There are so may of you following and putting this story on favorite! Thank you, I'm glad you like it.

Playlist:

Set It Off - Midnight Thoughts

Panic! At the Disco - Into The Unknown (Cover)

lovelytheband - Maybe I'm Afraid

Sarah Hartman - Monster Lead Me Home

Ella Henderson - Ghost

Set It Off - Why Worry

Panic! At the Disco - High Hopes

Crystal Fighters - At Home

Side note: This is 100% going to clear 50k words when finished. Wow. We're almost at 40k with this chapter.


Chapter 9, Midnight Thoughts:

The thing about leaving your husband, who technically wasn't your husband but the guy he was before life smacked him around and humbled him a little, is that you are alone. Effectively alone. Oh sure, her father and her soon to be step-mother were sleeping soundly upstairs somewhere in the private condo they had that took up a whole floor of Stark Tower. A phone call or a cry to Jarvis away. But...

At one am when the babies start screaming, and one is running a fever while the other is just awake because his brother is wailing his lungs out - you are alone. You get up alone, attempt to soothe both boys while taking temperatures alone. You call the emergency line for your new pediatrician - because your old one is upstate two hours and probably asleep - alone.

The nurse on the other end gave her the rundown quickly.

It was a good thing, Holly thought as she bathed Tommy in lukewarm water to ease his temperature (which was 99.9 so the nurse hadn't had Holly rush Tommy to emergency), that her father owned the company. Because if she had to call in sick to take care of Tommy Monday morning and she worked somewhere else, that would have gotten her fired.

Thankfully it was Sunday morning, and he had plenty of time to rest, recover and - Ow. He flailed in his bath kicking her in the chin.

And you took your punches alone when you were effectively single.

The gaping wound in her life where her husband used to be reared its ugly face at her one more time. The last time this happened, the kids getting sick, Logan was up with them too. She cleaned up vomit while he fed them liquid baby Tylenol. She bathed one while he bathed the other. Once the twins were back down to sleep, she showered and he kept an eye on them. Then he showered and she kept an eye on them.

The definition of a family unit never made so much sense before.

She missed Logan so much it her heart ached with it.

With unshed tears burning her eyes Holly dried Tommy off with a towel, kissing his forehead to test how warm he was. Still warm, not as hot. She had to hold him still with one arm and tried to pour a measurement of baby Tylenol with the other. He kicked again sending cherry liquid spilling everywhere on the white marble countertop and stained the dove gray towels.

"Thomas I swear to god." Holly muttered as she attempted to one handedly clean up the mess dripping onto the tiled floor.

Tommy took that opportunity to grab the liquid hand soap and chuck it at the wall. It thumped loudly which only made him cry more.

"You are way too much like your father." It took a few more minutes, with Holly wrestling her son into a new diaper, white slightly too large t-shirt and forgoing coming his hair into place because he just would not sit still! "Tommy come on, please." She smoothed his hair back, gently pressing another kiss to his forehead.

Oh.

He was looking for his father. Not that babies thought about their parents in those terms. A baby's mind was different from that of a child's, at least in her experience. Children had a concept of parents. They knew this person was their parent and their parent loved them and cared for them.

Babies on the other hand understood faces. They knew this person was there when they woke, and there when they went to sleep and fed them. They knew who cleaned them and changed them and formed a sort of attachment to that person because that is who is there. They didn't have a real concept of mom, dad, grandpa, great grandpa, brother or friends.

When Holly got the impression from her son that he was looking for his father it was more like this: Tommy wanted the tall man that sang to him. The one who made him feel warm and happy.

Which only served to make Holly want to cry more. "He's not here kiddo," she told her son in a soft voice and kissed him again, stroking his damp hair out of his eyes. "He had to go home."

Tommy understood certain words. Like home. This was not home. Not for him. Holly saw it sadly as she dried his hair. Home was somewhere else that looked different.

"I know kiddo. I know. I'd like to go back to the school too, but that's not your father anymore. That's the guy your dad was before he met mommy and we made you."

Which he did understand on some level. If only the words school, which made him think of all the other bigger people in the hallway and the blue furry man who used to hold him with big hands. And the word mommy which made him look at her directly and stop huffing and fussing for a second or two.

