Disclaimer: I don't own the X-Men or it's characters.
The Question
Logan awoke early in the morning. In fact he was awake before the sun came up which wasn't new to him. He rarely slept anymore and when he did it was only for a few hours at a time. He sat up and stretched. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He loved the smell of the outdoors, of the clean air as well as the scent of pine on the air from the nearby forest.
He walked over to his bag and opened it. He had packed a very few things but there was one thing that he hadn't gotten rid of when the rest of the team all those years ago had gotten rid of theirs. He pulled out his old uniform. It was truly his old uniform for it was the brown and tan one and he only rarely wore it anymore. He pulled out his customary yellow and black one and sat it aside in a drawer. He pulled his suit on then crept out of his room not wanting to wake anyone else. He knew how to be quiet it was his nature to be a stalker and hunter and if you wanted the kill then you had to be quiet.
Logan left the mansion then and jogged away from it. He never looked back over his shoulder for he didn't want to see the home that was his and he didn't want the people there to depend on him. Not anymore. Logan jogged through the woods letting the smells fill his nostrils. He loved the scents that he hadn't smelled in many a year. They all came back to him and he reveled in them.
He jogged past a startled deer that ran off into the brush but he didn't follow after like he would have before. No he had a mission and he had to finish it before he did anything else. The question was like a burning brand in his head now and he knew that he wouldn't feel the same until it was asked. He needed to ask it for himself as well as for the others.
Logan ran and he didn't tire due to his healing factor replenishing him rather fast. He knew right where he was going for he had been the one to bring them all there all those years ago. He and he alone had done it and he had been the one to dig their graves. He had dug their graves but not with a shovel no. He thought that they had deserved better and so he had dug their graves with his claws and he had paid for the coffins himself. He had done the final ceremony over them himself saying a prayer for them though he didn't feel that he would ever deserve a prayer said over him. No he had done everything himself because he had owed it to them.
Afterwards he had called Storm on the phone from up in the wilds of Canada and had told her where he had buried them. He had told her everything and had also told her that she could write in the archives anything about him that she wished. He had wanted her to write that he was a failure and not fit to be a member of the X-Men and yet he had feared that she would write that. He knew that she hadn't wrote that though by the looks on the faces of those kids who were the new class. He felt sorry for those kids because they had no idea what they were getting themselves into. There were only the original ones that had any idea and Logan more than any of them.
Logan came to a small clearing and he noticed that there was nothing in the clearing but grass. All the shrubs and other such things that would normally grow in the woods was cleared away to leave a perfect unblemished place for the graves to sit. He looked at them. There were too many and Logan was ashamed that he had let them all die. He felt sick the moment that his eyes fell on them. Too many feelings came back all at once. Feelings that he had thought that he had been dealing with for every day since then but he knew better.
He vision became blurry as tears came unbidden to the Wolverine's eyes. He hadn't cried in so long that he had thought that he had forgotten how. He turned his head away from the graves and yet they called him and it seemed that they held a spell over him. Logan thought that it was as if Xavier himself had reached beyond the grave and compelled Logan to look at them and Logan slowly turned his head back and looked at the graves all nine of them.
He slowly walked forward as the clearing fell silent. The animals alerted to the presence of a human. He came to the first one. Bobby Drake a.k.a. Iceman. Logan traced the name that he had carved on each headstone. He went to the next one and traced that name as well. He traced all the names, Bishop, Cyclops, Jean, Cannonball, Archangel or angel as he preferred, Kurt Wagner who had been his best friend for so long also known as Nightcrawler, Thunderbird who had been with the team for only a short time when he had been killed in action, and lastly buried here was Professor Xavier.
Logan paused here and looked around him. He had buried the professor in the middle with the other eight around him as if to be a shield even in death. They were his students which was the main reason Logan had buried them like that. With them being the students it was only right that he be buried in the center since he had been the center of many of their lives. Also they had been his shield in life as best as they could though he hadn't allowed it very often. Logan thought it truly fitting.
