The day had dragged on forever. While Xavier took on Michael after his own classes ended, Danielle visited Riley all day, intent on spending whatever time left she could with him. Arming herself well with the knives she now took everywhere with her, she entered the hospital and checked in, sitting in the dark room with a book of Peter Rabbit stories she took when leaving the farmhouse. Calmly, she read most of the book, rocking back and forth in the chair provided for her by a kindly nurse. At times, she took the tiny, wrinkled hand, gently stroking it and feeling the pain and helplessness Riley was experiencing, shaking under his bandages. While Danielle had not connected with Michael that early, she felt taken aback, almost as vulnerable as Riley, feeling free tears fall from her face when she was sure that she was alone.

Around six o'clock in the evening, when she felt her body droop with last night's sleepless escapades, Danielle stood up. She kissed her fingers, putting them on Riley's forehead as if leaving a kiss, before leaving and talking with the night nurse. Leaving another phone number just in case there was a change (Xavier's office), Danielle left the hospital, and this time with a heavier heart and a sorer body. Driving back alone to the mansion in the SUV, tears again sprang from her eyes, but she wiped them away quickly.

There's no time for tears now.

An hour later, after driving aimlessly for some time alone, Danielle was back at the mansion, helping Michael with his homework as they sat on her bed together. Devon was nearby too, asking questions here and there when he had some trouble, but achieving more in the time before bed than Michael and his easy distractions. Closer to eight-thirty, when Michael was yawning, Danielle ushered the two into a bathroom, each taking a shower before heading to their bedroom and going to sleep. When Danielle was sure the two were sound asleep, she went to the main door, unlocking it. She thought it a definite sign of welcome to the one she always expected, but she was not sure yet.

Naturally, Danielle was not sure about a lot of things this night, especially since the day before. The night before, she admitted her love to Logan. While he said nothing in return (and nothing else for the rest of the night too), he also left his leather jacket with her. She was expecting that he return to claim it (even cleaning it might be a plus)…and her as well.

The knock came almost immediately after that thought, like clockwork. Danielle answered it, allowing Logan to come in without saying a word of greeting to him, but did motion to his jacket hanging up in the closet, clean. After Danielle closed the door though, the two fell into a tight embrace, forgetting everything else but each other.

"Feel up to answering some questions for me?" Logan asked her nicely, thinking of earlier and what Jean (as well as everyone else) had said during his short investigation.

All Danielle needed to do was scan Logan to know what he had been up to and he knew it. "Try me. If I don't feel comfortable, I'll let you know. Sound fair?"

"Sure." Logan was silent for a moment and then broke the embrace, aiming to be blunt and to the point, asking the same questions he had to Xavier. "Why all the secrecy with you? Why can't anyone give me a straight answer?"

"Including me?" Danielle asked nervously as her hands shook with the truth. "Because there's too much involved. Because I'm not ready to share my demons with anyone, including you, and I don't want my life to be broadcasted to the world. I want them behind me."

"They're not."

"No, most of them aren't."

She was honest, Logan conceded. She was ready to move forward.

Or she was?

"I don't want to ruin what we have right now with this," Danielle admitted, moving closer to Logan and wanting to rub his hands gently. "I don't want to ruin a good thing with the bad. You and I…we have our problems and we'll work together towards solving them, but not tonight. I want peace tonight, peace and quiet with the person I love."

Logan had to agree. The last few days in general were chaotic, to say the least, and he was more than willing to go to bed, even if sleep was something that he normally did not need. Danielle even looked tired to him though. He saw that she wasn't sleeping herself, more than her fair share of worry on her plate, and the tug to bed was certainly a step in the right direction for her, at least.

But he has to step one more toe into the water.

"How's your son?" he then asked her as she led him to bed, pulling him under the covers with her.

Danielle hesitated for a moment as she got under the blanket, images of the day overwhelming her. Of course, Logan meant Riley, and he had meant good by his question, showing his own concern for the family she had. He had been dancing around that inquiry for some time now, ever since he found out that she was alive, and had decided to ask her today, of all times. If he could not get something about her past, he might as well ask about the present.

It was time. Danielle would give in, give what Logan wanted. She owned him that much already, including her life. It was time for some truth.

"Frankly, nobody knows yet if Riley will live, but some are hopeful," she admitted slowly as the two curled up against each other. "I don't even know either, but I want him to live. He was shot at too."

Danielle was silent, closing her eyes and seeing those images again, of her young son in that dark hospital room without her, and felt his helplessness again. As Logan drew closer, she opened them, staring at him in the face. He was near her, his lips and nose close to hers. Their breath almost became one. But instead of kissing each other, the two pushed their bodies towards the other to avoid the inevitable, Danielle burying her face into Logan's chest. Both were clearly not able to even kiss the other.

No, not yet. I'm not ready yet! The thought ran through Danielle's mind, but sleep seemed to take over soon enough. But before she could ponder anything else, it had already come to claim her.

~00~

For hours, Logan was awake. He listened to the sounds of the school, the same he had heard since arriving at the mansion, but he also sensed more than the usual. All throughout the time he was with Danielle that night, he smelled someone else in the room. When he detangled from Danielle, who had clung onto him like a lifejacket (and almost would not let go like she was going to drown in an ocean), he checked on Devon and Michael in the other room, seeing nothing, but still feeling like he was being watched. The windows were closed and the door was locked, he was sure, so he went back to bed, uncertain about their safety, but keeping on alert.

It was around four in the morning when Logan sat back up again abruptly. Somebody was nearby. He could almost feel the person next to him, breathing on him.