"I love you." Holly whispered pressing her lips to his forehead again. "And even if this doesn't work out with daddy. I'm always going to be here."

He huffed again, and the tears came back.

Tonight was going to be long for everyone.


He wasn't quite sure what he what woke him. Steve lay in his bed, looking up at the white textured ceiling with foggy confusion. He reached for his phone, because apparently Tony was offended by having actual clocks, to see the time. His hand knocked the copy of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince sitting at the edge of the night table sending crashing to the floor with a heavy thump. He only put it down after he got past the chapter with Harry and Dumbledore.

One forty three am, Sunday morning.

Bruce called it processing time. He needed processing time after that chapter. He had put it down and showered, ate something, then went to bed. There was still one more book to go, with another three movies. Steve thought about taking a break before watching the sixth movie.

Using the light from his phone he moved to the edge of the bed, picked the book up and checked that the bookmark was still in place. The bookmark Holly gave him. She said she had gone to Target and it screamed his name at her when she passed the book section.

In stylized print, it declared The Wizard of Oz on the front. Two legs stuck out the bottom, with striped stockings and glitter dusted red slippers. He laughed a little to himself.

Steve got up deciding to go for a glass of water when he heard soft shushing and the shuffle of feet outside in the hallway. The voice was soft, like someone trying to stay quiet, but too tired to actually get there.

"Shh, baby," Holly whispered to Tommy as he fussed and kicked and shoved at her. "It's okay, shhh."

The door down the hall from her, Steve's, opened. "Holly?"

"Sorry," she said hoarsely, fighting a yawn. "Go back to sleep."

The door opened further, "Everything okay?"

"He's sick," she pressed her hand to Tommy's forehead as if checking one more time would prove him any cooler than he was a few minutes ago. He wasn't any cooler despite Holly putting him in a thin white t-shirt and changing his diaper. "He must have," she yawned, "caught something." She shook her head tirely.

Steve took a step into the hallway and she moved away. "Don't want you getting sick."

He almost laughed at that. Almost. "I think I'll be fine."

"Right, supersoldier, forgot." She hit the meat of the palm of one hand on her forehead. Which just made Tommy fussier and rougher. "Kid, I swear if you're developing your mutation right now I'm going to go kick your father in his nose and his balls."

Too tired to fight him on it, Holly let Steve take Tommy out of her arms. "Hi Tommy, you know me right?" The boy still fussed, crying and red faced.

"I gave him something for the fever, bathed him in lukewarm water, changed him into just a diaper and t-shirt." She gently touched Tommy's forehead. "The emergency pediatrics line said if the fever isn't over 101, at this age he'll be okay. It's probably just a bad cold or a stomach bug or…" Tommy batted her hand away.

"Do children develop mutations at this age?" Steve asked bouncing Tommy gently. The boy seemed to be okay with it, the crying reducing to quiet sobs against Steve's shoulder.

"It's not completely unheard of but it is extremely rare. Hormonal fluctuations are what causes the genes to wake up it but usually it goes along with puberty. When his father was young, maybe ten, eleven, he had a fever and he didn't feel well like Tommy's not feeling well and I'm freaking out a little." Again she touched her son, this time on the arm with bare fingers. "A baby's mind is different. He doesn't think in terms of my stomach hurts or my head hurts, he thinks in the overall. He doesn't feel good, and he's hot, and he hurts and-" she yawned again, longer, louder and swayed a little as she did.

"And you need sleep young lady." Using his free arm he helped her turn back toward her door and firmly walked her back to her apartment while being careful not to touch the bare skin of her arms.

Scowling at him she said, "You know, the whole young lady thing doesn't work on me young man. You went into the ice at 27 and you came out at 27. I'm almost 31, I am older than you so," she stuck her tongue out at him, "take that Rogers."

Tommy now lying his head quietly on Steve's shoulder blinked sleepily up at him. "I think Tommy's done crying for a while."

She nodded offering to take him as they walked into the apartment. "I moved his crib in here so he wouldn't wake up Jamie."

Tommy clung to Steve's neck. "That's a no."

She narrowed her eyes at the baby. "Seriously? Thomas Anthony."

Steve smiled a little. "He's named after his grandfather?"

