Hahaha. You thought I'd disappear again for months on end, didn't you? Well, I fooled you. lol.

Kidding. But yeah. Like I said, I'm trying to get back on a schedule. Look for new chapters Thursday-Friday, either every week or every other. I'm going to try to get at least 2 chaps out a month, though we'll see if I can go as high as 4 chaps per month. :)

Thanks for the reviews. I pour over every one, and for you few who write loooong reviews-I often go back and reread them as I'm working on the next chapter for posting. So write them as long as you wish, because I horde every word as if it's made of gold. I love to hear your hypotheses of where this is going and to hear what you liked best out of the chapters. It makes me grin ear-to-ear. :)

This is a super-long chapter, and you can kind of tell by its sloppy structure that I was trying to push the direction forward. I apologize for the pacing-I know it could use a good deal more work, but I'm really wanting to get to the next few chapters. Still, I hope you enjoy the chapter.

Oh yes, and please remember to review :):)


Chapter 53: The Persistence of Memory


Then:

Wolverine shut the door behind him, still grimacing at the taste of toothpaste. He'd almost done a spit-take when Mac had tried showing him how to brush his teeth—the taste was plain vile. His tongue still felt on fire from the strength of it, even after spending ten minutes trying to wash it out after the initial gag.

He flicked on the lamp next to the bed and lay down, one arm beneath his head as he stared at the stuccoed ceiling.

Time for bed. People did that, it seems. Had a schedule to sleep—at night, when it's dark. Time to go to sleep, time to wake up. Time to eat, to go to work, to come home. He wasn't used to it.

And tired as he felt, he didn't feel like sleeping. If he'd been in the woods, he would have used his restlessness to walk another few miles.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

The clock on the wall ticked seconds quietly away.

Wolverine stood abruptly, striding to the wall and staring at the clock hanging there before reaching to carefully pull it down. He eyed it, shaking it carefully, but the soft tick, tick, tick stepped steadily onward. He frowned, then walked back to the bed and stuck it under the mattress before flopping back again.

Now it was too quiet. No wind, no trees, no birds or rustling of mice or rabbits. No sound. Just silent and still. Even his breathing felt contained—his heart beat loud in his ears.

He rose again, running his hand through his hair as he got to his feet

It'd been nice to go back to the woods, but it left his legs restless. Talking so long, even though it was nice to talk with Heather. But he didn't like to see the looks that Heather couldn't keep from her face when he was stopped dead at questions he felt he should know.

There were just too many questions, and not enough answers

He paused, his eye caught by the questionnaire Heather had given him earlier that day. He hesitated, but then picked the pen from the top of it and lifted it carefully.

Name: Logan. It was written gracefully in her hand—looped and slanted, different from the square-like letters in the magazine at the cabin, and of the typed question itself. He traced the letters with a finger that looked clumsy and awkward beside the delicate writing, then paused on the second question.

Favorite color.

He paused, then picked up the pen and glanced at Heather's neat handwriting before carefully adjusting the pen in his hand and writing as neatly as he could. It was easier than he thought it would be.

Favorite color: green.

Like grass, and spring, and Heather's eyes.

He looked at the answer for a long moment, tilting his head at the difference in their handwriting, but at last set it back down, satisfied.

He looked around the room, inhaling deeply, and snorting at the dusty scent of the room, and then paused, drifting forward towards the nearest bookshelf.

It was dusty, but he could smell the touch of people on it. Heather. Mac. Some others that he didn't recognize; the scents were fading, but the books were worn and used: read, some multiple times. He reached forward, pulling one out and glancing at the title before setting it aside. Then another. And another.

Soon there were more books on the floor than on the shelves—one stack had slid to the side, forming a stepped ramp to its foundation. Half he returned to the shelves, but he eventually drifted back towards the bed and the night hours pressed their way forward.

"Wolvie! I—oh!" Heather pushed open the door as the sky was beginning to lighten, but stopped. Logan was already out of bed—fully dressed, his hair no more ruffled from sleep than it usually was as he sat on the floor next to the bed. Books were pulled from the shelves, scattered along the floor. It looked like every drawer had been pulled open and explored: a hand mirror and an opened box of sea shells sat next to the table lamp—laid out carefully as if carefully examined before being set in their places. Something from under the bed was pulled out, and the clock was missing from the wall.

Heather could imagine him, up late into the night, sniffing around—curious. She wondered how they hadn't heard anything . . . though considering how careful Wolverine always seemed about making noise she supposed she shouldn't have been surprised. She smiled at Wolverine's wary expression as he saw her look around the room.

She closed her mouth and smiled. "It's all right. We'll clean up later. I was just wondering—breakfast?"

Wolverine carefully placed a slip of paper as a bookmark in the book, and looked at her for a long moment. Heather glanced at the book—it was a copy of Call of the Wild, of all things—and then looked back at him.

"Breakfast," he agreed at last, with the slightest hint of a smile. She wondered what he was thinking.