The tears had stopped falling and his face was dry. He shook his head sadly and thought of all the mutants teams that had perished thanks to the governments of the world. X-Factor had died killed by their own government. Then many of the former X-Men members who had left had been hunted to their deaths. Logan turned his thoughts to the team known as Generation X. They were to have been the next team of heroes when the X-Men were too old to carry on. They had all been nothing more than kids. Yet they too had been hunted down and killed. Logan didn't know how many had survived from the teams but he was sure some of them had survived from each of the teams. There were always the survivors and those would be hunters now. They would be waiting he figured for a time to strike back and get revenge or they would have forgiven and they would now be living normal lives. Logan didn't care which road they chose. It was their choice.
Logan felt a lump in his throat as he thought of all the mutants that had died because he had failed to protect the X-Men. It was his fault that they were all dead. He knew that now and yet he still wanted to be a part of the new X-Men. It was a deeply ingrained feeling. He wanted to be a part of the family and yet he knew that he had always been the black sheep. He had always been the one that Cyclops had told the new students to never be like and never admire. He knew that and yet he still wanted his family though most of them were gone and he was alone.
Logan dropped to his knees then in front of Xavier's grave and put his head against the headstone. No one had ever seen Logan act this way and most wouldn't have believed it if someone had told them. Logan though wasn't all rough edges and unyielding stone. He had feelings and once in a while they showed though he only allowed it rarely.
"Oh Chuck I am lost and I haven't been that way in a long time. You have always been there to lead me back but now you aren't here. I have no one to guide me which seems childish even to me but I think that I could use your guidance now," Logan said as he moved back and sat on his knees.
Logan waited and he knew that he would get no response from Xavier. He missed the old man and that brought a small smile to his lips. He called Chuck old and yet he himself was older than Chuck had been probably. "Well Charley it seems you aren't going to guide me yet I still need to ask you a question. You are still my teacher in a few areas. I want to ask you what I should do," Logan said and he paused. He waited because it was just habit.
"Chuck what should I do. Jubilee has resurrected the team or at least what is left of us. She wants me to join and I don't know if I should. I failed you and the rest what is to say that I won't fail again," Logan said as he looked around at the graves that he had dug himself. He had placed each body in the grave or at least what had been left of some of the bodies. He had felt burying them here in the woods where they had lived most of their lives was appropriate. It was their home and none of them had ever told him where they had wanted to be buried when they died.
"Chuck I think that I shouldn't join Jubilee unless you can give me a sign otherwise. I don't think that I have it in me anymore to fight for these humans who have hunted mutant kind to near extinction. They have hounded us and every time one of us found we are persecuted even worse than when you were alive. I can't keep fighting for these people when they make it so hard. They don't want to live with us even though the government's of the world have revoked the hunters and have given us the same rights as humans. We are still outsiders and what happened to you and the others will eventually happen to the rest of us," Logan said but he sounded as if he was trying to convince himself. He knew that deep down he was still Wolverine and not Death like he was known now. No he was still the X-Man known as Wolverine and he owed it to Elektra who had saved him once long ago to stay the man that she had saved.
He needed to be an X-Man. It was the only thing in his life that really mattered any more. He had only his adopted daughter who had gotten married a few years past. He rarely saw her anymore since she was too busy with her own family. He traveled to see her once and a while but it was only a couple of times a year.
Logan stood up and looked down at Xavier's headstone. He saw that there was a place left with no writing on it and he knelt back down and skint out popped a claw. He proceeded to carve a couple words into that area and when he was finished it said Hero To Us All.
Logan said as his voice grew heavy with sorrow, "You truly were a hero to us all Xavier. You saved all us from lives worse than we had with you. Thank you Chuck I truly thank you."
Logan stepped away from Xavier's headstone then and turned around. He stepped up to Cyclops and Jean's grave and knelt down in between them. "Well Red, Slim I have come back and reported to you like I promised," Logan started as the tears came unbidden again. "I miss both of you as well. I thought of you like my true family. All of you but you Summers you were like the older brother that I never had. I admired you though I argued with you constantly. You were a good companion. But that isn't why I am here."