"Both of his grandfathers." Holly covered her mouth when another yawn hit her. "Jamie is too sort of, but that's," one more yawn, "a long story."

Steve began to lift Tommy to put him back in his crib only to have his neck clung to tightly and a baby's fussy cry sound in his ear sharply. "Okay, okay," he let the boy settle again. "I don't think he wants to go back to bed."

Holly groaned which turned into another yawn. "Of course." She sighed deeply, her head shaking. "You know what? This calls for Mulan." Holly picked up the television remote and turned it on, dropping the volume to a couple of bars above mute.

"Mulan?" Steve asked in confusion.

"Oh buddy," Holly grabbed a blanket and motioned for him to sit on the couch. "You really need to catch up on the last seventy years of Disney movies. We've got a Chinese princess, an Middle Eastern princess, a Native American princess, an African American princess, a kidnapped princess living with Stockholm Syndrome, a mermaid princess, a feminist princess, a princess that becomes a real girl in the real world and chooses to stay here, a princess that turns into an ogre and a few princes thrown in for good measure. We're about to have two more, a Scottish princess and a video game princess." She took a breath, boy that was a lot of princesses. "I think I left out a princess or two there, but you get the gist. Tommy likes Mulan the most, I think it's the music." She began hitting buttons while Steve sat down with Tommy still clinging to his neck. "Luckily, that's the last movie in the DVD player I think - yep."

A colorful display accompanied by the low hum of music started up.

"This one is about Mulan," Holly curled up a foot or two away from him on the couch, "the girl that saved China."

Tommy let go of Steve's neck about ten seconds after the colorful Mushu showed up on screen. He settled into Steve's lap and took a bottle from his mother.

Steve chuckled under his breath, whispering to Holly just after Mulan got to the training camp. "He reminds me of my old drill sergeant."

She surprised him with a tired snort. "Colonel Phillips. I remember."

For him, that was the first time anyone had been able to relate to something he said about the past. About his past. "You remember?"

Holly gave him the most patient, if exhausted smile, with purple rings under her eyes. Shaking her head slowly so dark hair fell into her face she leaned over and with ungloved fingers tapped his temple gently. He'd gotten used to the half second glitch it took for her to process things after touching them, but with how tired she was it took almost the full second for her eyes to refocus on him.

"I wish I could explain to you what it is like to witness another person's memories like you're standing there with them." She yawned deeply, covering her mouth and withdrawing from touching him. "And you, you noble, self-sacrificing idiot. That could have been a live grenade you threw yourself on."

"I know." He didn't sound the slightest bit guilty about it.

She sighed, shaking her head and trying not to smile. "And that's why you did it." Holly, laughing mostly to herself, "See. Self sacrificing."

They were quiet for a while watching the movie. Animation had come a long, long way since the first time Steve saw a cartoon. He was fascinated by the fluid shift from one scene to another.

"I need someone to come with me out to Long Island to see my grandfather tomorrow. I was wondering if you'd like to go? I know you're big on visiting veterans, he served in Vietnam though, so maybe you might not have much in common. I thought maybe you'd like to talk to him, someone that was there first hand instead of learning about it from the internet." You're rambling again Holly. "I mean, you don't have to. I just thought that maybe you might be interested. And the boys like you. Jamie really likes you." Still rambling Holly. "So if you don't have any plans and you're okay with it we can take the LIRR out to Babylon and-"

He was chuckling, gently bouncing one knee for Tommy. "I don't think you've taken a breath since you asked."

She sighed allowing her head to rest on the couch. "I ramble when I'm tired." Holly tried to smile again but her facial muscles took it as a reason to yawn yet again. "Sorry."

"You don't need to apologize. I'd like to go, but," he hesitated, "what about Logan or your father?"

She snorted followed by a quick sad shake of her head. "My family politics are hard to follow and you don't deserve to be put in the middle of it."A sense of dejavu hit her out of nowhere. Her brow furrowed. "I...forget I said anything."

And, when you're effectively single, you had to figure some things out on your own.


Taking the LIRR out to Babylon wasn't an option. Too many babies, not enough hands. Holly sighed as she loaded the car up once more. She'd driven out to Long Island by herself for the very first time. Once she passed the hour mark it was still another twenty three minutes to her grandfather's house. The ride back probably wouldn't be any better on a Sunday afternoon.

