Daddies Little Girl
By, 2280
Logan sat in the chair, a beer in one hand, the remote in the other, as he flipped through the channels. He wasn't watching what was on it however, she was watching Claire, whom he had set next to him on the couch, to see what caught her attention. When her eyes flicked towards the screen he stopped and settled back for a slow evening of watching TV.
His eyes moved towards the screen to see what she had wanted to watch. Jerry Springer was on. He had to smile, even locked away in her own mind; she still knew what would push his buttons.
They sat there, watching a woman yelling into the crowd, "you don't know me!" when Jubilee and Misty walked into the room. Jubilee saw what was on TV and groaned.
"Wolvie, you can't make her watch that? What are you trying to do, bore her out of her catatonic state?"
"I didn't pick it darlin, she did." Logan answered, taking a swig of his beer.
"Uh-huh, sure. Whatever." Jubilee plucked the remote from Logan's side and flopped onto the floor in front of him.
"Lets see what is on that's GOOD." She started flipping through the channels, and Logan watched as Claire's eyes slid away from the screen and fell back towards the floor. He just shook his head; maybe if Jubilee irritated her enough she would wake up.
"Ah-hah!" Jubilee set down the remote and leaned back, resting her head on Logan's jean clad knee.
Misty was surprised with what she saw on TV, "Schindler's List? That doesn't seem like the type of movie you like J."
"Why not?"
Logan snorted, "cause nothing blows up."
Jubilee slapped his knee. It was nice to just sit with him like this for a while. Lately everyone had been so busy, either there were missions, or they were fighting new anti-mutant legislation. Magneto had managed to make a royal mess out of everything.
Now most of his followers were dead, what was left had gone into hiding; but they still didn't know if Magneto had died on Genosha. There had been no sign of him, but prior experience had taught them never presume dead unless you see the body, and sometimes even not then.
Jean and Scott had been running themselves ragged trying to find the Professor, but so far they had no luck. Once or twice Jean and Cable had tried to look inside of Claire's mind to see if they could find where she hide him, but it was no use, it was as if she was a blank slate.
But Logan refused to accept that, and thus so did Jubilee. She had helped him care for someone she didn't particularly care for during the last few weeks, not only did it give her a reason to hang out with Wolvie, but also she secretly considered her penance. And the more time she spent with them, the more she thought Wolvie was right. She wasn't a husk, there was someone in there, and she occasionally came out. She found little ways of letting you know she didn't like something, whether it was knocking something off of a table, or by simply focusing her normally blank stare at you, she managed to get her point across.
While Logan and Jubilee focused on the movie, her head resting on his knee, his hand on her head, Misty watched Claire. She had often accompanied Dim out to take Claire for her daily walks around the grounds. It wasn't the most exciting job, but it took her mind off of missing her boyfriend, Angelo Espinosa, and it offered some respite from the hectic day. She usually didn't do much, simply followed Dim and listened to him as he patiently told Claire about what had happened that day, or about something that had happened to him before he had followed her and Scott to the X-men.
After awhile she had become quiet fond of the large man, he was very gentle and seemed to find peace in caring for his ill friend. Misty could find nothing wrong with that.
She turned her attention to the movie, and tried to ignore Jubilee as she snapped her gum, she smiled when Logan gave her a slap on the top of the head. Jubilee grumbled a little but she stopped snapping her gum.
About halfway through the movie Misty felt someone staring at her, and she turned to see Claire's eyes fixed on her. Her stare was so intent, so desperate, that the hair on the back of Misty's neck rose.
She watched as Claire's lips moved, but no sound came out. Claire's face became confused and agitated at the same time as she struggled to form the words she needed to say. Misty leaned forward so she could hear what Claire was trying to say.
"Remember." The word was raspy, her throat dry from disuse. However Logan and Jubilee's head snapped towards them at the sound.
Logan jumped out of the chair, knocking Jubilee over with a yelp in his haste to reach Claire's side. He knelt in front of her and took her hands into his.
"Remember what darlin?" He whispered to her softly.
Claire broke her gaze from Misty and moved it slowly towards Logan, her jaw slack, as if the strain of forming that one word was too much.
Claire returned his gaze, knowing that he was waiting for her to do something, but she wasn't sure what. She had been sitting there, in the room with Logan, Sparky, and the girl who was nice to her when suddenly she remembered something very important. She turned to the girl who was next to her to tell her what it was, but her throat wouldn't work, and she forgot again before she could tell her.
Claire felt as if her body was dying around her, no matter how hard she tried it wouldn't respond to her commands, yet at the same time she was painfully aware of what was going on around her. It was only when she wanted to crawl out of her own skin and scream that she was able to do anything.
Logan watched as his daughters face became confused, and when she looked back at him, he saw unshed tears building in her eyes. He swore inwardly, he had only managed to upset her, as he picked her up in his arms and sat with her on his lap, rocking her back and forth. Jubilee got up and grabbed Misty's arm, pulling her out of the room.
Logan whispered things in his daughter's ear, things meant to comfort her, even though he didn't know if she heard him at all.
Claire simply stared at the wall as he whispered in her ear, she knew he was trying to make her feel better, but she just wished that he would put her down. It was lessoning now, however she was painfully aware when anyone touched her. Ever since she woke up, trapped in her body, it was as if her senses had exploded.
Once Logan felt the muscles in her body relax he set her aside, stood up and left the room. With a jagged breath he barely made it outside before the tears started to stream down his face. He felt so helpless; his flesh and blood was hurting, and not only was it because he hadn't been strong enough to stop it in the first place, but because he was at a loss on how to make it better now. He sat down on the stoop of the patio and felt as if the world was bearing down on his shoulders. He could take on Magneto, Apocalypse, or any other bad guy the world through at him without breaking a sweat. But when it came to helping his daughter? Zip.
