Disclaimer: blah blah blah. Not mine, don't sue.
Hank had quickly released Scott from the med-lab with an admonition to rest, and a shot of painkiller that wasn't going to make that difficult. For some reason Kitty, who'd been hovering around the med-lab while Hank checked him over, had charged herself with 'taking care of him'.
He'd told her that he'd be fine by himself, but truth be told, when she'd insisted, he didn't push the point.
By the time they'd got up to his room, Scott was glad for the help. He more or less collapsed on the bed, looking up at Kitty through slightly blurred vision.
For a second, he thought she was going to speak; but then Kurt poked his head through the door.
"Go away, Elf! Scott's trying to sleep!"
Kurt made a face at her. "Hey, this is my room too, you know." He caught sight of Scott, who was having trouble keeping his eyes open. "What the hell did Hank give him, Katzchen?"
Kitty shrugged. "Something of his own design, I think. What did you want?"
"Have you seen Jean lately?"
"She was just leaving the med-lab when Hank brought Scott in." Kitty took a look at Kurt's face and frowned to match his expression. "Is something wrong? I've never known you to actually go looking for Jean. You don't even like her that much."
Her question went unanswered. "But I met her coming out of the med-lab." muttered Kurt, mostly to himself. "I met her, and I warned her, and a telepath ought to know I was serious. Nein, she wouldn't…. Surely she wouldn't…"
There was a sudden bamf, announcing his departure.
Kitty sighed, wrinkling her nose at the smell.
"How are you feeling?" she asked Scott.
"Fine." he said yawning. Succumbing to sleep, his last thought was ~Love you.~
Kitty Pryde looked down at the sleeping Scott, her eyes wide. She hadn't just heard that, had she? He'd mumbled it under his breath so low she'd had to strain to hear it, but still…
Kurt Wagner was getting, to put it mildly, pissed off. Kitty was right; he didn't like Jean that much. He'd probably picked up on Logan's aversion to telepaths somewhere along the way.
But he wasn't going to all this trouble for Jean, after all.
Perhaps one last check in the med-lab?
Remy was awake, for once; Hank had been rather liberal with his 'house blend' painkiller.
"She hasn't come back yet, then?"
"Non. Why y' so worried?"
"I think it's possible she could have gone after Wolverine. In this state, he could be dangerous."
"Y' t'ink he might hurt her?"
Frankly, hurting her was not what Kurt was concerned about. But despite all the gossip flying around the mansion, and despite the fact that Remy was not a man easily fooled, he still obviously had what Kitty had called 'a blind spot the size of Kansas' in the matter of his girl being able to do any wrong.
"I don't know what he'll do." was the more diplomatic response. "He's… unpredictable."
"He's y' great-grampa, and y' can't even tell Remy what he's up t'?"
"Vas?"
The beast that resided inside the man known as Wolverine raised his head and sniffed the air. The hunting out here, until now, had not been good. Rabbits and birds did not interest him. But there was a new scent on the air now, and he was no longer interesting in hunting food.
Claws sheathed, he moved silently towards his target. The scent of she who was mate-but-not-mate, mixed with the scent of the one who had already claimed her, was getting stronger, and he had an overwhelming urge to erase the scent of the other male from her.
He leaped for her, pinning her against a tree, but the one who he had chosen was powerful, and clever, and he was knocked back by an unseen force.
Leaping back up, he could see the fleeing patch of red, accompanied by a little of the smell of fear; but beneath that, there was the smell of want. The Hunter growled, and then grinned.
He loved the chase.
Jean ran, berating herself. Stupid, stupid! She hadn't really listened to Kurt's warning; Jean, as official leader of the X-Men, liked organization. She was the one who organized 6am Danger Room sessions – and made sure everyone turned up, who made sure Bobby pulled his weight, who organized, well, everything.
Jean Grey (planning to become Jean LeBeau in approximately two to three years, the time she'd calculated would be a likely and appropriate length of time to be dating Remy before he proposed, with six months wedding planning time added on.), did not like unknowns. Wolverine, in this state, was an unknown. Therefore, it was up to her to make him less of an unknown.
The fact that he seemed to cause the loss her much-prized self-control a little too often for her liking, may or may not have also been a factor in her decision, admittedly.
She needed to get this man out of her system. She loved Remy, and any disloyalty would be… inappropriate. Perhaps that was a cold way of thinking about it, but Jean was used to being thought of as cold. She couldn't risk losing control. The ability to distance herself from her emotions and from the other members of the team – even from Remy – was, she felt, one of her most important characteristics.
Speaking of distancing oneself… She heard him crashing through the woods behind her, no longer bothering to use stealth, and increased her pace.
