Chapter 10: Happily Ever After

It wasn't as bad as everyone thought it was going to be; when Sara had to go to work, or on business trips Jean would bring the twins back to the mansion, and the X-Men would baby-sit. Or rather, Logan would baby-sit. He loved his children so much it was hard for the others to watch when she came back from work and took the kids back with her.

Months passed like this, and while the others in the mansion got used to life the way it was, two people never lost sight of why Logan never smiled anymore; himself and Betsy. Betsy, in particular, felt the loss. In the flurry of the birth, and moving, and all the rest, she had quietly sent a message to the Buddhist monks telling them what had happened. Her letter took a long time getting there, and a return answer took even longer getting back. When she did finally receive it, it said simply, "The sword is hers; she may keep it. We hope Master Chang's sacrifice was not in vain."

The problem was that it had been in vain, at least from Betsy's point of view. Chang had drained himself so that Sara and Logan could have each other in the kind of life each had always wanted. And now, because of Sara's stubbornness it looked like life wasn't going to fall into place for Logan. It irritated her, but she didn't know what to do about it.

One wild night eight months after Sara had moved out, they got a knock at the door. Sara stood at the front door, dripping rain, holding Meggie and pushing Josh in a stroller, and looking frantic, because Meggie was blue.

"She was playing around, and one of her toys came apart. The string holding her wooden beads together broke, and she got one stuck in her throat. I telepathically knocked her out to keep her from panicking, but I don't know how to get it out! Where's Hank?" She was desperate, and as Jean took a wet, crying Josh from his stroller Betsy took Sara down to the medlab at a dead run. Jean had forewarned Hank, and so he had everything ready when she rushed down there at a dead run.

It was only a matter of a few minutes until Hank got the bead out of Meggie's throat and Sara could relax. Jean took Josh up to see his dad, and Betsy and Sara went to the kitchen.

"Nearly gave me a heart attack, seeing you come running up like that," Betsy said as she put a kettle on for hot tea and put two tea bags in cups on the counter. "If you moved back in here you wouldn't have to brave the weather like that for emergencies. There's a hurricane on its way here, you know."

"I know the hurricane's coming here, but I didn't know how to get an object out of a throat that tiny! I know how to do the Heimlich on adults and older children but I didn't know how to do it on Meggie!"

Betsy poured the hot water on the tea bags and handed a cup to Sara. "Move back in here."

"I can't, Betsy, you don't know…" Sara played nervously with the tag on her tea bag.

"I don't know what?" Betsy challenged, sitting down across from Sara and staring at her. "I don't know what?"

"It's just…I get these dreams…"

"Let me in." it was more command than request, and Sara, surprised and tired, dropped her shields rather than argue any further.

Betsy probed Sara's mind. Under the panic of her recent emergency, Sara's mind was strangely skewed. Betsy began examining her memories of what had happened at the Reavers' base. She saw Sara, lying there, writhing in torment under a pair of hands belonging to…

"Gambit?" she nearly fell off her chair. Sara started to shut her shields down, but Betsy grabbed hold of her mind, letting herself in before Sara could shut her out. And she saw the face of Sara's tormentor change; to Warren, to Scott, and finally, to Logan.

It was all so wrong! Betsy probed deeper, trying to figure out where everything had gone so wrong, and deep in Sara's mind, buried there by Pretty Boy, was the answer to eight months of anguish; he had raped her mind as Sabretooth raped her body, planting false images and memories into Sara's mind. Then he buried it all under another wave of brainwashing, making Sara believe that it had all happened and Xavier had wiped her memory to keep her from knowing. Betsy grabbed Sara mentally and forced her to look squarely at those memories; then she peeled back the illusions and programming and showed Sara who was really under that mask.

Sara made a strangled sound, something between disbelief and relief. "They didn't," she whispered, looking at Betsy with wide, tear-filled eyes. "Charles didn't. Logan didn't!! Why did they do that to me?"

"To keep you and he apart, so that they could hurt him." Betsy said. She chose her next words carefully. "Are you going to let them win?"

Sara dropped the tight shield she had wrapped around the little spot way deep in her soul and felt the warmth of her psychic link with Logan flood her mind. She'd been a stupid idiot. Logan loved her so much, there was no way he would have ever done that to her!

Upstairs, Logan was sitting on his bed, tossing Josh in the air and tickling him as the little boy squealed and waved his arms. "Dadadada!" he burbled happily. Logan was about to toss the little boy in the air again when he felt something shift inside him, and a voice he'd missed for eight long months spoke in his head with a well-remembered endearment he'd almost given up hope of hearing ever again. Dearling?

"Sara?" he said aloud, and Jean looked at him, quizzically. Then she felt the brush of Sara's mind against his as the other woman slipped into the room, and Josh was left hanging in midair as Logan and Sara locked gazes for the first time in what felt like an eternity. Jean quietly slipped the little boy out of his father's arms and took him out of the room, to see Storm next door.

His parents never noticed. "Logan," Sara whispered, even as he began, "Sara," and they both laughed nervously. She gestured him to go first, and he said quietly, "Sara, I don't blame ya fer bein' upset with me. I'm sorry I wasn't there ta help ya. I'm sorry fer what Creed did to ya--"

Sara cupped his face in her hands and kissed him, a long, lingering kiss that effectively stopped his words. "Logan," she said, pressing her forehead to his, "I'm the one who should be sorry. The Reavers messed with my head while Sabretooth was messing with my body, and they made me believe it was you that was hurting me, not him. It was a shock, and I withdrew into myself. I heard you calling me when I was hiding from the pain. I heard Charles too, but I was lost in the brainwashing and I was afraid. Dearling, if I'd taken a minute and really thought about it, I would have realized you could never have done such things to me. Will you forgive me?"

"Nothin' ta fergive," Logan said, his voice husky with emotion, as he leaned down to kiss her.

The storm raging outside had a companion in the room, because Sara forgot to shield.

"So it's the boathouse?" Sara asked a long while later, when they were done changing their sheets.

'Yeah," Logan said. "Darlin', ya keep fergittin ta shield an' we keep getting' soaked. Nuff's nuff."

Sara giggled. "I don't see Storm giving up her mischievous streak on our account, not even for our…reunion…"

Logan chuckled, and Sara giggled as her head, lying on his chest, went up and down with the motion of his lungs. "Darlin', Storm's just happy we patched things up," he said. "So's everybody else, unless I miss my guess."

"Yeah," Sara giggled again, her eyes going blank for a second as she telepathically 'checked' on the kids. "Jean got Josh to sleep on the bed in what used to be my room. Meggie's asleep in the infirmary. Let's go to sleep now, and we'll get everything set up in the morning."

"Okay, darlin'. But first…" Logan got up, padding across the carpet on bare feet, and Sara watched with appreciation the play of hard muscles under the smooth skin of his back. And parts south.

He slipped back between the sheets holding something in his hand. "Sara…will you wear this again?"

The moon came out from behind the clouds, illuminating the small object he had picked up from his dresser, and Sara saw it was her ring. She took it, slipped it on, and sealed their love with a kiss. "Happily ever after?" she whispered drowsily some time later.

"Happily ever after…" he agreed.