I know that I just updated yesterday, but after I posted that last chapter - and after a four hour drive to my grandparent's house - I was so excited that I started in on this one and couldn't stop! Imanaged to use my wireless card to hack into their Internet connection... Yeah, that's a lie. I just plugged my jump drive into their computer.

Anywho, I finished it after another three and a half hours of editing, and decided that I'd post it, despite how soon it was. Besides, the length of this one makes up for how short the last chapter was. I didn't think anyone would mind... :)

Enjoy!

Logan stood perfectly still, listening to the conversation between Ororo and John. She'd made it more than clear that she was in no mood to be bothered by him, but – to his credit – John was very persistent and refused to back down until he got what he wanted. He could take a few tips from the kid...

"I'm not staying in the same tent as him," he said defiantly. "Everyone thinks I threw a temper tantrum by setting some cars on fire? The tent is a few degrees below zero and he won't stop bitching and moaning about how his family must hate him and want him to die…"

"I know it's frustrating, John," Ororo said wearily. "Bobby has no idea what it's like. As far as we know, he hasn't experienced true hatred like we have. That being said, can you really blame him for being naïve?"

"I sure as hell can!"

"Stop cursing."

"He has no right to speak so casually about something like that. His mother specifically said 'we still love you, Bobby' and his father couldn't stop calling him 'son.' "

"In his defense, he doesn't know any better. He's never been looked down on as less than human."

"Fuck his defense…"

"Let me hear you curse one more time," she said warningly. "You know that I'm not in the mood for this."

"Not knowing any better isn't an excuse. If some psycho kills someone, do you think the victim's family cares that he didn't know any better?"

"You're comparing apples to oranges, John."

"They're both fruit."

"Don't be a smartass."

"Oh, so you can curse but I can't?"

Logan heard a low rumble of thunder in the distance. "Do you think you're the only one that has difficulty being around your friends?" she asked, her voice truly tired. "Do you think I like listening to Logan wish that he could remember his past when all I want to do is forget mine? Do you think I want to listen to Jean ramble about her wedding when the only man I've ever loved stabbed me right in the heart?"

"That isn't the same as – "

"It's exactly the same, John. You're listening to Bobby talk about how much his family must hate him. Yes, they may be upset with him, but they're alive, and they love him. They may have called the police, but they didn't mean to hurt him.

"You're not angry, you're envious. You've never met your father and you had to listen to Mr. Drake call Bobby 'son' for an entire afternoon. You heard Mrs. Drake tell Bobby that she loved him despite his mutation, and your mother – "

"I know what happened to my mother," he snapped viciously. "You think I don't see her burning in the flames every time the fire is under my control?"

"Oh, I know you do, because I see my mother being crushed my twenty seven stories of metal and concrete every time I create an earthquake. Why do you think I don't make them anymore? I'm not even responsible for my father's death and sometimes I think I hear his plane crashing when I create thunder."

So her parents were both dead. She'd mentioned that she wasn't responsible for her father's death, so did that mean that she was responsible for her mother's? She'd sympathized with John seeing his mother in the flames, so did that mean that John's mother was dead too? Perhaps he was responsible for her death? Perhaps both of them had killed their parents. Or perhaps both of them were unnecessarily blaming themselves for something that they'd had no control over.

What did it matter? Ororo had made it abundantly clear that if he wanted information then he should go to the source. Technically, he was getting his information from the source, but eavesdropping probably hadn't been what she'd meant. He wouldn't dare ask her any questions so soon, but if she ever did forgive him, he intended to ask more about her childhood. He wanted to know everything about her.

Logan didn't really think that he and John were that close yet, but the boy had said that he preferred Logan – though what he preferred Logan to was still a mystery.

Ororo sighed heavily, and her voice seemed to soften from the harsh whisper it had been. "John, no one knows about true loneliness better than we do. Bobby is one of the hundreds of millions of people on this earth that doesn't know how good he has it. I know it's tempting to tell him just how dark the world is. I know that you want to make him understand even an ounce of the pain you've endured, but I truly believe that our suffering can't be for nothing."

