the X gene to be viable. What the Colonel doesn't want to hear is that even if I were to clone your specialized cells by the billions, they won't work in the subjects that have been given the artificial healing factor. It works too well and it would interpret those cells as a foreign body." He leaned forward and smiled. "Mr. Logan, it will kill those cells as soon as they're introduced. Not to put too fine a point on it, most of the two thousand new operatives are fucked."
I nodded in understanding and handed the papers back to him. "But she expects you to make every effort to try. An' we don't haveta tell her that you're gettin' nowhere with it til it's too late."
"Exactly." He put the papers back in the file and put it away. "However, Corporal Grant tells me you have other things to discuss with me regarding putting an end to this whole project once and for all."
"Yeah, I do. You blockin' the listenin' devices?"
"Always."
"Good." I leaned forward and lowered my voice. "We need somethin' that'll put out Phoenix an' X-23 for a good long time. An' you need to be ready to go at any moment. If you could arrange to have Hellcat's daughter's body taken outta here, that'd be great too. But what it boils to is simple; we're gettin' the hell outta here as soon as we can an' burnin' this place to the ground."
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
A few days later, I met with Grant outside in one of the more isolated parts of the base. I explained what I was going to need from him and, more importantly, from Bennington. I was still assigned to Dr. Lee, who made a great show of taking blood samples from me and supposedly injecting me with all manner of things. In reality, I was being injected with nothing more than distilled water, sometimes with other things in it to give it color, but otherwise we were doing nothing in terms of developing a new serum for the program. What I needed from Grant was to get "Andrew Smith" alone for a nice long chat. What I needed from Bennington was what I suspected Mystique really wanted – the location of Magneto's new prison and the means to bust him out of it. Grant didn't like it any more than I did, but he also agreed that compared to what the Director was doing, Magneto would be the very least of Bennington's worries. But if there was anyone on the face of the planet that could deal with that asshole once and for all, it was Bennington.
Four days after that meeting, Grant sent word that I was needed on one of the obstacle courses that we used to train the operatives. Dr. Lee excused me from the lab for the rest of the day and I made my way out there, hoping that Grant had managed to get "Andrew Smith" out there alone. As I approached, I saw Grant and "Smith" standing on one of the observation decks, their backs to me. I slipped into the shadows underneath the deck and waited for them to climb down the stairs to the ground before making my move. I grabbed "Smith" just as he set foot on soil and slammed him into one of the supports, popping my claws inches in front of his face. He tried to take a swing at me, but Grant was there in a flash, holding his gun next to his head. I smiled coldly. "Hello Mystique," I said. "Fancy meetin' you here."
"Smith" smiled and morphed into the familiar blue bitch. "Wolverine. You here to get your ass kicked again?"
I snorted and moved in close. "Not hardly. What the fuck are you doin' here?"
"Hard as it may be for you to believe, we're on the same side, you and I." She stared at me without fear, daring me to do what I threatened and I looked over to Grant, who just shrugged.
"I ain't on any side that includes you," I said. "Now I'm gonna give you ten seconds to tell me why you're here or I'm gonna gut you for real this time an' leave ya for the vultures. Ten…nine…eight…"
"Oh, come on Wolverine. I know you better than this. You wouldn't kill me without knowing everything. The suspense would kill you."
"I'm a changed man. Seven…six…five…"
"Just cut the shit, Wolverine. I was hoping to catch you alone anyway."
Now that was something I didn't expect to hear. "What the hell for?"
"I need to know where Erik is."
I snorted. "Even if I knew, there's no fuckin' way I'd tell you. You'd just spring him again."
"Exactly." I just stared at her. Unbelievable! Of all the people she could have asked for help and she tracks me down. I couldn't help but laugh. "What's so funny?"
"You are, ya stupid bitch! What ever made ya think I'd help ya with somethin' like that?"
"Because I've been given information from a source that you trust, information that he'll be needed to help stop something coming out of this program." She paused, but I just glared at her. She sneered at me and went on. "The army, Wolverine. He's the only one that'll be able to hold them all. You know it, I know it and the person who gave me this information knows it."
"An' who might that be, darlin'?"
"Charles Xavier."
As other shoes go, it wasn't the one I expected her to drop.
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
It took a couple hours to get the whole story out of her, but it went something like this. Xavier had sat down with all of the X-Men and told them everything that we knew about Weapon X, the artificial healing factor, all of it. The best case scenario that he'd come up with still left too many variables open for comfort, not the least of which being the fact that he simply didn't have the right people with the right powers to neutralize an army the size of the one the Director was building. With that in mind, he knew only Magneto would be effective, something Angela and I knew, but we were also hoping to destroy the program before it could get that far. But the Professor is nothing if not pragmatic and knew that it would take some extremely dire circumstances for the authorities to release Magneto willingly. His only hope was to get him out another way and so he tirelessly pursued Mystique until he found her.
