Chapter 2: Return

The computer beeped at Xavier where he sat, looking over the papers on his desk. He reached over and pressed the speakerphone button. "This is Xavier."

"Charles," said a well-remembered voice, "Please open the door to your craft's hanger. Sara and I need to bring her ship in for landing."

"Sara?!" Xavier exclaimed in startled surprise. "But she's--"

"Old friend, I assure you, she is very much alive," came Magneto's voice. "I hope you haven't had a memorial service for her yet!"

Xavier, Jean, Scott, Warren, Storm, and Hank were standing in the door to the hanger as the sleek silver Shi'ar craft settled lightly down on the pad in the middle of the hanger, and the door opened. A smiling Magneto came down the ramp, followed a moment later by a swift running figure that threw herself joyously across the empty space into Jean's arms. "I missed you!" And that broke the dam, and soon they were all laughing and crying at the same time, welcoming Sara back. She wiped her eyes, finally, and looked around. "Where's Logan?" she asked, looking for her beloved.

"He and Betsy went to China to return your sword," Xavier said. "Sara, how did you survive? We saw you fall into the lava pit back on Metar!"

"How long ago did they leave?" Sara asked, ignoring his question. "I'm sorry, Charles, I'll explain when I bring him home, I promise! I have to see him first. I miss him so much," she said, her eyes pleading for understanding. He was about to protest when he saw her face. "Go, then," he said. "Go find him."

Logan stirred. The little pendant around his neck was glowing brightly, as it had so many times since Sara had died. It seemed to do that when he was thinking about her, or when he missed her the most.

He got up, out of the uncomfortable hotel bed, and wandered out onto the tiny balcony overlooking the major portion of the city. Sara's company manager Mark Harmon had told them that this was the hotel and the room that she'd stayed in during her visit here. He felt closer to her somehow, even though it had probably been slept in several dozen times since.

Had it really only been two months? It seemed like a lifetime ago. He felt like he'd aged ten years in the three weeks since she'd been gone. He missed her so much. While she was traveling he'd kept waking up to an empty bed. When she came home he'd slept peacefully at night, except for her nightmares, though they were far less frequent than formerly. Now he had to get used to sleeping alone again. The others had delicately suggested to him that he set her things aside, in the attics, but he'd snarled so much that they'd backed off immediately. He hadn't been able to bring himself to even change rooms.

Betsy got out of her bed silently and joined him out on the terrace. "Couldn't sleep?" she said gently.

"No," Logan murmured. "I keep seein' her on the edge of that cliff, hanging on ta me, countin' on me ta save her. I keep feelin' like there's somethin' else I coulda done ta save her, somethin' else I shoulda done. After everythin' that's happened ta her, everythin' she's suffered, she deserved a bit o' peace. I couldn't give that ta 'er. I tried but I couldn't."

Betsy laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Logan, there wasn't anything else you could do. We all saw that. She just couldn't hang on. We all miss her. But she wouldn't like to see you like this, moping over her. Can you just hear her now? 'Logan, stop being an idiot and start getting on with your life!'"

He smiled weakly, imagining Sara saying just that. "Yeah. Yeah, I can see her sayin' that," he said sadly. And then, as he looked over the railing to the streets below, he thought he saw her, a dark-haired figure getting wearily out of a cab in front of the hotel across the street. But it couldn't be, he thought as the woman walked into the swinging door and was lost to view. I gotta get some sleep, he thought wearily. I'm starting to see things.

He continued to tell himself firmly that he was seeing things as he and Betsy went to the marketplace Sara had gone shopping at when she had been there last. They wandered around the square twice, Betsy carrying Chang in a large shopping bag. They were just about to give up when Betsy saw a tiny building to the left of a cloth-merchant's stall, and they went inside.

Logan took a deep breath of the incense-laden air, his heart contracting painfully as he picked up the scent of blooming lavender. Sara's favorite scent. He knelt before the image of the Buddha as Betsy did, and then just sat for a moment, drinking in the peace and serenity of the place.

From behind the image came a two monks, dressed in the saffron yellow robes of their order, but one with the addition of a cloak with a hood. Betsy stepped forward, bowed ceremonially, and held out the sword. "The blade has served its purpose, Respected One," she said solemnly. "Our world is safe."

"And what of the Sword's wielder?" The monk asked. "Could she not bring it herself?"

"The wielder has died, Respected One," Betsy said sadly. "She could not bring it herself."

"You lie," the monk said flatly. "She is not dead."

Logan's head snapped up. " Who you callin' a liar!?" he snapped. "I seen her die myself! She fell over a cliff!"