Logan heard John shuffle around in the tent and sigh. "You can believe that if you want to, but answer me this; why me? Why not someone else?"

"Because it had to be someone, and that someone turned out to be you. And me. We're lucky we found each other, because others like us are still out there on their own, wondering the same damn thing. Sometimes I wonder why, too. Sometimes I just want to crawl into a hole and die, and then I remind myself that I'm not alone. I think that God chose the strongest people to bear these burdens. He knows that you can handle it."

"How would he know?"

"Because he knows you better then you know yourself."

"You've been talking to that Nightcrawler character, haven't you? I saw his little beaded necklace, cross, hail Mary, whatever…"

Logan heard a slap, and the sound wasn't particularly quiet. She didn't sound angry, so he assumed that she'd just slapped his hand. "It's called a rosary. And a little more faith would do us both some good. Kurt's had hardships too and he can look at the positives and say that God is testing his faith."

"So date him."

The matter-of-fact way that John had said it made Logan wonder if he'd heard correctly. The comment even seemed to give Ororo pause, but after a few torturous seconds, she laughed. "You always know just what to say, don't you?"

"I do what I can," John said smoothly. Logan let out a small breath. "Kurt is nice, I guess, but you'd eat him alive, wouldn't you?"

"I'm not that bad." There was a long pause before Logan heard Ororo sigh. "Okay, so maybe I am. I think I'm entitled after the week that I've had. Now go to bed. If you really can't bear to be in the same tent with Bobby, then you can sleep outside." The tent grew quiet and after a few moments, Logan heard an annoyed huff and what sounded suspiciously like a kiss. "Goodnight, John."

"Night, Ma."

Despite her obvious dislike of him at the moment, Logan felt a smile tug at his lips. It was indeed good that they had each other to lean on, though some people shouldn't be made to suffer as they apparently had.

He heard John exit the tent and simply lifted his head to the sky as though he'd been studying the stars. John wasn't the least bit fooled. "Enjoying the clouds?"

It was much too cloudy to even see the moon, but Logan didn't miss a beat. "Enjoying Bobby's mood?" he countered.

"Bobby can kiss my ass."

"She's right, you know. You shouldn't curse."

He didn't seem the least bit surprised that Logan had heard their conversation either. "Isn't it hypocritical to tell me not to do something that you yourself do?"

That made Logan think for a second, but the answer to that remark wasn't hard to find, and it related to more than their immediate situation. "Just because someone else does something, that doesn't mean that you should do it too." He paused, wondering if he should bother wasting his breath. John wasn't going to listen, was he? He seemed attentive, so the best he could hope for was that what he was telling John would sink in, even if it wasn't right away. Better late than never. "Did it ever cross your mind that she tells you not to curse because she does it?"

John frowned thoughtfully. "You mean like warning me against making a mistake that she's already made?"

Logan's eyebrows shot up to his hairline. John had read between the lines, voicing what he'd been trying to say much better than he had. Smart kid. "In essence."

He nodded. "But we aren't talking about just cursing, are we?"

And perceptive. "No. honestly, I couldn't care less how much you do or don't curse."

"I wish I knew why she cared," John muttered, pulling out his lighter. "When she gets in a real rage, she could make a sailor blush."

Logan didn't doubt it, but he didn't want to talk about her, especially when she could probably hear their every word. Just the mention of her name made his chest feel heavy with guilt and shame. "Just because I killed men last night, that doesn't mean that you should feel empowered to do the same."

"I didn't feel empowered to do the same," John said simply, lighting his Zippo as he began playing with the fire in midair. "I don't think I see the world the way everyone else does. For me, everything I see is something that could potentially be burned. I know the temperature necessary to keep a tree burning in an ice storm. I know how much heat the average person can tolerate before they'll pass out. By calculating the distance from the earth to the sun and figuring in how hot my skin feels in the sunshine, I can roughly estimate the temperature of the surface of the sun." Logan rolled his eyes. The trouble makers were always the smart ones. "Everything I see, people included, are just fuel for the fire."