Logan looked up at the sky through the trees. The sun was climbing high in the sky rather fast and he knew that he had been here well over an hour closer to two hours. He took a deep breath because he had indeed promised Jean and Scott that he would return and report to them about something important. Something that he had promised to do and he had done. Something that was important to them even though they were gone from the world. He had promised to tell them about their daughter as she grew. Their daughter Rachel Summers.
He had taken her to a safe place before he had left with Jubilee and he had promised her that he would come back for her within four days. He intended to keep that promise. He had always had her with him whenever he went with Arian. Arian and Rachel had become good friends and that was good Logan had thought. He had went to keeping Rachel with him after she had been entrusted to him by her mother and father. She had been three. She had always called him uncle which had made him feel happy and that was something that he had very little experience with.
"Jean, Scott your daughter Rachel has grown into a amazingly beautiful young woman. She is seventeen now but will soon be eighteen in about a month. Of course you already knew that. She has red hair like you Red and her eyes are the most radiant shade of green that you have ever seen. She graduated from high school this year and was Valedictorian. Rachel is a mutant like you told me she would be and yet she is more," Here Logan stopped and looked over to Jean's headstone. He was still getting used to looking at that instead of looking at Red as he talked to her. Even after all these years he was still having trouble believing that they were all gone. Logan looked down at his claw that he had never retracted and cut himself across the forearm. It felt appropriate since they had all died and he still lived. His blood was something that would come back but if he bleed in their presence then he felt more at home with them and their spirits. He felt that by his bleeding it meant that he was closer to death than if he wasn't bleeding and so perhaps they could hear him then. Logan smirked then and thought that he was perhaps going mad.
"Jean she is the Phoenix just like you were. The only difference is that the power was born to her and so she has more control over it than you did. Your daughter may be the most powerful mutant on the face of the planet and she may be the hope of the world if it continues like it is," Logan said as he retracted his claw. His wound was already healed but that didn't matter. No he had just felt like feeling a different pain, to tell the truth, than the hurt in his heart. He had wanted anything else to feel; than the ache in his heart that wouldn't lessen.
"Oh god I wish that she could have known the both of you. She was so young when you both died. I can tell her everything that I know about you and still that wouldn't be enough for her. I am not her father and she knows that and she knows that I do my best by her," Logan whispered as he put his head to the headstone of Jean Grey and placed his hand on the headstone of Scott Summers.
* * * * *
Jubilee had known that Logan would leave early and so she had made sure that she was awake in order to follow him. She had wanted to follow him in order to see where he went and to see who he asked his question of. She had wanted to know about Logan and how he was now.
She had learned many things in her time since the original X-Men and one of those things was how to tail a person and mask her own scent. She was very good at that since she had been hunted by Sabretooth for awhile hoping that by hunting her it would draw Wolverine out.
It didn't work and she had survived and Sabretooth had disappeared. Yes she wished she knew what had happened to her old friend and she thought that she had a right to know. So she followed him through the woods right to the very spot where the old team was buried. She wondered how he knew right where they were. It puzzled her since she knew that he hadn't returned to the school to find out. He hadn't talked to anyone about it either.
She had hunched down in a bit of shrubbery about fifty yards from where Wolverine was hunched over talking to the headstones like he was mad. Jubilee hoped that wasn't the case. She wanted to get closer but she also didn't want to intrude on what he was saying so she stayed where she was.
After more than twenty minutes of sitting on one spot she was getting tired. Her legs were cramping and she knew that she was going to have to move soon or else she was going to cry out in pain from the spasms in her legs. As she shifted her weight she heard a man's voice from behind her. "It's all over for you now Jubilee," the voice said in a tone that seemed more lighthearted than it should have with those words.