As she flipped the pancakes and Mac talked easily with Wolverine over the morning paper, Heather couldn't help but hope the book didn't send him running back into the mountains. She chuckled, shook her head at herself, and joined them at the table.

"Thanks, honey," Mac said, kissing her as she sat, and then pulling her in for one that lasted a fraction longer. "I love you," he said.

Wolverine frowned at them.

Love?

He watched Heather as she pulled back, smiling at her husband. He took her hand, and kept it looped loosely in his at they ate.

Love.

The word felt warm—but not uncomfortably so. Like something soft and quiet had settled into his chest.

Love.

Was that love?

Love.

It was quiet words, spoken together. Touching hands, secret smiles. The smell of attraction, and trust.

He watched them, and felt something else—an edge of pain. Something gnawing at him, like a bullet working its way out of his chest.

Love?

He shook his head, wondering, at put it to the back of his thoughts to keep an eye on. To learn.

There was so much to learn. So much to change, as he settled into life with Heather and Mac.

After a couple days Wolverine started going running in the morning with James after the man had popped into his room before the sun had risen. It was only a few miles, though Mac seemed winded and sore after the fact. The second Sunday he limped into the living room with two rifles in hand, finding Wolverine already awake and sitting on the couch, ready to go. Wolverine eyed the guns warily—not tensing visibly, but sitting relaxed in such a way that it was clear he could be on his feet in a millisecond.

"I thought we'd take a break from running for a day. I'm not as young as I used to be." Mac grinned, holding out a gun. "Thought we'd try something else out instead. How do you feel about rabbit hunting?"

Wolverine perked up.

They'd brought home five rabbits—easy takes, with gunshots clean through the heads: Logan had taken each down before Mac had even seen them.

Heather had paled at the sight of the five dead animals they brought home at midday, and Wolverine had quickly swept them up and outside, only to return a few minutes later to wash his hands and turn over the neatly skinned and sliced meat. Mac had beamed and clapped him on his shoulder like a proud father.

"You should have seen our boy out there," Mac said as they ate honey-roasted rabbit for dinner that night. "Not a thing got by him—not a thing. And his way in the woods—I took my eyes off him for a second and he vanished: not a sound, and suddenly he was gone. Not to mention his aim. Took a rabbit down from across a meadow—had to be 100 meters at least—didn't even pause to aim."

"That's amazing," Heather smiled, putting a hand on Wolverine's arm. "So it's thanks to you that we have such a great dinner."

"Tastes better cooked," Wolverine admitted, helping himself to fourths. He dug in, glancing at Heather with a stumbling compliment, "Ya . . . ya did good with it."

It made Heather smile, though, and he couldn't help but give his hesitant beginnings of a smile in return.

The next day she went in to his room to find that he'd uncovered a box of articles from under the guest bed. Wolverine had discovered her collection on superheroes—the Time article introducing the Fantastic Four, the essays on Captain America and his legendary work during World War II before he went MIA. Mysterious occurrences from streaks of fire in the sky to stories of supposedly dead men coming back to life, and a score other unexplained instances and sightings. The letter she'd written defending James' actions when he'd fled from the government trying to take over his work on his suit, and the contract that kept his project private while allowing him the authority to begin to work to create a Canadian team. By the sight of it he'd gone through all of them.

He went with them to work after that first week—often hovering like an invisible shadow, and going through the occasional exercise when Heather asked him to: as much as he glowered at strangers, he was nothing but eager to help if Heather asked, and he never got in the way. He was so quiet one day that Heather forgot he was even there, but turned to find that he'd pulled out her shelf of books behind her desk and flipped through a biology reference book-he'd left it open in the middle of a section on the skeletal system on the floor beside him-and was in the middle of perusing an old thesis.

"Professor Xavier's ideas were far ahead of his time," Heather said when she saw him reading. "He predicted the existence of mutants as far back as the 1960s, and presented a surprisingly accurate view of both the physical and social implications of their existence." She hesitated. "Do you understand it?"

Wolverine shrugged, then nodded. "Guy writes boring as hell, but yeah." His voice was soft as ever—she'd never heard it louder than that soft murmur—but at least he was speaking more. Around her, at least, and sometimes Mac.

But that was one of the surprising things Heather learned about him in those beginning days. While his stumbling conversation was growing more common around her and James, he was practically mute around anyone else. At least he'd stopped glaring down everyone he came across unless he caught them staring, but even while his eyes never roamed Heather had the feeling that he knew exactly where everyone was around him, all the time.

But for all of his rough and feral manner, they had discovered a surprising thing: Wolverine was an avid reader.

Though maybe an avid reader wasn't exactly right. Avid learner. He had a grown man's brain, but a child's curiosity. He watched people like a study—often she caught him watching her that way.

What was an intelligent outsider's view of humanity? She couldn't help but wonder.