"Perhaps your eyes did not see everything," said the second monk, and Logan froze at the sound of that familiar loved voice. Slender hands came out of the capacious sleeves, and the hood was thrown back, revealing the familiar face, free of the metal veining. Logan staggered a moment. "Sara…" he breathed. "Sara…!" He took two quick steps forward and swept her up in his arms, hugging her fiercely and crying, and he didn't care who saw him cry. It was more than he'd ever hoped for, to be able to touch her again, to feel her arms around his neck, to kiss her soft full lips…

Betsy grinned, giving an exaggerated sigh of impatience and tapped her foot as the kiss went on, and neither one came up for air. Finally she cleared her throat. "Sara I missed you too," she said. Sara let go of Logan and wrapped her arms around Betsy too, hugging her. "I missed all of you!" she exclaimed. "Charles was so surprised when I showed up at the mansion. He's dying to know what happened, but I told him he had to wait until I found you two." She smiled at Betsy but her eyes were full of tears for Logan as he held her tight.

The monk cleared his throat. "Come then," he said. "As the sword now belongs to you, wielder, take it and use it well."

Homecoming had never been so joyous.

The X-Men were waiting to welcome them home. Bursting with impatience to hear Sara's story, they nevertheless restrained themselves for Logan's sake. Sara told Xavier privately that she wanted to speak to Logan first, and he agreed to keep the others busy while they talked.

Logan sat on the end of their bed and stared at her, his heart and mind full of things he wanted to say, and couldn't. He finally settled for a simple "I love you."

Sara reached out to him, everything she felt for him looking out of her eyes, and hugged him tightly as her lips found his again. This time there were no interruptions as they reveled fully in each other's touch. They had restrained themselves on the flight back, mostly for Betsy's sake. "I love you, dearling," she whispered as they finished.

They rejoined the others in the dining room, and Sara began her story. "I did fall," she began. "But there was a sort of ledge jutting out of the cliff face, and it broke my fall while it gave me a horrible bump on my head. I could hear the voices screaming in my head. They wanted me to throw myself in again, but I couldn't.

"Magneto followed me through the stargate. I didn't know, and I think the Majestrix was too concerned to really pay attention to anything else. After you had all gone, he went on board the ship and stole one or the space suits inside. He used the metal on my skin to pull me out of the abyss. By then though the voices were overwhelming me, and I couldn't bear it. He said I went into a coma. For a week he tried to get it off my body in any way he could. He pulled at it with his magnetic manipulation, he tried concentrated heat, he tried to cut it off once. Nothing worked.

"He thought about the surface temperatures on the planet. If it was so hot there, and the creatures were making me feel cold in normal temperatures, then maybe if the temperature dropped low enough they would freeze to death. So he put me in a vat of freezing water for an hour, and found out that it worked. He probed my mind with some technology he came up with on his ship and 'listened' to the noise the creatures were making in my mind. He submerged me in the water five times over three days, and finally the creatures died. Then he used the mindprobe to 'wake' me up.

"The bump on my head had wiped out my memory completely, for a short time. But his Acolytes didn't want me there, and they tried to get rid of me. Voght deliberately set the temperature controls on the water tank too low, and I almost died of hypothermia.

"My memory came back when Senyaka attacked me with that whip. I saw it and all the old memories of my…ex-husband…came back. And I knew I didn't belong there.

"Koven left the ship on autopilot. That was how I got here. I wish he hadn't; if he hadn't left it on autopilot I wouldn't have been able to get to Metar. But he had stored the planet's coordinates in the computer, and programmed it to respond only to himself, me and Gero. It has this kind of neat little voice recognition program in it, so all I had to do was order it to take me there. Magneto took me aboard the ship, and I reactivated the autopilot, which then opened up the stargate back here. And that's how I got home."

Logan stared at her. "The metal never came off? But your face…"

Sara reached over and switched off the image inducer strapped to her wrist in the form of a watch. "Charles gave me an image inducer," she said happily. "At least I can look normal, even if I'm not. It'll make doing business easier."

They chuckled wryly, and settled down to tuck into a huge dinner. Sara ate as though she were starving, and Logan thought she must not have eaten since she had left. They all helped with the washing up.

As he lay in bed later watching Sara undress for bed, he noted that she seemed to have gained a little weight. Her stomach wasn't as flat as before, though her arms and legs seemed as thin as they normally were. He got up and slipped behind her, wrapping his arms around her shoulders and burying his face in her hair. "I'm gonna miss yer hair," he said regretfully, picking up her brush and running it through the short black strands. She leaned into his touch, her body, clad in a filmy, sheer white lace nightie leaning against his bare one. She turned suddenly, hugging him so tightly he thought his ribs would crack, and said, "I'd shave it all off permanently if it meant we'd never be apart again."

"Me too," he breathed, tucking her head under his chin and just holding her for a long moment.

She pulled away from him as she felt something dig into her cheek, and frowned as she fished around in his flannel nightshirt for the source. She pulled out the delicate gold star at the end of the chain that held his dog tags and smiled. "You kept it," she whispered.

"Of course," he said. "You loved it so much, it seemed like a little part of you was always with me. I got a new gold chain for it, but I don't wear gold. You can have it back if you want." He reached into her jewelry box and took out the thin but strong gold chain he'd bought a week ago. She let him fasten it around her neck, then kissed him and turned off the light. She led him back to the bed in the darkness.