I DO NOT OWN LOGAN.
Laura's P.O.V.
It takes me about an hour, but I pack a book bag filled with the necessities and I go looking for and finally locate Jean, Brad, and Paul talking in the medical center. They're huddled into a circle, arguing about something, but when I walk in they break apart. When Jean sees me, her face fills with regret and sadness. She walks toward me and goes to put her hands on my shoulders, but I back up a couple of feet and she lets her hands drop to her sides.
"Laura, I want you to know how sorry I am about the way I acted. Back when you were trying to comfort me when I found out about Logan, I mean," she apologizes. She runs a hand through her hair and sighs. "I was sad and… shocked more than anything." She gives a slight laugh. "I thought Logan would live forever. I never imagined that I'd outlive him. I always thought that it'd be the other way around." She bites her lip and takes a deep breath. "I know that I was wrong to tell you that you have no right to grieve him. You have as much right as I do, probably more. You are his daughter. His legacy."
"Um…," I mutter. I honestly don't know how to respond to that. How am I my dad's legacy? What does that even mean? "Thanks?" I try to sound genuine, but it comes out as a question. Thankfully Jean doesn't notice.
"I never imagined Logan as a father, to be honest. He always had that lone-wolf thing going for him." Jeans smiles. "I certainly never thought that he'd have a daughter. I always imagined him having a son—if he had ever had any kids—but…" Jean shrugs. "I guess we have no control over that." I almost snort. Yeah, she has no idea.
"I have to talk to you guys," I say as Paul and Brad walk over to us. I hope they go for this plan. I really do. If not, then I'd have to figure out how to do it anyway.
"What's up, Laura?" Paul greets me. He's always been a nice guy. He's in his mid-fifties but looks younger with the most startling blue eyes I've ever seen. His mutation is being able to manipulate water. He used to live in Michigan with his wife and daughter—who were both mutants—before they were killed in a gas leak explosion. I guess that the gas company that supplied their house wasn't maintaining the underground pipes, and it exploded with both his wife and daughter inside. I guess that that happened back before I was even born. His daughter was just three-years-old.
"I overheard you guys last week," I tell them quietly. I'm still not used to talking around people I don't know. It makes me uncomfortable. But I pull on my big girl panties and talk. Brad furrows his eyebrows.
"What do you mean?" he barks. Brad isn't as nice as Paul. I don't know who pissed in his cereal, but he needs to cut the attitude.
"I overheard you guys talking about a time machine. How you want me to test it out because I can heal faster than anybody here." The three of them are quiet for a moment, trying to figure out how to react to that.
"Well," Brad starts. "At least now I don't have to wait for Jean to tell you, which could have taken all year at the rate she was going." Some of the objects in the room rattle, indicating that Jean is pissed off.
"Let's not focus on that right now," Paul cuts in. He turns to me with a kind smile. "Go on, Laura." I resist the urge to sigh.
"I want to tell you that I'll do it. I'll be your guinea pig."
"That's great-" Jean starts.
"But I have some conditions," I cut her off. Brad huffs and rolls his eyes. He's the kind of guy who, when a girl rejects him, calls her fat and ugly and tells her that he's too good for her anyway. Before Brad can give me a snarky comment, Jean cuts in.
"I think that that's perfectly fine, since you are, essentially, risking your life. But first, let's show you the machine," she says.
The three of them usher me in to a room that's away from everything and everyone. The door is heavy and thick and has about twelve locks as security codes on it—though I'd be able to claw my way through it like I was slicing through melted butter. Dios mío, how much money did they spend on this thing, anyway? You'd think that they'd spend a little more money on—I don't know—better quality food or clothes.
Behind the door is a large room that it stark white. White walls, white floors, brand new equipment. In the middle of the room stands a large machine-type thing. It looks like every other time machine that you'd see in a movie. It's circular and big and futuristic-looking.
"As you can see, this is the time machine," Jean says. Yeah, no shit. "We've spent the last ten years trying to perfect it, and recently succeeded in making it actually turn on just a few months ago."
"And as you heard last week, we tried sending several things through it, with bad results. We think that the time machine may work, but only those who can withstand the amount of energy and damage that the current gives off are able to use it. Which is where you come in," Brad tells me.
"Everybody who knows about the existence of mutants knows about your father. He's a legend who deserved better than the fate that he got," Paul tells me. Jesus Christ, does everyone know about my past, now? Thanks, Rictor. "And we're—or at least I am—honored to be in the presence of his daughter."
"Before we turn the machine on," Jean starts. "You said that you have some conditions that you would like to be met if you were to go through with this." I nod.
"I know that it's going to sound crazy—and it is, I know that for a fact—but I want to go back in time, to the year when my dad goes to Japan. I want to stop him from losing his immortality so that he can live. But I would need to be sent to two weeks before this happens. That's my condition. If you agree to do that, then I'll happily be your guinea pig."