It had begun with Call of the Wild, which Heather thought might be a short catch for his attention. But the next night it was And Then There Were None, by Agatha Christie, followed by three more of her murder mysteries in the next three days until he got distracted by a tattered copy of Animal Farm, which Heather had honestly never gotten through and now couldn't help but wonder what he saw in it. Almost every day it seemed he came out of the bedroom with a new book, and every day his speech came a little clearer, a little more confident. Though Mac had almost done a spit-take when he'd gravely quoted Voltaire at him at the dinner table as he was enthusing over his progress of his suit and the team.

"I'm hoping to have a complete working prototype by the end of the week, and Dr. Twoyoungmen said he's considering joining after I talked him around a bit. Things are coming together like we couldn't hope," Mac said. "This time we live in . . . it's the best of worlds it?"

"If this is the best of all possible worlds . . ." Wolverine said absently, half-mumbling and not looking up from his plate. "What are the others?"

Mac blinked, and Heather stared. Wolverine looked up, and, catching their glances, his eyes hooded.

"Was that . . . Candide?"

Wolverine frowned. Heather could almost see his mind working—trying to see if he'd said something wrong.

"Should he even be reading that?" Mac asked, recovering.

"It's fine," Heather said quickly, seeing Wolverine's expression. "He just means it's a little . . . crude." Again, she couldn't help but wonder what the heck Wolverine had thought as he had read the book.

Wolverine looked at her, expression unreadable, and put a chunk of meat in his mouth. "It's real," he said around the food.

Heather glanced at Mac. It had gotten to the point that they were no longer surprised to find some of his gaps—they seemed as random as they could be. "Actually, Wolvie, it's called fiction. It's a story someone made up. Some of it sounds real, and it maybe even could happen, but it's just pretend. Some books are real, of course—"

But Wolverine was already shaking his head. He swallowed the meat. "Yeah, yeah," he said. "But it's . . . " He struggled for the word. ". . . truth." He gestured outward slightly with his fork—something close to a shrug. "It's . . . People. Humans. Life." But then he paused, looking at her sideways—but closely. Closer than most people ever dared to look. The kind of scrutiny that Heather wanted to give him—to see right into his head. She cleared her throat, not entirely comfortable under it, but after a moment he looked away and turned back to his meal.

He didn't like to talk about the books much, though. She kept an eye on what he was reading after that, but her questions were often met with a shrug, or a one-word answer. But he kept reading, night after night, book after book.

She wondered if he slept more than a couple hours. She wondered if he needed to. He looked tired in the morning, but at least she hadn't heard of any more nightmares.

As the third week opened they had settled into a comfortable routine. Mac seemed to love having Wolverine around—going so far as to take him out to throw a ball around one evening after dinner, and taking him to a hockey game for a guy's night out. After that, they sat on the couch and watched the games together at home, and Wolverine—Logan, Heather kept forgetting to call him, not that he seemed to mind—was just as into it as they were, though she kept catching him watching her from his sitting position on the floor, which he preferred, though he quickly looked away when she noticed him watching.

That third week, he went with her to the store, and the trip took twice as long as usual between him sniffing to inspect what they passed and how he stopped pushing the grocery stop dead whenever someone drew close. Only a word and a touch of his arm would break him from his sideways glare at them, and Heather couldn't help but smile. He looked so out of place—strangely vulnerable despite his near-invulnerability—but darn it if he wasn't trying to protect her.

He and Mac grew thick as thieves, though Wolverine's response to Mac's constant joking and talking was usually just a small smile or a soft, short response.

An evening a couple days later she found the two men talking in hushed tones in the kitchen, and they cut short when she stepped in on them. Mac smiled at her innocently, but Wolverine's face was unreadable as stone.

They wouldn't crack on what they'd been talking about, and they disappeared for a couple hours later that night. The next day Mac stopped her when she went to knock on Wolverine's door—apparently he wanted to stay home for the day.

Heather had worried, though Mac had insisted nothing was wrong. What if something had frightened Wolverine? Or offended him, since the idea of him being afraid was somewhat ludicrous. After their progress, to think that she might have pushed him away somehow . . .

God. No matter that he was visibly at least a few years older than them, and likely older than that besides . . . she almost looked at him as a child-innocent as he was in so many ways-no matter how silly it was. She was distracted at work that day—kept glancing back to where he usually sat on the floor in the corner. Clarke came in around lunch, asking if they had made any progress on getting Wolverine on board for the department, but Heather had snapped at him: Wolverine would make that decision on his own, when he was ready.

But her worries were stilled when she got home with Mac that afternoon to find Wolverine standing on the newly painted front porch—paint smudged on his cheek and into one of his sideburns. He grinned as she gaped at him and laughed, though he started when she threw her arms around his neck. He blinked, then put his arms awkwardly around her before she pulled back.

"All his idea," Mac said, clapping Wolverine on the shoulder. "Said he wanted to do something to help out, and noticed the paint was a bit weathered. A big job, but he got it done."

"Thank you, Logan," Heather said, and Wolverine gave one of his rare smiles.

She didn't know it, but for the first time, the name hadn't hurt one bit.


Now:

Frost's been settling in all right. 'S been a week. It's nice havin' someone else takin' over some classes, and with Beast back on his feet—even if he is limpin'—it's almost back to normal. Or I guess as normal as it gets around here.