Despite how impressive his intellect was, the casual manner in which he explained how he saw the world sent a shiver up Logan's spine. If he truly saw the world in terms of heat and fuel, it wasn't too surprising that he'd terrorized people out of spite. Weren't most people afraid of fire? Logan wondered how hard it was to restrain his urge to burn things, and had a new respect for that damn lighter lid that he was always snapping. He could just imagine what was going on in John's mind while he opened it and shut it. All he had to do was start his lighter…

Just like Logan. He could tear anything and everything to ribbons if he wanted to. All he had to do was pop his claws out and let his temper take him. He wondered if John's resistance to burning things was like his own resistance to giving in to his temper. From that perspective, they were very much alike.

John managed to morph the flames into the shape of a tarantula, and he made it crawl up and down his arm, leaving his clothes unharmed. Logan wasn't much opposed to spiders, but the flame-spider moved like a real one, and it made Logan brush his arms though he knew nothing was crawling on him.

"I wasn't lying when I said that I've killed six people," John continued quietly. "Sometimes I see their faces in my nightmares. Seeing them… it helps me pull back sometimes when I'm on the verge of adding to that number. Today I just wanted to frighten the cops, and I know that I got out of hand. Pretty soon I wasn't concentrating on how scared they were. I was calculating how much heat would send the car ten or fifteen feet into the air." He paused, his voice becoming more serious. The spider was on his shoulder now, but he blinked and it disappeared into nothing. "I know how heavily a soul can weigh on a heart."

"So, you're saying you're sorry?"

"Yeah, whatever."

Logan smirked. John was a much different case than Marie had been, but he could see why Ororo was drawn to him and wanted to look after him.

"My mother used a Zippo lighter all the time," he said suddenly. "She smoked a lot, but she always did it outside because I told her that I didn't like the smell. I told her that I wanted one and she got me this." He held it up and examined it closely, his expression far off. "The flint was dull and there was no fuel inside, but I didn't want it to light things. I just wanted to do tricks with it and look cool in front of my friends." He lit another flame and simply swirled it around like a ribbon. "Now this lighter is all I have left of her. The fire burned everything."

Logan hesitated, unsure if he should ask John what had caused the fire. If the memory was too painful, he'd just brush it off, right? No, he shouldn't assume that John would let it go that easily. He might pretend that he didn't care about anything, but Logan knew better.

John let go of his hold on the second flame and it vanished. "I didn't ask for this power. I discovered it on accident when my mother was smoking at the bus station one day. I was watching the way the embers burned the cigarette to ash and suddenly sparks were flying and her sleeve caught fire. I don't know how they found our house or how they figured out that I'm the one that started her sleeve on fire, but they went to a lot of trouble to trap us in the house that night and burn it to the ground. Humans have cursed my existence since before I was born. I may know better than to kill them, now, but why should I risk my life to protect them?"

How could he possibly answer that? In his own opinion, John's anger and hate were well placed. And he'd said that he knew better than to kill people. There was no harm in pretending they didn't exist, was there? "If it doesn't feel right, then don't do it."

"Isn't that what the X-Men do? You guys went to Liberty Island to save all those big wigs at the World Summit. You put your own lives in danger to save theirs, and most of them would probably hate you if they knew what you are."

"If you don't want to protect them, that's your choice. No one will hold that against you. But sometimes sitting idle while bad things happen is just as bad as doing it yourself."

"So, either I risk my life to save humans, or I let them die or get hurt which, according to you, is just as bad as doing it myself?"

"You shouldn't let my point of view define who you are and what you do."

"Well, how am I supposed to know what the right choice is?"

"Process the situation and decide what feels right. You may think that your perception of right and wrong is hazy at times, but your heart always knows. The trick is to not to let your mind take over. Your first instincts are usually right because your brain hasn't over processed the situation."