They're quiet for a long moment, trying to digest this. Then Jean speaks.
"How are you planning to keep him from losing his losing his immortality?" she questions. I shrug.
"I'll figure it out. I think that I might have to go to Japan with him and kill a bunch of people. But I've killed people before so hopefully it'll be easy. I know that getting near the men to kill them without people hearing me will be hard, but I'll just cross that bridge when I get to it." Jean then pulls the two men aside and they all huddle together to talk.
While they do that, my hand unconsciously reaches up to clutch the dog tags that are hanging around my neck on a silver chain. They give me comfort when I'm stressed. It's like, when I wear it, he's with me. And don't get me wrong, I don't believe in God or heaven or hell or whatever. But I do believe in ghosts and spirits. I'm not sure why, though. It's just something that I've always wanted to be true.
A couple of minutes later, Jean, Paul, and Brad come back over to me, relaxed looks on their faces.
"We agree to your condition," Paul says. "Who knows, perhaps you could change the past so that mutants aren't on the face of extinction." I highly doubt that I'm that powerful, but I don't say so to him. "We have one more thing to show you before you go." He walks out of the room and returns with a black leather watch with a sleek black screen. "This is a smaller time machine. We've created it so that once you're in the past, you will be able to get back without any trouble." He taps the screen.
"Instead of the time of day, the screen will tell you what month, day, and year that you are in." Paul shows me some buttons. "These buttons will allow you to set the date on the watch to the time that you want to travel to." He then taps another larger button. "And after you do that, you press this button and it will actually send you through time to the date that you set."
"Okay, sounds easy enough," I mutter. He turns the watch on and puts it on my left wrist. It doesn't feel normal to wear something on my wrist. It just bothers me a little bit.
Paul then goes over to a glass table and picks up three pairs of thick, dark sunglasses and puts one pair on. Then he hands the other two to Jean and Brad and they put theirs on. I guess that I won't need one, considering I'm actually going into it so it'd make no sense if I try to protect my eyes.
As Brad turns the machine on, I hike my backpack higher onto my shoulders. It holds the following: a pair of clean clothes, the cellphone and earbuds that I got from Nate Munson three years ago, a pack of sour gummy worms (which are my favorite thing to eat of all time), a couple of comic books, a notebook and a pen, tampons, my father's old reading glasses, Charles's old pill bottle (I have no idea why it is in my bag, I guess I just left it in there and never took it out), and a hairbrush (I've gotten better at keeping my hair brushed because two years ago I didn't brush it for two months and it became so knotted that I had to cut it all off. I never want that to happen again because I look horrible with short hair). That's it. I only packed the things that I thought that I will need. Though, I'm not sure if any of the stuff will survive my trip back in time, I can only hope that at least the gummy worms survive.
Five minutes later, when Brad finally manages to switch on the machine, Jean walks up to me with something in her hand. She hands me two manila envelopes. I look into them both, one holds American money, and the other holds Canadian money.
"There's two thousand dollars in American money and two thousand in Canadian money" she explains. "Back in twenty thirteen Logan was hiding somewhere in the Canadian wilderness." She shakes her head. "You're going to have to ask Charles to help you find the exact location. Just…" she takes a deep breath and lets it out, calming herself. "Just save him, please. I'm not sure if you can actually pull this off, but I'm going to hold on to the slim chance that you can." I furrow my eyebrows at her.
"You loved him, didn't you?" I ask her. She smiles and shrugs.
"Our relationship was complicated." She then pulls one more thing out of her back pocket. A letter. "I wrote this letter to him last week. Right after I found out about… well, you know. I want you to give it to him."
"Why did you write him a letter if he'd dead?"
"I knew that he could possibly never read it, but it calmed me down. It made me feel better to write to him than to just cry my eyes out." I understand that… kind of. I hate crying, it makes me feel drained after and it makes my neck all sticky and wet.
"Are you guys done?" Brad asks impatiently. Jean nods while I put the letter and the two envelopes in my bag. "Okay, Laura. Just walk through the machine, and let's hope that you survive." I roll my eyes at him. He's so fucking annoying.
I walk up to the machine, which glowed with power and energy. And I find that—even with all of the things that I've see and done—I am scared. I'm scared out of my mind at the thought of meeting my father. Of seeing him so young and alive. Seeing him without all of those scars on his body. And I'm scared that he—being younger and more temperamental—won't want anything to do with me. Or that he'll make sure that I won't be born, by going to Transigen and destroying it before they had a chance to create me.
I stop myself from thinking anything else. If I keep thinking like this then I'll be too distracted to do anything, let alone save my father. So I take a couple of deep breaths to steady myself, straighten out my ponytail, and step into the machine, where I'm greeted with immense pain and darkness.
A/N: What did you guys think? Please review!
~Gina