THE OTHER

For Wolverine, the story began here. For the feral human, it was not when Summers left the mansion; that was merely the conclusion to a story that would have inevitably come to a close. He was angry; eternally angry at the fates that took Jean away and at the man that let her go. But he was just as angry at himself as he was at Scott Summers. And he felt something else too, an emotion that did not come easy to him, but it was one that he would suppress no matter what the cost.

But when the anger subsided and the mansion resumed to what could be called normalcy, Logan's life took a drastic turn, one that he bristled at.

How on earth did he get stuck being a babysitter and chauffeur?

So this is what Summers had to deal with. For once in his life he pitied the man. He felt obligated to remain at the mansion, to look after this new found family of freaks like himself. He felt protective over them; to give them a fighting chance when he himself had never had one. But beyond all his noble intentions, Logan completely forgot what teenagers – even mutant ones – were actually like.

Right now he was slapping Jubilee's hand away from the radio dials. The girl had a penchant for songs that were mimics of each other.

"Ooooooo baaaayyyybeeee…..why you so mean to me baaaayyyybeeee?…..don't you know I neeeeed youuuuu baaaayyybeee?….ooooooo"

To say the least, they weren't very original. Logan briefly considered a career change (obviously one did not need to be lyrically talented to write pop songs) rather than continue slapping the small girl's hand away. He growled at her from underneath his cigar.

"Would you leave it alone, damnit? The stupid girl got her point across the first three-thousand times."

Jubilee responded by sticking her tongue out at him.

The back seat was no better. Kitty Pryde and Rogue were pestering Bobby Drake; not that he minded two young girls giving him their undivided attention. But they were cooing in a teasing manner as they mussed his carefully gelled blonde hair and he tried futilely to protect his coif while he laughed good-naturedly.

Logan glared at them in the rear-view mirror. "Would you mind knocking it off?" He snarled. "I'm trying to drive here."

Bobby whispered something to the girls ("my grandma drives faster") that he assumed Logan wouldn't be able to hear. Logan did hear and proceeded to threaten Bobby with walking all the way back to the mansion and Bobby immediately straightened up with a serious look on his face. Threats were not to be taken lightly when Logan uttered them.

They came to one of the last remaining four-way stops before the mansion and although there was no approaching traffic from any direction, Logan halted the car and let it idle. His eyebrows furrowed as he chewed apprehensively on his cigar. His knuckles gripped the steering wheel until his adamantium claws could be seen just below the surface of his knuckles.

"Hey Wolve…the mansion's that-a-way." Jubilee pointed directly in front of her while studying Logan's reaction cautiously.

"I know where the damn mansion is, kid." Logan sent her a warning glance but seemed cemented at the stop sign.

"What's wrong?" Bobby ventured.

Logan looked to the south and north before answering. "Something's not right." A few minutes of awkward silence ensued before the kids were slammed back in their seats as Logan peeled the tires while veering for the south. Everyone shared nervous glances but no one dared to question the man's motives. Instead, they watched the scenery anxiously as it swooshed by the car with mounting velocity.

And then they saw it, along with Wolverine.

A rented blue Sunbird, parked halfway in the ditch and halfway on the road. Logan slammed on the brakes, this time throwing the teenagers forward until they felt their seatbelts tighten painfully. He parked in front of the car and stepped out carefully, barking an order at the teenagers to remain inside which they innocently ignored.

The car's front end was dented in badly, with the hood crumpled up to meet the windshield. The windshield itself had cracks that veined out to all corners but amazingly had not shattered. The teenagers had stayed close to their car, staring the smashed Sunbird in awe.

"What happened?" Rogue asked.

"Deer." Came the plaintive answer. Logan pointed to a female, lying on her side with black vacant eyes, and a neck arched too far backwards. He had smelt the dead deer from the stop sign, but that's not what all he had detected. He walked up to the open driver's side door, studying the inside of the car with blatant suspicion. Blood trickled from the bulge in the windshield where someone's head had struck. He dabbed a finger in the blood and smelt it.

"They must've been going pretty fast." Bobby had walked up behind him and spoke in his quiet and understated way.

Logan stood up and eyed him severely. "Didn't I tell you guys to stay in the car? It's not safe."

Jubilee rolled her eyes. "Logan, I don't think the deer's gonna get us."

"It ain't the deer that did this." He walked around the car until he came to the trunk. Bobby and Rogue followed closely behind him. He knelt down on one knee and traced the outline of a faint dent in the bumber.

"Someone reared him into the deer?" Rogue asked.

Logan's eyebrows furrowed until his eyes were squinted. He began to shake his head as he stood. The road caught his attention once more. There he found the tell-tale black skidmarks that he suspected he would find.

"He tried to stop." Bobby commented.

But Logan shook his head. "Not him. The deer stopped him. Someone else behind him stopped."

"So where is 'he'? An' where is this 'someone else'?" Rogue was shrugging her shoulders with arms crossed in front of her chest.

Logan stood up again and mulled over his collected facts.

"Over here!"

The sound of Kitty Pryde's voice broke his concentration and he frowned at the young teenager who stood by a thick grove of trees. "Don't you kids listen?! I said stay in the car!"

Kitty purposely missed his comment entirely and fingered the bark of the tree in front of her. "You gotta see this!"

Logan, Bobby, Rogue and Jubilee all loped down to where the diminutive girl stood. Logan looked over her shoulder to see scorched wood running down the base of the tree. "There's more!" Kitty announced excitedly.

She led them to a blackened clearing in the woody patch, where a crater had been carved out by an obviously substantial explosion. The area smelt of smoke and trees burnt to a charcoal. There were faint traces of blood dotting the ground.

"Why kind of weapon would do that?" Rogue asked quietly.

"A grenade." Logan answered. He was crouched down in the affected area, pushing ashes aside and digging into the black earth at random areas.

"Man," Bobby breathed. "They really wanted this guy dead."

Logan stood and studied the shattered timber of a tree trunk. "No, they didn't attack him. He threw it at them."

"I wonder what he did." Jubilee said.

An idea was forming in Logan's mind as he wandered further into the woods. The trees that had been blown away weren't blown in an upward movement like a grenade would do. They were angled, almost like a wind had helped push them over. The crater wasn't formed correctly either. Whoever had thrown the grenade either had a major league pitch, or…

"It wasn't what he did. It was who he was." Logan announced.

The kids looked at him questioningly from where they stood at a distance.

Logan turned and faced them. "He was a mutant."