Logan used to do the driving. They would borrow a car from the Professor, leave early and come back late. Every other Sunday since the twins were born.

Holly huffed as her finger got caught in one of the harness straps.

Today she left later than usual. Only because of last night and staying up until almost three in the morning. At some point she'd fallen asleep, as had Tommy and Steve being the gentleman that Steve was, somehow put them both back in bed. Holly woke covered in a throw blanket and Tommy was still quietly sleeping.

Could Steve be considered a modern miracle if he was born in 1918?

Still getting to her grandfather's house before noon hadn't been too hard. It was mostly getting the boys back in the car after a day with their great-grandfather that was taking the longest. This was so much easier when she had Logan.

Her grandfather was trying but the exhaustion from the cancer was written all over his face. There wouldn't be too many more of these visits in the next year. He'd mentioned hospice care.

With tears starting to burn in her eyes, Holly finally managed to get the harness on Jamie and turned around to take Tommy from her grandfather.

Dale Harper held Tommy against his hip and side, his brow furrowed as he looked down at his great-grandson. Unbeknownst to his granddaughter, he too was thinking about the number of days he had left in this world. Once the doctor told him the cancer had spread there hadn't been much to do about it. He ended the radiation treatments, he stopped getting the hormone injections and he wrote up his will.

He was leaving the house and his estate to Holly. He'd have to talk to a lawyer about making sure James - Logan - didn't get a single inch or penny from the house if there was a divorce. He sighed, kissing Tommy's brow.

"Pop," Holly blinked passed the burn in her eyes, "I'll take him."

Dale passed over Tommy and waited while his granddaughter strapped her other son in. "I suppose you're not going to have the two birthday parties if you're not working at the school anymore."

Holly hesitated for a moment. "No. Probably not. My dad," to which Dale huffed - He would never actually like Tony. Put up with him, yes, like, no. - "offered to invite everyone from the school to a party at Stark Tower. One big party. You'll try to come won't you?"

"Of course I will. I wouldn't miss their first birthday party even if Jesus himself came to the door. He'd have to wait."

Holly tried to smile but it came across tight and sad. "What if it was grandma with her arroz con pollo or a cubano?"

Dale tried to smile as well, but it too came across sadly. "I'd tell her to get her best dress and get ready for a party. It isn't every day our great-grandsons turn one."

It took a lot for Holly not to cry when she hugged her grandfather. He didn't feel frail or sick when she squeezed him and he hugged her back. He kissed her forehead, and, not for the last time, Dale Harper was happy he no longer had to put a gloved hand between them. Holly's powers were under control enough to allow a closeness he hadn't had with her since she was thirteen.

Since her mutation developed.

The drive back to Manhattan wasn't quite as bad as it should have been. An hour and thirty minutes give or take a few. Jamie and Tommy somehow managed to sleep the entire way and were still sleeping once Holly had unloaded the stroller from the back of the SUV. She took a moment to check her phone.

Not a single missed phone call or text from Logan. There was one from her father and two from Pepper. A few from her friends. Storm and Remy mostly. Holly tucked the phone back in her purse and set about getting the boys into the stroller and out of the car.

Alone. She could do this.


Being the age he was, Logan wasn't big on texting or calling. He spent a good deal of his life without a cell phone which is why he was constantly forgetting it. The other Logan had not had much of a need of them either. His wife and kids lived in the same place as he did. They almost never went anywhere without one another.

Which explained a lot about how Logan lost his phone some time between returning to the mansion Saturday afternoon and waking up Sunday morning. It also explained why he didn't notice he lost his phone until late in the morning on Sunday. But, that is getting ahead of the story.

Logan woke Sunday morning with what he later described as a hankering for peanut butter and banana pancakes. This was, of course, inaccurate. Had he had the memories of the other Logan, he would have known that he was actually craving bananas on a toasted bagel with peanut butter. Holly's go to Sunday morning breakfast food.

Pancakes took too long to make when you had kids under the age of one.