Kitty still won't look at Frost without glarin' like she's tryin' to pull a Cyclops and blast her head right off. Beast is cold but cordial enough, and Crawler's polite to her as to anyone. Guy'll trust anyone until they give him a reason not to—figure that's why we're such good friends.

I even hopped on over for a normal mission a couple days ago. Brought just 'Crawler, Rogue, and Pete—but some clowns decided to attack the mansion while we were gone. Some of Magneto's old crew—Toad, Blob . . . and some other B class baddies. Frost 'pparently felt 'em comin', and she had her new team lined up and the team in order soon as she could snap her fingers. Had the old boys runnin' off with their tails between their legs, and the whole mess cleaned up before we even made it back.

Even Beast said she handled herself well. Not up to trustin' her fully, yet, but I—outta anyone—know some people deserve a second chance. Lady's been good so far. I'll let her watch my back until she tries to put a knife in it. Even if she manages that, I'll heal up in time to take her down anyway.

Can't help but be tempted ta let her on Cerebro, just for a minute. If Storm's out there . . .

But I can't do that. Put a teep in there and there ain't a way to stop 'em.

Needs t'prove herself a bit more than this, before I trust her that much.

If it was that easy, we'd've found Storm already, and I'd be on my way to Madripoor.

Lady's hidin' something, though. Seen her walking outside at night more than once, but she keeps her distance now. Some secret keepin' her from sleep. Wonder what it is. Beast says she was bad as anyone in the day, but I find it hard to imagine Emma Frost being kept up by guilt. She's as cold as ice.

Trusted or not, she's already dug her fingers in tight here already. She's workin' hard to make a place here, and the kids are looking up to her whether we like it or not.


Emma Frost looked down at him coolly. She was taller than him—and even more so with the added height of heels—but the tilt of her head emphasized it even further. Her lips pursed slightly in thought, but her eyes narrowed.

"It wasn't a question," Logan said, turning away. "You, me, Rogue, Pete, 'Crawler, Kitty, Beast. Fifteen minutes. Call them up."

He could smell that she wasn't happy—she rarely was, when he pulled her out of her already-set routine, but at least she didn't argue this time. She might not like it, but no doubt she understood the need.

He headed down to the Danger Room, calling up a simple program with a punching bag to hit while he waited. He danced as the weight of it swung back and forth—strike, step. Strike-strike.

Metal knuckles shook the bag on its chain, and he pushed himself faster.

It'd been five days since he'd been fully back on his feet. Scars were all but gone, save for two fading red handprints on his neck—he knew from experience that those would take an extra day or two to fade—and Bloodscream had been cut into five pieces and hidden within a ten mile radius. Except the right arm. Logan had dropped that off on their latest mission in Philly. And the head—he'd encased that in concrete and tossed into the ocean.

Let's see him heal from that.

The days had passed strangely since their second meeting, though. Scars were fading, but his head felt like it was filled with restless wasps. Buzzing. He'd let his mind drift and come back to himself hours later—not sure what he was thinking about, but covered in a cold sweat. He'd flat out forgotten about promising to going out to a bar with Rogue—she swore that he'd asked her, but when she'd come looking for him he'd stared at her blankly.

He frowned, sweat breaking out on his skin as he continued his rhythm.

He was losing it. Needed to leave and sort his head out. Thing was, he couldn't help but recognize the thought that if he left he might just lose it completely without something to bring him back. The school needed him. Demanded his attention, and that kept him grounded.

Memories seeping in, memories seeping out.

Wondered if it would stop. Wondered if it ever would stop . . .

"End program." The bag froze in the middle of a backswing at Rogue. Logan blinked at it—he hadn't noticed that it had split through the front.

He turned, wiping his face. He glanced at the clock on the wall, hiding his reaction at the time. An hour had passed. An hour? He kept his face blank, and turned to the gathered X-Men. "I said fifteen minutes, Frost."

"I'm not a sophisticated intercom for your personal use, Wolverine. I had things I had to see to. An earlier warning for these things would be helpful."

Logan ignored her, glancing back at the clock. But of course it was right—the Danger Room adjusted itself to its settings, and the exercise room's clock was as accurate as it could be. But his mind felt clear enough. Even the wasps were quiet.

An hour, passed as if in minutes. He wiped the sweat from his face, hiding his thoughts, and faced them.

He folded his arms, looking the group over. "I picked you lot out 'cause we've been here the longest. We're the guys the kids look to when trouble comes. The—" The alpha flight. He frowned, but continued. "The first wave."

If anyone noticed his slight stumble, they didn't ask. Though Frost did lift an eyebrow, and Kitty was watching him. She'd been watching him closely since the second Bloodscream attack. If not the first.

Hadn't that been when it had all started? Bleeding out on the front porch, Storm bringing him back . . . then had come the nightmares of gunfire and wars that no living men should be able to remember.

