May 19, 2023

With a jump, Logan realized that he was back in the future and hearing someone knocking outside. He shook his head loose of the healing headache and looked to Danielle for some guidance. However, he had to make a dart for her, seeing that she collapsed and was almost off the bed, twitching. He grabbed her quickly and held her, noting how white she was and how the sweat rolled off of her body thickly. Her eyes flickered open after the jerking receded, feeling more coherent as Logan wrapped his arms around her and stilled her.

The knocking continued though. "Celeste," Danielle whispered before she fully opened her eyes. "She's late though."

"What do you mean, she's late?" Logan asked, bewildered.

"She and Daken have their daily spat. She usually comes in the morning."

"Who does she appeal to?"

Danielle opened her eyes and then looked at Logan. "Who do you think?"

"Are you serious?" Logan groaned. "Can't she come another time?"

"Maybe," Danielle replied, her voice regaining some strength. She tried sitting up and steadied her spinning head, although she allowed Logan to continue to hold her. "You can tell her to go away for now. It should be almost lunchtime anyway."

"Fine." Sighing, Logan turned to the door. "Celeste, can't this wait?!" he yelled, hoping the teenager would go away, even if it was for a few minutes.

"Daddy, can't Daken stop being who he is?" Celeste yelled back, sounding as obnoxious and stubborn as Logan remembered her to be. He even saw swirls of black and red energy seep under the door, displaying her annoyance.

"Your mother isn't feeling well," Logan replied back, just as irritated and his tone firm. "Wait until after lunch."

Danielle had to chuckle, especially after they both heard Celeste stomp away. Logan could feel the energy from his daughter still lingering, but it soon dissipated with its owner. He then looked back to Danielle. She was still trying to concentrate on the here and now, her headache worse from the excursion and her eyes blinking and then ringing with past and present. Shuddering out her own sigh, she smiled, trying her best to appear as normal as she could to Logan. She readied herself for questions, sure that Logan would have a few.

"I bet you're anticipating something more," Danielle started. "I felt that talking with Teller was the best place to stop for now."

"It just makes me wonder why you skipped years," Logan replied, still unwilling to let Danielle go. "Seems like things were about the same for a while and then something important happened and it was short, like in patches."

"Yeah, I guess so."

"So, what happened in-between all of those years?"

Danielle laughed. "I knew it was coming! Ok, you're right. I didn't show everything. There were reasons. I mean, daily things happened. You went about your day and so did I. Jean and Storm were moving on with their lives and starting to stick to the only home they had truly known. Jay did the same, trying to find his footing in a place that didn't accept him before coming home. Well, you were interested in watching us all back then, before Jay got on your nerves. I just don't know what drew you in closer though."

"You, I'm guessing." Now, it was Logan's turn to laugh.

"I still don't know why. I wasn't anything special."

"People seemed to love you, like they did where I came from, and would have done anything to keep it that way, even from those who cared from the outside," Logan explained. "You were so secretive and protective of yourself that I didn't truly know you until after I found myself. I see you haven't changed. You trust few and speak less."

"Music was, and always will be, my comfort, Logan. People were second place in my heart. I'm sure I was the same way in your other world."

Logan nodded, his laughter gone.

"Well, I guess some things don't change," Danielle continued, releasing herself from Logan and feeling stable, for them most part. "I'm surprised I even allowed myself to see my mother. After all of these years, I am still angry with her, something I guess I will carry for the rest of my life."

"She's gone, I take it?"

"Yes, since I was eighteen. After Jay was…well, captured and I was married off, she killed herself. Mae, Roger, Gil and I found her in her bedroom. Leon did not care. He thought her a nuisance anyway."