He was downstairs in the kitchen holding two jars of peanut butter, one in each hand when Rogue walked in. She paused, watching him, this man that was supposedly her friend Logan. He was looking down at the two jarks like he couldn't figure out what they were. She almost laughed at his confused expression. Almost.

"Crunchy." Rogue said after a moment. "Holly eats the crunchy stuff. Don't know how or why she likes it, but you don't seem to care either way." She glanced around the kitchen for the tell tale brown paper bag from the deli nearby. There wasn't one. "Doesn't look like anybody remembered to get bagels though." Not at all surprising.

Without Holly living at the school a few things had gone without getting done this past week. No one remembered to go to the library and donate the box of textbooks that were replaced for the spring semester. There hadn't been anyone to arrange the Saturday evening movie, so some of the kids ended up not coming out to the main lounge the night before. Not to mention the unbelievable stack of returned books hanging out on the library's check desk when Rogue walked in there the other day. She ended up recruiting Ivy to help her shelve.

"Bagels." Logan echoed looking down at the two jars.

"Yeah," Rogue nodded, "you two, every sunday morning with the twins." She motioned to the two high chairs neatly folded and leaning up against the wall. "You're sitting there, and she's sitting there, the boys are in their high chairs and everybody is eating bagels with bananas and peanut butter. Course, you hollow yours out because of carbs. Holly always teases you about it."

She took a green apple off the top of the fruit display on the island counter. Again, something Holly would have said something about. 'Fruit displays are for displaying Marie! If you eat the fruit then someone has to rearrange the display to make it look nice again.' Then Holly would huff and rearrange the fruit until someone else came in to grab and orange or another apple and by lunch the display would be nothing but a couple of kiwis and whatever was too bruised to eat.

Sometimes if there were enough apples left, Holly would make an apple crumb pie. Or if there were peaches she'd slice them and throw them into jello. Tomorrow morning the fruit display would be restocked and the kiwis would be in a smoothie in the fridge for Ivy.

"It's weird not having her here." Rogue's voice was quiet as she looked at the fruit bowl. "I know you don't remember a lot of it." Possibly any of it. "But Holly's a big part of the school and everybody's life. She's practically Storm's right hand getting stuff done. The kids love her as a teacher."

This wasn't like when Patience left. That was barely a blip on the school radar. Losing Holly was like losing an entire wing of the school.

Rogue, frowning to herself, said, "Logan, you need to start remembering."

He put down the jar of smooth peanut butter. "I'm trying kid."

She didn't believe him. "If you're really gonna try to keep your wife around, maybe start acting like you're interested in her." Face hot with both anger and annoyance, Rogue stomped out of the room before she said anything else to this stranger in her friend's skin.

The tongue lashing from Rogue, of course, led Logan to realize he didn't have his phone. Technically the other guy's phone. It took a few hours, a small search party consisting of Ivy, Remy, Kurt and Logan himself, and finally Logan backtracking to the gas station he stopped at just outside the Bronx the night before. The offending object was being played with by the kid behind the counter who was trying to figure out the passcode. Logan glared at the kid messing with his phone for a good minute before the kid sheepishly handed it back.


Her phone buzzed in her back pocket a couple of times. Holly, tired from the morning of being awake until an ungodly hour and from the drive, was sitting on the couch letting Tangled play on the television. Tommy and Jamie sat on the floor in their jammies playing with their toys and watching the movie.

I hate cell phones. Logan sent her. Then, How did today go?

Smiling to herself, I know. You hate a lot of newer tech. We definitely had a conversation about you preferring record players to an iPod. Today went alright. He's doing as well as can be considering how far along the cancer is. I think he's trying his best to hold it together for the twins first b-day.

The typing indicators told her he was typing and then stopping, then typing more, and again stopping. It took him a few minutes to write back.

Can I call?

No. They're watching Tangled and playing with their toys. If you call now they'll be distracted and I'll be distracted and who knows what could happen. You don't remember the safety scissors incident, but I do. Tommy is not cutting off Jamie's bangs again. They JUST grew back in.

Again it took him a couple of minutes to type. Who left scissors out around kids that young?

A student who volunteered to babysit. She was very responsible until we got home and she let her guard down. All it took was thirty seconds and a turned back.