* * * * *
Deadpool watched from his perch in a nearby tree as Jubilee left the mansion. There goes my target he thought to himself as he dropped down to the ground lightly and followed along behind her. In all his years he had never thought that he would be hired to kill a kid that he had known as a girl. Now though here he was stalking her and planning how to kill her.
He had followed her to her little hiding place in the shrubs. He knew that she was trying to hide from Wolverine and she was doing a rather good job of it. Deadpool thought about just killing her and then he decided against it. Part of what had made him Deadpool was his banter though he didn't use that anymore.
He stood up from where he was hiding as she shifted where she was in order to hide his own sounds. Then he said quite jovially, "It's all over for you now."
* * * * *
Jubilee spun around and saw a man standing behind her with a knife in his hand and he was dressed all in red with a mask covering his face. She recognized him from the descriptions Wolverine had given her. He was Deadpool and he was a assassin. She stood up quickly and fired her power at him.
He dodged to the side and rolled to his feet as she fired again and again. Each time he dodged and as he dodged he moved closer to her. She was good he noted but she wasn't good enough to get him. "You know I could shoot as good as you are," he said as he dodged another one. He was almost on her now and he knew that it would be only a matter of time.
He dodged to the side but not quite fast enough and he was clipped by her power. She was getting to the point that she could kill a person rather easily with those bursts of energy. He came to his feet and pulled his other knife and charged her as she fired again. He ducked it and came rushing in close with his knives at the ready.
* * * * *
Wolverine had his head down on the headstone when he heard a voice say, "It's all over for you now." He looked in the direction of the voice and the slight breeze shifted and brought him a smell that he recognized. Deadpool. He stood up fast and headed off in the direction of the voice.
He was the hunter in that instance and he was his old self. He sniffed the air and then he picked up another scent that was heavily doused so as to not be noticed. He smelled Jubilee. What the hell is she doing out here he thought to himself as he circled around in order to come in behind pool.
He saw in a small clearing Jubilee trying to hold off Deadpool to no avail. He was near her and in a few short seconds she would be dead. Wolverine knew that he couldn't live with another death that he couldn't prevent and so he yelled, "Pool if you value your life stop!"
Deadpool stopped in his tracks and turned to look at Wolverine. He smiled and shook his head. He should have known that Wolverine wouldn't let him finish the job though he was glad that Wolverine was there to stop him. In fact Pool had wanted Wolverine to be there that was why he had picked today to attempt to kill Jubilee.
"Oh come now is that any way to treat me," Pool said as he backed away from Jubilee. Wolverine walked into the clearing and looked from Pool to Jubilee and back again as Pool did the same with Wolverine and Jubilee.
"Why are you here Pool," Wolverine demanded as he stopped a few feet from them both.
"You know why chap I am here to kill Jubilee here," Deadpool said figuring that there was no point in lying.
"Why you were retired what made you take this job," Wolverine asked a bit puzzled. He was furious that Pool had wanted to kill Jubilee but Wolverine wouldn't allow that. Wolverine would die first before he let anything happen to Jubilee. He owed her that much for failing to keep the rest of the team safe.
"Well now that is actually an easy question to answer. You see they made me an offer I couldn't refuse," Deadpool said as he threw one of his knives at Jubilee hoping that he could force Wolverine's hand. The knife flipped end over end and as expected Wolverine stepped in front of it and let it hit him in the chest.
Wolverine reached up and pulled the knife from his chest and said a bit sadly it seemed to Deadpool, "You knew you were dead the second you threw that knife Pool." With those words Wolverine threw the knife back at Deadpool who dodged the knife but wasn't near fast enough to avoid Wolverine who hadn't aged a bit in ten years. As the knife sailed over his head Deadpool looked into the eyes of Wolverine as he felt three claws pierce his chest a bit low but they would kill him nontheless.
Deadpool backed away from Wolverine and fell to the ground as he felt weak. Wolverine looked on with a hint of sadness in his face. He had liked Pool even though they had been at odds at different times. Wolverine had known that Deadpool had been slow and so had moved in as soon as the knife had left his hand. It was why Deadpool had been too slow to even register the move. Wolverine had advanced in ten years where Pool had just gotten older.