The way Danielle told the story was painful in many ways and it hit the heart hard. Logan remembered that the situation was similar from before, albeit slightly different. He recalled that, before he came into this new future, Danielle had lost her brother to her husband and her mother killed herself in an assisted living home two months after her wedding to Leon Ellis. Danielle and Mae had found the body hanging from the ceiling. Danielle had hardly talked of the incident since, citing the same reasons as now. She was angry in many ways, abandoned when she needed the help and feeling the adult when she was a child.

Logan too Danielle's hands into his, feeling the same pain. "I know how that feels and I'm sorry."

"I know." Danielle was quiet for a minute, eager to change the topic. "Why don't we head down to lunch now? I'm sure everyone is gathering now."

Logan agreed, letting go and watching Danielle carefully as she climbed off the bed. The two then linked their arms, opening the bedroom door and exiting. The hallway seemed clear and quiet, which was a relief. It was a quick walk to the faculty room downstairs. Indeed, it was already crowded and not everyone was present yet. Bobby, Rogue, Kitty and Peter talked quietly in one corner. Ororo and Jean saw and greeted Danielle and Logan, their faces seeming bored from the lack of things to do on the weekend. Scott, Hank, Xavier, Jay and Fiona were nowhere in sight.

It was trivial talk between the four of them, Danielle knew. However, she and Jean soon drifted into their own corner as Ororo and Logan chatted about their classes. Jean made sure that nobody was going to listen to them and made that obvious to Danielle. She felt cornered herself, with Jean in front of her and being so protective of their secrets.

Jean looked at Danielle severely though. "Jay was complaining at me earlier," she started. "He had to come downstairs."

"What now?" Danielle sighed.

"You're pulling a lot more energy than you normally do," Jean explained. "He felt you doing something major for four hours, but not what it was. He couldn't even get in to see what was going on."

"You know what I was doing, Jean." Danielle glanced left and right, still not seeing her brother. "This is important. Logan needs to play catch-up or he'll be lost. Jay doesn't need to be so nosy."

"At what cost though? Jay is getting sick from this and so are you. Have you looked at yourself in the mirror recently? You're as pale as a ghost."

"And?"

"What happened when you came back to the future?"

"Logan had a headache that went away."

"No, I mean you. How did you feel?"

Jean saw the funny look that passed through Danielle's face. "I don't know," Danielle admitted. "I felt faint. Really weak, like my blood sugar had dropped and I wanted to either eat or sleep. I kept flipping between past and present, like I was seeing it before my eyes. It took a few minutes to shake it off."

"Sweaty too?"

"Yeah, I was." Danielle shook her head. "I need to keep going though, Jean. This is Logan we're talking about, for Christ's sake. I can't leave him in the dark."

"You also can't keep doing this to yourself and Jay," Jean urged. "At least tell him what's going on. I think he'll understand. He's not going to be helping you if he doesn't know what you're up to."

"But that is one more person who's in on the secret," Danielle pointed out. "What's going on happen when everyone in the school is part of it?"

"Jay would probably understand more than you think."

"He and Logan don't like each other much."

"Logan doesn't get along with too many people, Danielle. A lot of people also don't understand what he went through and why. Logan would understand self-sacrifice, but I don't think he'll want you to kill yourself and Jay."

"We know what we would need to do in case one of us dies, Jean. We can live apart and without each other."

"This might break the both of you before one of you has the chance to transfer the powers to the other, which is why I'm saying something." Jean sighed in frustration. "You're going through with this and I can't see a way I can persuade you otherwise. However, if you're going to continue, tell Jay…or I'll bring more people into the circle."

"Scott?"

"Right. And you know that anything about Logan he'd tell anyone else about."

"You and Storm promised to keep this quiet."

"I can't when it might involve your life and Jay's. Tell your brother, Danielle. It might mean everything to him."

Danielle could not argue Jean's point, since she shared powers with Jay and was infringing upon his side of the powers. She was also loathe to talk to Jay about the situation with Logan though, considering everything. He was bound to be an asshole about it, not supply her with more energy and make her suffer. After all, even though the years brought Logan and Jay together for many common causes, they butted heads and have even fought violently. If Jay found out about the whole time traveling issue and trying to show the memories, he might file it under the "Shit out of Luck" category.