When he thought about what Cortez had done to her, he wanted to rip his heart out and make him eat it for breakfast, but if experience had taught him one thing, it was that would fix nothing.
He heard the door open quietly and scrubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. Jubilee walked hesitantly towards him. She could have sworn he was crying. The Wolverine never cried, that fact ranked right up there with death and taxes.
"Wolvie?" She said hesitantly.
"It's ok darlin, I just need to be alone." He whispered, not wanting her to see him like this.
Her face grew sad as she sat down next to him, wrapping her arms around his upper arm and resting her head on his shoulder, "Trust me from someone who knows big guy, that's the last thing you need."
Meanwhile Misty had followed Jubilee after her departure from the room, curious as to what she was doing, however somehow the smaller girl had managed to evade her, and she hated it when she did that. She turned down the hallway, heading towards the living room where she had seen Wolvie last, thinking that was a pretty safe bet.
When she got into the room she had to strain her eyes to see, as the light had been turned off, throwing the room into darkness.
"Jubilee?" She whispered, praying that there was nothing bad in there to respond.
"The light hurt my eyes," a voice rasped. It took Misty a minute to register that it was Claire who spoke.
She wasn't sure how to respond to that so she simply said, "oh." She moved into the room, keeping her hands in front of her so she didn't run into anything. As her eyes adjusted to the dark she saw Claire sitting on the floor in the far corner of the room watching her.
Misty stopped moving, even though she couldn't see it, she knew there was a predatory look in the older woman's eyes. Although she hadn't known her before her accident, she had heard stories.
"Sparky's not here." Claire said softly.
"I know." Misty replied after a slight pause.
"Then why are you?" Her voice had an angry inflection to it, as if she was offended by her presence.
"To see if you're ok," Misty chanced taking a step forward. Claire smiled, but it was slightly off balance.
"Ok, ok, ok, to see if I'm ok." She muttered. The girl was here, invading her dark silent solitude to see if she was ok? Didn't these people get it that the only time she was ok was when they left her alone, that that was the only times she didn't hurt?
"Are you?"
Claire brought her blue eyes up to meet Misty's silver ones, "Never been better ducky." Misty almost smiled, but then Claire started laughing, it was a harsh maddening sound that erupted from her chest but it held no mirth, only deep-rooted pain.
Misty felt herself backing up, and although she didn't want to she fled the room, only stopping when she was down the hall, where she braced herself against the wall, breathing deeply.
What had happened to that woman? What could make her that way?
She heard feet pounding down the hallway and looked up to see Logan running towards the living room with Jubilee close behind. Not thinking Misty followed them and ran into the room to see Claire wince as Logan turned on the light. He ran over and dropped onto his knees in front of her.
"You ok darlin."
She smiled, but she didn't look at him, she looked at Misty. "Seems you've started a trend Ducky. I'm fine Logan, never felt better."
Logan clenched his hand, wanting to believe her, but the fevered look in her eyes told him it wasn't true. Without a word he picked her up, ignoring her hiss of protest when his skin touched hers, and carried her down to the med lab, now that she was responding to stimulus maybe they could find out what was wrong with her.
He kicked open the door and Hank jumped as it hit the wall, a look of dawning came across his face as he saw Claire muttering things.
"She has finally awakened!2" He exclaimed, bouncing over to the bed where Logan lay her down. He tried to shine a light in her eyes but she swung at him when it hit her pupils hurting her eyes.
"And she seems to be in her usual jovial mood." He said, he watched as Logan tried to hold her down and reached for a sedative he kept on hand. He wrapped one of his large blue hands around her ankle, making she that it was down far enough to avoid her spines, and straightened the limb out. He then plunged the needle into her skin and after a few moments her thrashing stopped.
Logan stepped back, wiping the perspiration off of his forehead. He turned to look at Misty who had been watching from the corner of the room.
"What did ya do to her?" He growled.
Misty stuck her chin out, "I didn't do anything to her, I went looking for Jubilee and she was sitting in the corner of the living room when I got there, I wouldn't have even known she was there if she hadn't said anything."
Hank listened to her, considering what she had said, "What was she doing exactly when you got there."
She turned to look at the doctor, "she was just sitting in the dark in the corner. I called out to Jubilee and she just said that the light hurt her eyes."
"Hmmm," Hank chewed on his pen looking at the prone Claire. "Cortez's powers have the ability to magnify the powers of those he comes into contact with. It happened to Betsy once and she was in contact with every mind on the island of Genosha. If the same thing happened to Claire, all of her senses would have been heightened to their maximum capabilities."
"But wouldn't that mean that she was like that when the bombs dropped. . . " Jubilee whispered.
Hank nodded grimly, "I am afraid so, it is possible that she was acutely aware of everything going on around her."
Logan and Hank looked at each other, neither one wanted to voice the fear that it could have also have heightened her sense of touch, making the sensation of your flesh being burned off of your body more than unbearable.
"I'll run some tests, that way we can see the extent of her 'condition'. But I can only fix her body, I would suggest bringing her to Jean to see what she can do about her mind. For Betsy the effects wore off in a couple of days, but we do not know how long Claire was in contact with him."
Logan nodded, "yeah, as soon as you do your tests I'll have Jeanie come down and see what she can do."
Jubilee thought her heart was going to break as she watched Logan struggle to keep control of his emotions. As Hank went back to his desk, Jubilee came forward and wrapped her arms around his waste hugging him.
"It'll be ok Wolvie, you'll see."
Logan kissed the top of Jubilee's hair, running his hand over her shoulders as he stared at the wall. He wanted to believe her, but he had a feeling that nothing would ever be the same again.
End