"Time is we see how we fight together. All of us," he said, looking back at Kitty. The slim girl folded her arms, but didn't protest. She avoided looking at Frost so pointedly she might as well have turned and glared at her. She'd spent the last week pretending that the white queen didn't even exist. "Beast is gonna be in the observatory 'til he heals up, but for now—Frost, Kitty, Rogue, you're a team. Kurt, Pete—you're with me." He looked up to the observatory windows overhead. "Beast, you with us?"

"Indeed. Are we ready to begin?"

Wolverine nodded. "Put us on program 3B7." He never was one for fancy names. Half of the already-created names of the Danger Room settings had names like "King Arthur" and "Jurassic Park."

The program was one he'd put together some months before—nothing but a dark, shifting maze, with flags to find hidden throughout.

The teams split, though Kitty still avoided looking at Frost as they went off before the program started.

Black walls closed in, and Logan signaled to Kurt, who gave a white grin in his dark face and a thumbs up before flashing away to scout. Logan and Colossus crept forward, eyes alert.

Distantly they heard a shout and a crash—the enemy team was not the only danger programmed into these mazes, and even as Logan thought as much he felt the ground slip out from under him. Colossus leaped forward, grabbing a ledge and pulling himself up, but before he could turn and grab Wolverine's hand there was a bamf, and hands grabbed his shoulders before teleporting him safely to the other side of the black pit that had opened, lasers criss-crossing a few feet below.

Falling in would have left them "dead" and out of the game.

"Thanks, Elf," Logan gruffed.

"No problem," Kurt grinned, but Logan realized the stink of sulfur wasn't the only burning smell—and the other wasn't going away. The edge of Kurt's black suit was singed, though it looked like he'd avoided getting hit himself. "I vould avoid the right way, though."

They moved quickly forward, creeping along the walls. Logan's nose flared as he sought for telling scents—grease and oil and gas, and with Kurt scouting ahead they avoided most of the trouble. Still, they smashed their fair share of guns and machinery, working with their strengths. Wolverine trusted Pete and Kurt more than he'd ever trusted anyone.

Except . . .

Minutes passed, their small team working like a single unit, until they came to the clearing of the flag and went still as they looked across as Kitty, Emma, and Rogue emerged from their side. Kitty looked slightly disheveled, but Frost looked untouched—not a hair out of place.

"Go!" Logan shouted, and Kurt bamfed towards the target—a small glowing globe across the flat opening, some 50 meters away. Rogue gave a shout, lifting off the ground and blurring forward to catch him—and they both bamfed away as the rest of them darted to the ball. A gap opened up beneath Kitty's feet and she yelped, turning almost mid-air and twisting to grab the edge. Colossus skidded to a stop behind her, barely avoiding falling in himself.

"Fastball!" Logan snapped, and Colossus didn't pause before grabbing the scruff of his jacket and launching him forward like a bullet.

Rogue had lost Kurt, though, and had turned her attention towards them. As Wolverine was rocketed into the air at a good 200 mph-a soft throw for the Ruskie-Rogue blasted downward, catching him in mid-air. Or tried to, at least.

She hit him with an "Ooof!" and with enough force that Wolverine might as well smashed into a wall. The impact threw them both back, off-balance and tumbling. Rogue hit the ground, leaving a groove where she skidded to the stop, but Wolverine careened wildly in the air before slamming head-first into the wall behind the target.

His vision went white, then black as the hornets rose up in his head like an angry mob, drowning out sight and thought and vision into greyness . . .

Th-thump.

Grrrrrrrrr.

Consciousness raised its head like a weary beast, half-aware, wild, confused.

He was sprawled on the filthy floor. His body ached from the position—chest-flat on the floor, his neck twisted.

Something was in his throat—something thick, heavy—sticky. Like tar. He tried to swallow, but it caught, snagging his thin breath and jerking it down and away.

He choked.

The force knocked his face against the ground, and he recoiled instinctively, trying to pull into a ball, but something caught at his neck, jerking him back down as he hacked, coughing.

Finally it came up—a thick, black stream of blood and . . . yeah, bullets. Half felt them slide over his tongue, knocking against his shattered teeth. It took longer each time for them to heal.

Panic shot in at the lack of air, waking him faster than anything else could, and he tried to rise from the ground—keep himself from choking further.

He jerked upwards, but he didn't even make it onto his palms before something tightened around his neck, digging into the skin. He gasped, choking again, and jerked back to the floor, heedless of the red-black sludge beneath him as he gasped wetly for air.

He slid his hand up blindly, grasping at his neck, and finding the hard metal locked around his neck. He brought up his other hand, digging his fingers between the hard metal and his throat. He traced the chain looped from the collar with a shaking hand—it had been pulled tight and locked down. Was maybe 6 inches long. Not even long enough for him to turn his head.

His heart thudded in his skull, and he strained against it, twisting his head.

He couldn't move. Paralyzed—pinned down, unable to move, to stand, to see. A terrible feeling of claustrophobia, choking him from the inside out.

Stryker's boots stopped in front of his gaze, and he went still, his fingers still curled around the sharp metal.