Wolverine was going to miss Deadpool. The old wise cracking assassin had made the best of his life and now Wolverine had taken it. Wolverine felt bad about that. He knew that there was a reason Deadpool had taken the job though and so he asked, "Pool please tell me why you took this job."
Deadpool looked at Jubilee and then back to Logan as he said through the pain that was clouding his thoughts, "I am sorry kid. I didn't want to kill you. I was hoping Wolverine would be here." Deadpool was losing himself to memories that weren't relevant to the time as he continued. "Wolverine the greatest of the warriors who at least had a little honor. I knew that I had to have him kill me instead of letting this disease take me. I couldn't live knowing that a disease was going to kill me and it was going to be more painful than anything in history. Kn . . . Knew that Wolverine would be here. Hoped he would end my pain."
"Ah Pool I didn't know," Logan whispered as he knelt down next to him. Wolverine sadness was all the greater at that point because he knew then that Pool had wanted to die.
Jubilee sat down next to them and she had a puzzled look on her face but even she was affected by Deadpool's words though she didn't understand them anymore than Wolverine did. "What is he saying Wolvie," she asked.
Deadpool continued to babble on as Wolverine looked over at Jubilee. Just as he was about to say something Deadpool's eyes cleared up and he grabbed Wolverine's arm. "Wolverine I thank you. Now I can go see my love but first I must say . . . s . . .say something. Te . . . tell you that the mutant slayers are alive. Fear them. I. . . it was they who gave me the virus. Th . . . t . . . they are hunting the X-Men. N. . . Not only that but they are planning on . . on something big. I . . think that they are going to try to wipe out the mutant race somehow. Tha . . . Thank you my friend," Deadpool said as his breath left his body. Deadpool released his grip on Wolverine's arm and he closed his eyes for the last time.
"Rest well Deadpool. I am glad that could at least help you," Wolverine said as he picked Deadpool up. "Jubilee go back to the mansion now. I have something that I need to do. I need to honor this man by burying him. I think that he would have wanted that." With that Wolverine walked away from Jubilee leaving her in the small clearing by herself to ponder what she had heard.
"Well I guess I should be used to this. He always used to leave me like this and what was I thinking? I will tell you what I was thinking. I was hoping that he would treat me like the woman that I am instead of like the child that he remembers," Jubilee was complaining to herself. She then turned her thoughts to what she had heard. She had known that the slayers were still out there. She had seen their work from time to time. Now though she had proof. She also knew now that the world was going to need the X-Men again thanks to the warning of a man who was going to kill her if Wolverine hadn't been there to kill him. She shook her head. The world had never made much sense and it had made even less since she had joined the X-Men.
* * * * *
Jubilee made it back to the mansion to see that everyone was up and about. She wanted nothing more than to go to her room and get some sleep though. She had already had a full day and she knew that she had more to do. She didn't even see the worried look on Storm's face as she walked by Storm in the hall. Jubilee hadn't known that she had blood on her jacket until she took it off and sat it on the floor in her room. The blood was Deadpool's but they wouldn't have known that. She yawned and decided that she would explain it later.
Storm watched as Jubilee had walked by and she had been worried. Storm didn't want to admit it but she feared for Jubilee's sake. Storm had had a gut feeling that something was going to happen and she had learned long ago to trust her gut instinct. It had saved her more than once. Storm turned back into her room and went to the bed where her husband Beast was still sleeping. He was more and more like his namesake it seemed. He slept all the time just like a large cat which is what he was starting to look like. She smiled because she loved him all the same.
It had been five years since they had been married and they still hadn't conceived a child which Storm really wanted. Of course Storm had a surprise for her husband she was just looking for the right time to tell him that she was finally indeed pregnant. It had taken a few years and Beast coming up with a liquid that he drank that temporarily turned him back into a human but she was now with child and she was as happy as she had ever been.