"Okay. Xavier's X-Men and Magneto's Brotherhood have similar goals, so you have to really analyze how the two are different, don't you? If we had exactly the same goals, then we wouldn't always be butting heads."

Logan hadn't spent that much time with the X-Men, and he truthfully hadn't even known that Magneto called his own following the Brotherhood. But one didn't have to be on the inside to see the extreme differences between the two. "We may have similar goals in mind, but the methods in which we go about accomplishing those goals are at opposite ends of the spectrum. The method makes all the difference."

"The method makes the difference," John repeated quietly, as though committing it to memory. They stood in silence for a few thoughtful moments before John sucked in a breath. "You're an outdoors kind of guy, aren't you, Wolverine?"

"You can't have my tent," he replied shortly. And just like that, the mood was lifted. John certainly seemed to have taken his words to heart, and he'd been much smarter than Logan would have given him credit for only hours ago.

Then again, all he'd known of John a few hours ago was a temperamental teen that liked to run his mouth and snap his lighter. Perhaps all Magneto knew of Logan was a 'slice 'em and dice 'em' fighter. They hadn't spent enough time talking to each other for Magneto to realize that Logan was fairly smart, but Logan was just fine with that. The dumber he thought Logan was, the better.

"Well, you never know until you ask," John mumbled in response to Logan's refusal to give the boy his tent.

"Go to bed, John." Both John and Logan whirled around and found Ororo standing behind them, her arms crossed and looking more tired than annoyed. "Go on. You win. Sleep in my tent and I'll sleep in Jean's tent."

Logan could have sworn that he heard the youth mutter, "Checkmate," as he nodded and disappeared into Ororo's tent. Ororo glanced at Logan out of the corner of her eye before gliding past him without a second glance. He certainly deserved it. He'd have to truly make an effort to earn her forgiveness, though he wasn't exactly sure how. I sure as hell won't try to buy it, he added as a vicious afterthought.

Apologizing would be a good first step, but she needed time to cool off first. She stopped before she was out of sight and turned to him. Her voice was low when she spoke, but Logan heard her clearly. "For John's sake, thank you." Her voice was tight, as though thanking him were an effort.

He could certainly understand how John could be a handful, and Logan had only known him for twenty-four hours. His temper seemed to be nearly as hot as Ororo's, but listening to the two of them interact, it was clear that they truly did offer each other support in a world that had treated them unjustly. Logan was happy to help.

"I didn't do it for you," he said, biting his tongue the second the words left his lips. That had sounded a lot worse than he'd intended. She narrowed her eyes and he hurried to explain. "What I mean is, I know it'll take more than that to earn your forgiveness." Yeah, saying that will help...

She stared at him for a long moment before she shook her head and turned away. "If you can," she muttered darkly into the night.

He had a sudden thought, and wrestled with it for half a second before he finally blurted it out. "Do you really hate me just because I want to remember?" He knew that she'd probably be mad that he'd been listening in, but honestly, everyone knew that his hearing was exceptional. And part of him wondered it she had been so angry with him because he'd brought up something that she desperately wanted to forget.

Her jaw tightened as she seemed to be deciding if she wanted to answer his question. "No," she said finally. "I don't hate you for not being able to remember." Which translated to, 'I do hate you, but not for that reason.' "I'm guess I'm just jealous."

"You'd like to wake up one morning and feel as though you'd been born at that moment? You wouldn't know where you are, where you'd come from or even who you are."

"Ignorance is bliss."

"And knowledge is power. Maybe your past hurts, but it's shaped you into the person that you are."

"Maybe underneath all of that shaping is the person that I was meant to be."

"Or maybe He," Logan pointed to the heavens, "specifically shaped you into the person that you were meant to be."

Her expression became slightly less hard as she turned to the tent that John had disappeared into. "But why?" she whispered before turning to leave.

Logan wanted to call to her, but he knew that there was nothing he could say would stop her from leaving him alone in the darkness again.