This woke up Danielle too. "What's wrong, Logan?" she asked with a yawn, sensing another in the room and seeing the time on the clock next to her. "Damn, I don't think I've slept more than six hours for some time now."

"Shh," Logan cautioned her as he got up. He walked around the room in a circle a few times. Danielle watched him, willing him to turn around and see the man in the room that was outlined in her mind, but after coming back towards the bed, Logan suddenly turned around, claws out, and stabbed someone in the shoulders, pushing them against the wall next to the door.

Laughter soon filled the room. A mirage-like image shimmered suddenly, revealing an older man with red eyes, almost like Danielle's, Logan noticed. Dressed in jungle camo and holding a sidearm in his right hand as blood dripped down it, the man pointed the gun at Logan's head.

"I don't think you know me too well, bub," Logan only said, twisting his claws deeper into the man's shoulders, seeing his eyes turning from red to a golden brown color. "Go ahead. Shoot. You can't kill me."

"Every man has a weakness, soldier," the man replied, laughter still in his voice as his eyes darted to Logan's dog tags. "And every man has a way and a will to die once found."

The words sounded too familiar to Danielle. It was another painful memory, one that twisted her childhood and haunted her dreams, one that only few people knew. It was that time again, when she was once small and playing, and the next moment, was running for her life. It was the first time her mutation manifested before the others turned her inward, when her mother's family curse had finally turned her into the monster that she was now. It was the first time that her secure world had turned upside down and her life had never been the same again.

"Chameleon," Danielle said warmly, getting out the bed to face the man who had destroyed her security. "What do we owe the honor of this visit?"

"Checking in," he replied, turning to Logan for some relief from the cold pain in his shoulders. Logan, however, was unwilling to let go.

"Sneaking around doesn't sound like checking in to me," Logan growled. "Try again."

"I guess seeing the people I love don't count, right?" Chameleon laughed again, an echo from another memory from a short time ago. "I was just at Trask in New York City today. Ellis has some crafty things going around."

"So?" Danielle was out of patience, unwilling to talk to a man with too many riddles. "You want to tell us something or deal with the Professor now?"

"All I want to let you know, Danielle, is that Mae is safe," Chameleon confirmed, serious for once. His white hair stood on end, sweat rolling down his face, mingling with the blood. "Ellis kidnapped her and held her hostage as his dumb oaf of a cousin battled with Roger Mortimer. Asshole almost lost his element of surprise with the assassin himself, like it was expected again."

Logan was confused by the names and looked to Danielle for some clues. By the shocked appearance to her face, Logan assumed that she knew the names and was now worried…again. She was shaking visibly.

"Let me go," Chameleon begged, his voice a nail on the chalkboard for Danielle. "Let me go. Ellis will come for you next and I don't know if I'll be able to help you this time."

"As if you've done any good in my life!" Danielle yelled coldly, not caring about the boys sleeping in the other room. "You've made my life a living hell and were better off out of it."

Logan couldn't think, immobilized by the argument between the two and unwilling to understand what was going on. On one hand, he felt violated, that an intruder that cut across Xavier's defenses and had come into the mansion. On the other hand, he was seeing the anguish on the man's face and the anger in Danielle's voice. There was history between the two, no doubt about it, but there was also safety involved. He had to follow procedure and hand Chameleon in to Xavier, whatever the cost and however much he pleaded to be free and no matter how annoyed people will be to be woken up.

"You know I've had problems, Princess," Chameleon said tenderly as Danielle turned to end the conversation, invoking a name Logan found out firsthand annoyed Danielle the most, but had brought out something in the man that he did not see existing. It had been love. "I didn't mean for them to be part of yours too."

Danielle whirled around in seconds and was right in Chameleon's face. "Don't ever call me that again. Do you hear me? And leave my children alone. I will kill you if I see you in here again."

"If you don't act fast, you won't have your children anymore," Chameleon pointed out, starting to fade in and out of visibility, his eyes turning red. "I'm telling you, Ellis has the bomb set. And it will be tomorrow night that it will explode."

"Liar," Logan muttered, twisting his claws deeper in Chameleon's shoulders, especially upset to see Danielle's pain, but also trying to keep him from escaping.

"Prove it to us!" Danielle said, willing herself not to give into her conflicted emotions, but failed. She ran to Chameleon, grabbing him by the throat with her bare hands, but gasped when he completely disappeared.

"Where is he?" she muttered, turning around, her defenses on. Her eyes turned a dangerous red color themselves, something that Logan had not seen before. However, in the meantime, he pulled her claws into their own protective position, blood dripping them from.

Logan then sniffed the air. "Gone," he said, retracting his claws. "Dammit!" He hit the wall with his fist.

"What did he want?" Danielle wondered as she sat on the bed, her eyes calming down and turning back to their normal shade. "Why did he come?"

"I don't know," Logan replied, turning to her for some explanation, but timing it for a later time to talk about. "But we might have something."

"Other than a lack of intruder to give to the Professor?" Danielle asked bitterly, hearing the whispers of the boys in the other room as they woke up.

"No," Logan said carefully, trying to pick his words cautiously. "But we have a timeline. And maybe there's some time to find this thing and do something about it."

In addition, Logan wanted to say, there was something about Chameleon that bothered him, something worse than he expected, but instead he watched Danielle nod in agreement. The way Danielle reacted, the way the two interacted…they knew each other and it was a long time they did. Something happened to Danielle that made her so startled, made her defensive, and it shook him deeply.

However, Logan was more than willing to find out more when the time came now.