Distantly, he realized that Stryker was speaking. He sounded impossibly far away.

"Going without sleep for 36 hours is like being drunk for a normal man. You've been awake for, what? A month now? I suppose it's hard to say—I'd say you've been flat-out dead a few times since then, and what does that count for? Still. You're a bar-lover, Logan; what's your opinion?" Something knocked against his leg—the toe of a boot, nudging him like nudging a corpse. "But then, you've never been drunk, have you? The men used to say how impossible it was that you could even sit up with how much you drank. That's just it. Tried to get drunk like a man, hurt like a man, die like a man. It just didn't work for you, did it?"

He let his fingers slip from the metal collar. His hand flopped into the filth below like a puppet with no strings.

"But good as it's been, Wolverine—I'm here to say goodbye."

Something twisted inside of him, and emotion more than thought floated to the surface of his mind.

Hope, if you could call it that.

He'd forgotten what it felt like.

Had they finally—impossibly—found out how to kill him for good?

Freedom . . .

Wolverine shut his eyes.

So tired. So empty and shriveled. A husk, that was all.

"Not so fast," Stryker replied, but there was something in his tone that made Logan open his eyes again, staring at the drying blood on the floor inches from his eyes. "Not until you know exactly what's going to happen to you. 'Cause I want you to know, animal."

Dull black eyes stared into nothingness—waiting. Maybe not even listening. His eyes already looked dead.

Stryker bent down, grabbing his jaw with a gloved hand and forcing his face upwards. Agony shot down his spine as his neck was twisted backwards, threatening to snap, but he didn't make a sound. Dilated eyes glazed upwards, barely seeing.

"You're not going to die," Stryker breathed, his face floating in the darkness above him. "You can't die, Wolverine, so we're making you ours. There's a doctor—the professor. He's going to turn you inside out. Rip every last scrap of humanity from that animal hide of yours. You won't even remember who I am, or who you are. You'll be ours—mind, body, and soul: without thought, without memories, without choice. You won't even remember your own name. A weapon. Our weapon."

Forget it all . . .

Wolverine eyes flickered, and his eyes widened marginally.

Itsu . . .

Her face flashed before him—a memory of light in a world of darkness. Other faces, smiling, laughing, crying—dying. He could taste their blood.

He'd long wished he could forget it all—the pain, the horror, the death.

But not like this. Not forget her.

Pleased with a reaction at last, Stryker leaned in closer, his voice dropping to a whisper.

"Can you imagine it, animal? Imagine it! Die imagining the horror of nothing, like those who have died before you. Follow so many you've led into oblivion."

He let him go, and Logan's head dropped to thud against the stone.

"Goodbye, Wolverine. Whatever fragment of humanity you've clung to, you'll be no more. Let it be the last thought you ever think."

Stryker turned around. "Rope him up and take him to the lab."

Hands caught at him, grabbing his bound arms and pulling him to his feet as they wrenched the collar from around his neck. He gasped for air, but barely registered the physical as it bore down on him.

The fury and terror from their handling was overwhelmed with the senseless rush of panic.

He yanked his arm back, catching the man behind him in the gut and lunged, staggering as his legs refused to hold even his diminished weight. His fist slammed into Stryker's face before the collar yanked him back. His bare feet found no traction in the muck, and he went down onto his back—choking as the guard stepped on the chain, bringing him up short. A gun pressed against the side of his head, but he wheezed for breath, his limbs shaking from the exertion.

He was wasted up—starved, dehydrated. Dead a hundred times—a thousand. How long had it been? How long?

His vision wavered in darkness—in and out. Black and grey.

Stryker wiped the blood from his jaw, sneering as he looked down at Wolverine. The soldier bent down, teeth baring ferally as he pulled his head by the hair with a gloved hand, inches away from his face.

"It'll take time," his harsh voice grated on ears like distant metal against metal. "Months-maybe even years. You'll feel yourself slipping, and there'll be nothing you can do to stop it. Above all else, animal—I want you to know what is being done to you as you drain away. Drop. By. Drop. We own you, Wolverine. Soul, heart," he looked his emaciated form up and down, his lips curled in disgust, "and body."

Stryker pulled back, and Wolverine's head dropped back onto his chest.

"Take him."

Logan's eyes shot open—blackness at first, then grey, but he saw nothing. His ears rang—distantly he heard one calling his name—Logan. Logan.

He staggered to his feet, a hand thrown out as he stumbled forward, a hand in front of him. He tasted blood in his mouth, felt the pain in his head as his vision swam in and out.

The Danger Room had gone blank, but he didn't see it as he raised his eyes. He could see them, his claws torn through uniforms and skin—faces and arms and guts. Wide eyes terrified, helpless. Rogue's corpse was walking towards him, her neck broken, her eyes rotting. The three claw marks where he'd cut her clean through. Kurt lay cut in two, Pete slumped against the wall with blank eyes staring.

He trembled.

Logan. Sounds rushing in like waves. Someone speaking to him, reaching out to him.