The Hunter loped along, following her. She was tiring, he knew that, and it wouldn't be long before…
A confusing smell reached him. Her smell was fading, and the stench strong against his nostrils was of another prey, the cub, one who had often eluded him.
When he reached the spot where She had been, there was nothing, except that same lingering odor amongst a rapidly dissipating cloud of smoke.
Kurt had dropped Jean unceremoniously back in the med-lab, where Hank had been restraining Remy, who he'd left behind. He'd had an inkling that bringing the Cajun anywhere near Logan would have been a disaster waiting to happen.
He'd explained – well, lied. The half-truth that Wolverine wouldn't remember anything, and then the full on lie that his 'attack' on Jean was not personal, just a reaction to a 'female' entering his territory.
Bullshit.
Kurt considered himself fairly observant; it wasn't anything to do with having hung around with Logan so long, just a part of his upbringing. Hide in the shadows for long enough and you don't just become good at hiding; you become really good at noticing what's happening in the daylight world.
And every time Jean and Logan were in the same room, his instincts just went through the roof. That was a confrontation just waiting to happen.
He stomped up to his room, still in a foul mood. Then there was the whole 'grandfather' incident, which he'd forced out of Remy before going off to save Ms. Grey's ass, and which had just been confirmed by Jean as well.
Well, maybe it wasn't what it seemed. Maybe she was just taking a dig at his age. Then, that put him back to the whole 'knows my mother from somewhere' thing. He didn't even think Frost had any true idea of Logan's background, not from the way she'd spoken to him.
The door to his room swung open; and, oh, hey, there was something interesting. Perfectly innocent, with Kitty having pulled up a chair to the side of Scott's bed and Scott still asleep; but he'd seen the way the boy – shouldn't really call him that, from what Remy had said he was eighteen, which made him older than Kurt – looked at Katzchen, and the way she was watching him now held something of the same.
She started at his entrance, smiled sheepishly, as if she'd been caught doing something she shouldn't. Maybe she had.
"Be careful, Katzchen." was all he said.
Kitty looked like she was about to reply, but he'd already stepped back out, closing the door behind him. The time, according to his watch, was 5:46pm, and he doubted he'd be getting any rest tonight. Nein, let Kitty and Scott have their time together.
He teleported to the roof; nestled against the side of the old chimney he had a good view of the grounds. This way he could watch out for Logan, either the feral one, come hunting for Jean, or the ordinary Logan, who probably wouldn't emerge till morning, possibly not for a couple of mornings to come. Either way, he wanted to be the first to know.
Sighing, he let his mind wander, thinking of those first few years when he'd stayed with his mother. His father, whose last name he bore, he knew little to nothing about; he knew he'd given Mama some money to keep well away from him and the rest of his family after Kurt's birth.
Most people, Wolverine probably included, probably thought Mystique had gotten rid of him because of the way he looked. There was a thought that made him laugh. Nein, Mama didn't hate him. For her to feel that way, she'd actually have to had felt something about him, one way or another.
He'd grown up speaking German; Mother liked to blend in with the locals, at least during the initial stages of whatever she was planning at the time. His English had been learnt sitting in a corner during Mother's 'war councils', when she'd taken her true form and held long and loud meetings with a variety of mutants who shared her views, as well as occasional 'mundanes' who were fairly well paid for the work they did – and sometimes allowed to live afterwards, as well.
And then at some point, she'd just grown tired of him. He'd been quite useful, for a short period of time, at helping his mother provoke fights with local rowdies; and at blackmailing his father with his existence; other than that, she'd found no use for him. Eventually he guessed the novelty of having a blue-furred demon son had worn off, and she'd unceremoniously dumped him with the Abbot; a kindly man who'd taken him in and laid the foundations for his faith.
He'd been seven at the time; eight years later the old Abbot had died; and the new head of the monastery was not so kindly in his view towards the demon boy. He'd been planning to leave even before Logan had come along, although he wasn't sure how, or where, or when. Knowing what he did of the world now, it was a lucky thing he hadn't decided to take his fate into his own hands.
The wind picked up a little, but it didn't bother him. His thoughts turned to Kitty and Scott; again, something told him that was trouble waiting to happen. And it wasn't because of his feelings for his Katzchen; he'd never assumed she would be interested, and therefore never given anything away. No, he just felt there was something a little off about Scott – something broken. He shrugged. Not his business, really. Perhaps Kitty's love would fix whatever was wrong with Scott.
"Liebe macht blind" he said, out loud, and then snorted. Settling back against the chimney, he waited for the dawn.
A/N: Next up, Erik gets some bad news, it's Jubilee's sweet sixteenth, and the date has special meaning to Logan for another reason… It's all a perfect setup for a choice that will change the world….