"I'll try," Danielle finally promised. "Nobody else needs to know though. I'm even trying to keep it from Fiona."

Jean shrugged her shoulders, seeing that the rest of the party entered the room. "That's up to you. I would get this done as soon as possible though. Before the end of this weekend, I hope."

"You're giving me until Monday?'

"Yes, I am. I'll ask him too."

"Oohh, treating me like a child. I see how it is."

To mask their serious conversation, Jean and Danielle laughed. Nobody had paid much attention to them anyway, although Xavier eyed them with suspicion briefly as he entered the room with Hank, Jay, Fiona and Scott. When the two were together, there was either trouble or a plan. Danielle and Jean appeared in every way to be innocent to avoid the trouble of speculation, separating in different parts of the room. Danielle went back to Logan and Jean went to Scott. In seconds, Xavier called a start to the luncheon and the younger teachers went to grab the food from the kitchen to pass around. Everyone sat down and started serving themselves, chatting and laughing.

Logan felt like a fish out of water, even though he was with people he was comfortable with, Danielle most of all. Although Scott had been shooting him dirty looks for a few minutes (about who knew what), he ignored it, listening to the conversations most of all. Danielle and Kitty had been debating on adding in art classes, even though the country was trying to phase out paper and pencil products, saying that it was better for the environment. Bobby and Peter were thinking out lesson plans, even though Rogue complained that they had everything prepared until the end of the school year anyway and they didn't need to change things. Hank was thinking out loud some of his summer plans, including taking the younger children out camping in the woods and teaching survival techniques. Scott was voicing his opinion again to Xavier about the advanced placement classes, something that piqued at Logan, especially since Scott was proposing that they stick with what they had.

It was tempting to counter Scott. Logan, trained instinctively to be against Scott for the most part, had always argued with that arrogant son of a bitch, no matter what it was about. He remembered doing it just because it irritated Scott that he was going against orders or because Scott hated it. Logan even liked stealing Scott's motorcycle most of all, riding to and from Canada a few times that way. However, that was in a time and place so far away from him and in a world these people did not live. Most people in the room, by the time the remaining X-Men stood in the monastery in China in February 2023, were either dead, missing or in dread.

Danielle put a warning hand on Logan's knee under the table. "Don't," she whispered, smiling and laughing as Kitty cracked a joke to the left.

Logan saw that Xavier did listen to Scott though, his ears pinpointed on the new reasons, and smiled. "I'll think about, Scott," Xavier finalized. "I'd like to hear what Logan has to say about it and I'll decide. Logan?"

"Huh?" Logan looked at Xavier, unaware that the subject had turned to his opinion. "Oh, umm, can we talk about this in your office later?"

"Probably wants a peaceful lunch," Ororo remarked before Scott could say anything. "I can understand that. It'll be a big step for us."

"I believe so too," Jean added, which earned her a glance from Scott.

"Regardless, I think it's a good idea," Rogue put out there. "About this art class idea though. Are there any alternative materials we can use instead of the usual pen and paper, like it used to be? I know they're phasing out books and they're still existing, even in this technological stage…"

The discussion went on there from. Logan shot Rogue a grateful gaze and went back to his lunch. After a few minutes of listening to it though, he had enough. He patiently waited as much as he could until Danielle was finished, taking her hand and excusing themselves. The two headed out the door, Logan relieved that one meeting was over. He still had two days to play catch-up or plan to be sick for the next week doing so. He headed to the library with Danielle, the only place he knew to be alone, and stopped by the doorway, kissing her on the forehead when he knew nobody was nearby.

"Mind if I read a little?" Logan asked.

"If that'll help," Danielle replied, shrugging her shoulders. "I have some other things to take care of."

Logan grinned. "I knew you'd say that."