The phone was again quiet, no indicators that he was typing. The movie ended, Holly managed to get both boys into their cribs without too much fuss. Tommy was just too tired to fight tonight after last night.

Still up? She sent a little before nine.

Her phone rang a few seconds later.

"I'm not old enough to be asleep at nine on a Sunday." He groused from the other end of the line.

"Uh huh," Holly snorted in response as she closed the door to the bedroom leaving it cracked enough to hear the boys crying if need be. "Tell me again, what year did you meet Orville Wright?"

He went completely silent for several moments. "Nineteen oh four."

"And your first Harley, was that Nineteen thirty six or thirty seven?"

More silence followed by, "You remember everything about me."

"You're my husband," she said with a shrug, "and you quite literally dumped all of your life into my head a few Halloweens ago."

After another moment of silence, "You were wearing a costume." He paused for several seconds. "Long sleeves, white apron and a blue dress."

Holly, with her heartbeat drumming with excitement. "Yes, I was."

"Alice in Wonderland...you weren't wearing a wig."

"Right, I wasn't. What else do you remember?"

Logan, standing alone out near the back patio where the Halloween party occurred a few years ago walked almost exactly to the spot he'd been in at the time. A distinct sense of dejavu hit him. He'd been stringing lights and putting up balloons when the kids began to filter out in costume. There would be rain later so Storm and the Professor decided to start the party early.

Some of the teachers dressed up too. He remembered the petite new teacher walking out in costume. She tugged at her wrists, pulling the cloth of the pale blue sleeves down to meet delicate white gloves. He wasn't sure if he'd looked over at her for too long or not, but Rogue bumped his arm with her shoulder.

'Go say hi.'

He shifted away from her. 'Kid.'

'Don't you kid me, I'm on the X-Men team too. Just 'cos your older doesn't mean you can call me kid.' He almost expected her to stick her tongue out at him. 'And go say hi. Ms. Harper's nice, really nice. She's just a bit thorny sometimes. You know, like you used to be.'

He took the unlit cigar out of his mouth. 'Like I used to be.'

'You haven't been that thorny since after you started teaching History. Working with kids made you all kinds of nice.'

'I'm not nice.'

'Sure you're not.' She winked at him. 'Go ask her to dance, she's lookin' kind of lonely. You look kind of lonely. Maybe y'all can be less lonely together.'

'She's not my type.' The new teacher wasn't anything like the women he normally went for. She barely reached his shoulder. He liked taller women, like...best not to go there.

"Yeah," Rogue's drawl seemed to elongate the word, "but then your normal type is not available, in a serious relationship, or going to try to kill you.' She shrugged. 'Maybe try someone new?'

Jimmy arrived carrying drinks, handing one to Rogue and smiling brightly at Logan. 'Happy Halloween Mr. Logan.'

Logan was about to wish the kid happy Halloween in return when Rogue grabbed the boy's hand and took off to dance before Logan could answer. He stood there for a moment thinking about it. For once in his life thinking about it. The kid hadn't been wrong. The women he normally went for were unavailable, unobtainable and dangerous to his sense of self preservation.

The new teacher, Holly, hadn't so much as said two words to him aside from that day with Kurt. Maybe he'd be barking up the wrong tree. Logan put the unlit cigar back in his mouth and walked over to ask a pretty woman if she'd like to dance.

"I asked you to dance and you-"

She laughed, a little sad and overwhelmingly tired. "I lied and told you I couldn't dance. I usually tried to avoid being touched by anyone. You," she sighed, "you got past most of my defenses. Still not sure how that happened."

Neither was he but… He spent another moment looking around at the open patio. He was starting to get the idea.


It feels good to know I went in some of the directions without actually staying there. There are other directions that are still available should I decide to follow the yellow brick road(s). I have a lot of ideas that go well past where this story ends. I know the exact place this would splinter into the AU where Holly ends up with Steve (or Bucky) instead.

I also know who is and isn't spared by the snap and have written it. There were tears. Lots of them.

We are also approaching the end for this story. This should end some time around chapter 14/15.

I'm going to go to work now. Enjoy, drop me a review, throw your ideas for where I'd go with this at me. I want to hear/read them. :)

Again, thank you to all my reviewers! I love you all.