That was until Wolverine had showed up. She didn't want to admit it but he had scared her when he had first showed up. She had long thought that he had been killed by the mutant hunters, but when she had seen him she had known. She had known that he wasn't dead. She had mixed feelings but she had put on her best face and welcomed him back with Rogue.
Wolverine had changed in the last years. She knew why but she also knew that he was different elsewise as well. There was something else about him that she couldn't place and it was driving her nuts. He was distant but that was nothing new, he had always been that way. She wondered if it was just fear of what he would do when he found out that she was married to his friend Beast. Beast who had been his best friend. At one time she had loved Wolverine but that love had died it seemed with the X-Men.
She was starting to wonder if she wasn't just fearful because he was such a violent person. She didn't feel that he had anything to teach the new class of students. Jubilee felt differently but Storm felt that all he could teach them was how to kill though she had to admit he had taught Kitty and she had turned out fine.
Storm turned her thoughts away from that since she wasn't finding any answers. She was avoiding the real reason why she was unhappy with him being there. She had taken a lot of time to cover up what had happened all those years ago. She had spent painstaking hours writing how the X-Men had died and leaving Wolverine out of the whole incident and yet now he was here. He was here and he could tell how it really happened and she feared for him.
Deep down she knew that her fear was for him. She didn't want him to get hurt because he was still a friend. She could say that she was fearful for everyone else and yet she knew that she feared for Wolverine. He had always been the tough one. The one that the rest could rely on and he had started to believe it. Then he had not been able to save the X-Men that day. He hadn't been able to save his family and she knew that he felt that he had betrayed their trust. He blamed himself for all of their deaths and there was nothing that she could do or tell him that would make him see that it wasn't his fault.
Storm wished that she could ease his pain because to her it was etched plainly on his face. She wondered how it was that he could deal with it. She knew that he had always been the strongest of them when it came to dealing with the pain but even he had to be feeling the effects of grief that had been with him for ten years.
Storm was glad that the team was coming back together. It was good to see old friends and talk with them. Just last night she had talked to Rogue for a while about what she had been up to and other such things. She had broached the subject of Gambit and Rogue had told her that Remy and her getting back together was not a very good possibility.
Rogue had changed as well but that was for the better. She had finally learned how to control her powers and the professor would have been so proud of her. Yes he would have congratulated her and told her that he had always known that she could do it. Storm had said much the same though it had meant less coming from her she knew.
Storm and Rogue were going to go shopping today later. It was something that they had always done and it would be nice to do something that resembled their old lives. Psylocke was to get to the mansion in the next couple of days and then the old group would be together again.
Storm laid down next to Beast and snuggled in close to his warm furry body. She was glad that they were all back. It was home and they all knew it. The thing was she didn't know about Wolverine. He seemed to have a haunted look about him like he was going to try and do something that he knew the rest of them wouldn't approve of. Storm smiled to herself then. Wolverine had always done things that they hadn't approved of. It was the way he was and she wouldn't have him any other way.
* * * * *
Wolverine had buried Deadpool near a great oak tree. "I will get you a headstone you deserve that at least," Logan had said as he had walked away from the freshly dug grave.
He looked down at his claws that still had dirt clinging to them and said to them, "You have seen a lot of death my old friends. What's more you have also dug way too many graves. One day perhaps you will be used to dig mine." He headed back to the mansion as he sheathed his claws.
He had gotten the answer that he had wanted. It was not in the way that he had felt that Xavier would normally have given it to him but when you are dead you have to make do. Wolverine looked back to where they were buried off in the trees and he said, "I understand Chuck. You want me to protect them. Normally I would have refused but your message is a little hard to ignore. I promise I will die before I let another X-Man die, I swear it."
Wolverine walked into the mansion and heard the students talking amongst themselves about a test that was coming up or something. He didn't care about that he had something that he needed to do. He went to his room and rummaged around in his pack and pulled out a small disk. He held it in his hand and turned it around and around. He then left the room and went in search of the Danger room.