The words slipped by him—his mind was caught in nightmares. He threw out a hand in front of him and stumbled forward, until he reached the white halls and broke into a full out sprint.

No words, no thoughts. Just run.

Run.

He bolted out the back door of the mansion, sprinting across the deck and across the lawn. He dropped to his knees beyond the deck as his vision swam again, and he grabbed his head with a cry.

Too much. Too much.

"Ngh. Ngh. Ngh . . ." Logan rested his forehead on the walkway, the cooling stone feeling like ice against his burning forehead.

Logan? Logan, can you hear me?

Images and feelings—too dark, too mad to give words to. Panic welled up, sickness making him want to heave until he choked out his lungs—tightness, bearing him down like a thousand oceans, drowning him. Claws digging to his heart—shredding him from the inside out.

Run. Run. Run.

Fingernails dug through the skin of his scalp. Deep inside, he screamed.

Wolverine?

A hand touched his shoulder. He reacted without thinking.

Claws shot out as he twisted, ripping clean through Emma Frost—but there was no blood, no tear of bone-from-bone. He passed clean through her, as if she'd been phased like Kitty.

"Non-corporeal form, Logan. I'm all in your head; you can't hurt me."

She lifted her hand, and a knife of agony stabbed through his brain, slicing between his eyes. He staggered, grabbing his head again and falling to his knees, but the pain was already passing. He looked up, his eyes watering. The pain had cracked his fury, letting sanity rush in like a flood. He gasped, the taste of blood from his mouth vanishing; it hadn't been there in the first place.

He stared up at Emma Frost, his hands lowering slowly from his head. The buzzing was gone, the panic stifled, and though his hands shook his mind was suddenly clear—the memories falling screaming and howling into the distance.

All in his head. Nobody had died. It wasn't here or now. Past.

Logan shut his eyes. Logan. Him. He breathed in the scent the frozen dirt, the ice on the air. Felt dusting of snow melting on his feverish skin, could hear the wind across the lawn. Open.

Free.

Past.

He opened his eyes, looking up at Emma Frost. She didn't look alarmed—but there was a level of wariness to her eyes.

"What're you doin' here?" he rasped, climbing to his feet slowly. "I could'a killed you."

"In your state I could hardly just let you go," Emma replied, a bit coolly. "If your mind was fragmented when we first met, it is twice the mess now." Logan looked away. "How long have you been having these experiences?"

His mouth was stone-dry. "Stay outta my damn head, Frost," he croaked, wiping his mouth. The memory of the thirst was still there—he felt like he hadn't had a drink in days.

Months? Years?

He hid a shudder, swallowing thickly.

No. Just hallucinations. All in his head.

But it had been so real—so vivid. A memory? Just the thought made his stomach twist.

"You brought me here to protect the students, Wolverine. You are hardly safe to be around as you are. Now how long have these been happening?"

Logan pulled back, rubbing his eyes.

"Wolverine, I don't need to tell you how serious this is. Out of control like that, there would be few—if any—of your X-Men that would have been able to neutralize you, let alone willing to do what had to be done until it was too late. Your mind . . . it was as if you weren't even there any more. It was as if you'd checked out, and . . . " Frost didn't shiver, but her pause gave the impression of one. "Something took your place. Talk to me, Logan. I'm a telepath—I'm the best help you'll get."

Maybe the lady was right.

"Dreams're normal," he began slowly. His voice sounded strange to his own ears—tight and hoarse, and far, far away. Almost a stranger's voice. "They've changed, though—gotten worse, if anythin', and added . . . everythin' else. My mind's just finally crackin'." Tried to put a little humor in that last bit. It fell flat before it left his mouth.

"Since your first encounter with Bloodscream." Logan looked over to shoot a glare at her, but she stared back, untouched by it. "I saw it in several of the students' minds. You should not be surprised—you are a central part of their lives, and they are not all stupid enough not to have noticed your change, and the possible cause."

"That bastard to blame for this too, eh?" Logan grunted, dry-washing his face.

"It is possible."

"Can you get them to stop?"

Emma considered him. "Do you want them to?"

He huffed a sound—a laugh? Even he couldn't have said. "Lady, every time I try to sleep I'm livin' a nightmare, and I can't let my guard down 'cause I keep gettin' . . . blindsided."

His breath hitched and he squeezed his eyes shut against a sudden returning wave of vague panic—so overwhelming, so insubstantial. It was impossible to talk himself down from it, because he didn't know where to begin.

Emma actually flinched slightly at that—finally. Logan opened his eyes and glared at her. She must've peered into his head again.

"I see," she said, looking pale even for her, and perhaps a little green.

Damn her. Damn her for looking. Damn her for seeing. Damn her!

Chained like a dog, sleeping in his own filth, barely a man—stripped and beaten.

He looked away and gritted his teeth, letting his rage rise to cover a sudden self-loathing so thick it made him feel sick. Emma stepped back, rubbing her forehead.

Logan reined in his rage, but he was panting again. He tasted bile in his throat.

Run. Away from her eyes. Away from all their eyes.