Once he'd done that, he sent Totem, Cyclops, Kitty and Iceman to "invite" her to the mansion. He laid it all out for her, leaving out the part where Angela and I had rejoined the program on our own agenda. She agreed to help in return for the Professor's guarantee that the X-Men would not stand in their way. He agreed with the provision that they not take advantage of the truce to lay waste to the world or otherwise damage all the advances that had been made regarding mutant rights in the past few years. Once they did something to set things back, all bets were off. She grudgingly agreed and he sent her on her way.
That had been several weeks before she showed up here. In the time between, she'd done a bit of research of her own and determined that at some point after the DC Metro incident and his recapture, he'd been moved from the original facility that had previously held him to a new secured facility. The location of the new prison was known to only a very few people and even Mystique was hard pressed to find someone to imitate to figure out who those people were. A bit of hacking on her part got Area 51 and the Director to float to the top of the pile and she headed here to see what she could discover.
Once she got here, she was initially shocked to see me along with Angela. Because of that, she'd hacked into the mainframe at Area 51 and had "Andrew Smith" assigned permanently to the research labs and archives, because I previously didn't have the clearance to get down there without escort. She'd had no idea at the time that I was there on purpose. Her initial assumption was that Angela and I had finally run afoul of a squad we couldn't handle and had been genuinely recaptured. She'd had some of Stryker's files from his office and knew the kinds of things those people did to their operatives, especially those that misbehaved. And since the two of us had misbehaved in the most spectacular way possible, she was certain we'd been worked over so hard that it was a miracle we could speak, much less function around normal people without arbitrarily killing them. She'd finally contacted Xavier for an explanation and, against his better judgment, he told her why we were there. That had been two days ago and now we were here.
I let out a long breath and ran my fingers through my hair. "So what do ya expect us to do?"
"That's simple," she replied, her gaze unwavering. "I need to know where Erik is being kept, codes to get in and a cover identity. I need a safe place to take him until I can make contact with Xavier. And I need your assurance that when the time comes, you won't get in the way."
"An' just why would I do that?"
"Because you don't want this to happen any more than I do. And I can give you the one thing you want more than anything."
She couldn't do that, there was no way she could do that. More than anything, I wanted my little girl in my arms. I wanted to hear her laugh and breathe her scent. I wanted to watch her grow up, graduate, get married, have her own children. I wanted Evie and no one would ever be able to give her back to me. "No, you can't. No one can."
"So you're saying you don't want the pleasure of killing the Director for yourself?"
She had me there. "Yes, I do, but not more'n anythin'. An' don't ask, 'cause I ain't gonna tell you of all people what that is." She smiled at me, but there was no emotion behind it and I glared at her. "Fine, so you can draw that bastard out o' his office on high for me, that's great. But we'll need more'n that from you in return."
"You're hardly in a position to bargain, Wolverine."
"Neither are you. So what's it gonna be?"
We stared at each other for a long time, the hatred between us almost a physical thing. She finally let out a sigh of disgust and looked away. "What do you need me to do?"
She didn't trust me and I don't blame her. I owed her for the stunt she'd pulled back at Alkali Lake, not to mention Liberty Island and for being a terrorist in general. I owed her big time and yet she was still the best chance Angela and I had for pulling this thing off. I had learned a long time ago that you don't get in bed with the enemy for any reason. But if the enemy of my enemy is my friend, then my new best bud was standing here before me. I glared at her and slid out a single claw. "If you betray us, you do anythin' that is not part o' the plan, I will gut you, do you understand? I will cut you into little pieces an' scatter the remains for the animals. I'll send your head to Lensherr on a platter an' let him rot in hell for the rest o' his miserable life. Am I absolutely, completely clear?" I have to give her credit for controlling her fear, but her eyes did widen a bit. She knew I wasn't kidding, that I would never kid when it comes to killing. She sneered at me, but nodded in agreement and I retracted my claw. "Fine. Now this is what I need you to do…"
AN: Another chapter down and we'll call it the halfway point...:) I believe this come in at 22 chapters plus epilogue, which is just how it fell out in the end...:) Special thanks to my beta team, especially Turiel Tincdaniel, for being so tireless in their assistance...Extra Special thanks to my readers for sticking with me for so long...and Super Swanky Special thanks to my reviewers, who were TnTornado, theNightEnchantress, Andromeda Jones, ALEX10671S and immrlucky...:) Mr. Tornado: Just trying to show that the more things change, the more they stay the same...:) Miss Jones: You'll find out soon enough...:) ALEX: Is this soon enough for you? ;-) immrlucky: Yes, i'm getting the reviews...in terms of the story, if you mean the whole thing, it's been about a year and a half in the making...if you mean this one in particular, you'd never believe me if i told you...:) Oh what the heck, i'll tell you anyway...not counting the 8-10 week break i took from writing it to deal with personal issues, i think it took me about a month and half to 2 months to write this one...:) Thanks for reading and especially for reviewing!
Now, only YOU have the power to speed this up! You want a new chapter before the 6th? Then take the plunge and toss me a review! Just click the little "go" button, say hello or something and i'll post as soon as i get it!