"Has this ever happened before?" Frost continued, as if nothing had happened. Wolverine took a deep breath.

"Like I said. Dreams've been happening long 's I remember."

"Yet you've long suspected they are far more than dreams. Before now you've hardly seen beyond vague impressions—flashes of pain and fear. Intense, surely, but not so overwhelming as now. But do you remember other times, perhaps—when . . ." She frowned to herself.

"When what?"

"Rogue remembers the weather witch saying you were badly injured. She actually found you dead?"

Logan shrugged, scowling at nothing. "Storm said she had ta jump start my heart, but who gives a damn?"

Emma took that in stride—probably the first who ever had. Had to admire a woman like that. "How many times has that happened?"

Logan lifted his eyebrow. "That I've died? Dunno—am I supposed to keep count?" She lifted an impatient eyebrow to mirror his. Wouldn't take any attitude, even from him. "Hard t'say. Not like I go 'round countin' my heartbeat."

"Guess."

He shrugged. "That I remember?" He ran his hand through his hair absently. He was silent for a moment, then squinted back at her. "Dunno. Seven? Eight?" Thirty? A hundred?

A thousand?

She nodded matter-of-factly. "And think—during any of these times did you notice a shift in your consciousness? A significant change in your perspective?"

Logan rubbed his forehead, swallowing again. His throat felt like sandpaper. "What . . . what are you trying to get at, Frost?"

"Quite simply: your mind has been scarred in a way that your body cannot be. It looks like it has been drawing itself together over time, but I theorize—and understand that this is little more than a guess with your stubborn refusal to let me in for a better look—that your mind is still healing from your experience with Weapon X."

Logan looked at her, eyes sharp and suddenly measuring. Weapon X? It made his hair raise on end—it was what Jubilee had told him about, that night when they had spoken. Weapon X. Experiment X. Him.

But how did Frost know about it?

But he let her keep going. "Perhaps the psychological healing takes place parallel to the physical," she mused. "Perhaps it is the trauma of the very experience of death that is causing blocked memories to surface. Or perhaps brain damage suffered during the fight or during the oxygen deprivation after your temporary death causes breakdown of blocks or destroys the scarred parts of your mind and is forcing your healing factor to create new bridges to memories once lost. To put it simply, brain damage—even when your brain is just knocked around in your skull like just now—may literally jogging your memories free."

She really had put some thought into this. "You sayin' these really are memories?" he said slowly. "All of them?"

"I said perhaps," Frost replied. "Given what I have to work with, you cannot expect more than rough conjectures. After all, for all we know these could be remnants of training, memory implants, even telepathic residues."

Logan's expression was as unreadable as stone, and twice as hard.

"Which leads us to the point," she said. "It seems that each time you have sustained significant head trauma—scrambling your brains, in a sense—"

Nice, that.

"—then your brain cells may be reconnecting in ways that have long since been severed. The trauma of the memories, however, have created blocks. They are falling, but slowly. Fortunately," she said, though her tone made the word made the word sound empty. "Any faster and you would have an even harder time dealing with it than you are now."

Logan glared and turned away, looking across the grounds as he wiped sweat from his face.

"Can you stop it?" he asked again.

She looked at him for a long moment—or at least her psychic projection did. He wondered how that worked, exactly. She looked solid as anything, and her ice blue eyes looked straight at his, only serious now. "I could try locking the memories away again. It would not hold forever, but perhaps delay it for a time."

Logan shook his head. He was never one for delaying the inevitable.

"If I'm close, I can at least help contain you if the situation arises. Like just now." He looked at her sharply, and her lips curved in a slight smile. "I pulled you out of that black mire, Wolverine. It was either that or let you run until you dug yourself out, and that was something I did not want to risk. If my prediction is correct, they should die down once this group of memories works its way out into your consciousness and you handle them appropriately. And once you go a fair amount of time without dying or sustaining significant brain injury, of course."

Logan lifted a dry eyebrow at her, but the last sentence was dry and factual, if a bit wry. He looked away.

A scattering of snow drifted across the winter-yellowed grass. The setting sun made the sky look the color of blood against the grey sky.

Wolverine rubbed his neck, but then pulled it down when he realized what he was doing. He could almost still feel the metal digging around his throat. The claustrophobia as he struggled to breathe.

Drowning. He clenched a fist at his side, reaching into a pocket for a cigar. He took his time to light up, and got it going good before speaking again.

"So what's your secret, Frost? What keeps you up at night?"

Emma paused—her psychic image staring away at nothing for a moment. She looked away, but surprisingly, she answered. "My school. It was destroyed. Bombed by mutant-haters. My students—all of them—just . . . dead. And I should have died with them. A mistake saved me. Luck." She said that word bitterly—a crack in the ice at last.

Logan followed her gaze across the grass. Survival's guilt.That's what kept her up at night.

"I guess you'd know about that," Emma Frost replied, obviously reading his thoughts. For once, Logan let it go.

They stood in silence, watching the sun go down.

TBC . . .