I walked out of the elevator and nearly fainted. Someone was smoking the nastiest cigar I'd ever smelled. Damn it.
"Logan!" I called. A surly voice answered me from down the hall.
I had to laugh when I looked into the office. Logan was sitting there behind a desk, signing papers and looking official. He was even wearing a tie.
"What's so funny, Hudson?" He looked up from the Additional Housing Request form he was filling out through a haze of smoke.
"You still are." I sobered up fast. "Could you put that thing out?"
He shrugged and smashed it into a pile of papers waiting for his signature. "Sure."
"Don't …" I said at the same time, but gave up. "Fine."
"How was it today?" He stretched backward and yawned. "Wish it was me, rather than you."
"Don't get me started." I found a chair and sank into it. My feet were killing me. "One of the mutants will survive. Some of the others might, too, if we have the space in a local hospital. A lot of them died."
He nodded. "Did you get them?"
"Yes." I closed my eyes. The mutant hunters had been killed, almost to the last of them, with only a few surviving for interrogation later. If it had been up to me, every last one of them would have died. Lucky we had a few who kept their cool on the team.
"Any familiar faces?" The tone was casual, but I'd known Logan for too long to miss the pain layered underneath.
"No, thank goodness. Not among the hunters or their victims." I'd seen Logan before in moods from killing rage to happiness, but only once in utter despair. That was after we found several mutants that two of his friends had been keeping safe, before the hunters got all of them. Kitty and Ororo died that day. We were only hours behind, but that was enough. He stayed out of everything for about a week, then returned as if nothing was wrong.
I pretended with him, of course. It was the least I could do.
He relaxed a fraction. "Good. They got places?"
"Not if you don't fill out those housing requests." I rubbed my eyes. They ached deeply.
"Gotta love workin' for the government." He growled a little and threw a paper to the floor. "Though I also gotta admit, Jimmy, if I knew then what I know now, I woulda let you take me away from the X-men and back here."
I chuckled a little. "If I'd known, I'd have dragged you here even if you killed me for it."
He snorted. "I probably would have."
I decided to change subjects. "How's the day care going?"
Oddly enough, despite the danger, many mutants we found coming from the States were pregnant or had small children. I couldn't handle supervising that aspect of things, now that Heather was gone, so Logan was the Division Manager for Mutant Families.
He shrugged and spread his arms wide. "Okay. Don't see why so many people think they should bring kids into a world like this, though."
I coughed, hard. "I heard Krystal's been having a hard time over that letter Mystique sent her."
He looked at me suspiciously. "She and Kurt. Why?"
I opened my eyes wide. "No reason at all. Really."
Everyone who spent any time around the Mutant Cultural Center knew that Kurt and Krystal Wagner, the Amazing Nightcrawlers, had an unofficial companion much of the time named Wolverine. They also knew that he especially liked spending time with Krystal. And I knew that despite his loner existence, he desired children of his own. Why else was he constantly "adopting" mutant kids?
He passed it off with a wave. "Smartass. Think you know everything."
"How are they handling it?" Surprised me to no end when the team of Mystique and Magneto formed a mutant resistance army/camp in Mexico, but I'd learned to accept it. I couldn't imagine how it felt to the twins now that they knew Mystique was their mother.
"How'd you expect? Krystal won't write to her, though I know she read her letter. Kurt's curious but wary. As for me, I'm willing to give M&M some slack these days. For power-mad anti-human terrorists, they ain't half bad." He picked up his cigar butt and threw it into an overflowing ashtray.
I reluctantly got up from my chair. "I know what you mean. Come on, Logan. Let's knock off for today."
"Whatever you say, boss." He threw on his coat and shoved his chair under the desk. "You know I'm willing to do more field work. I'm good at it."
"I know." He had taken over doing the desk work for me after Heather died, and I had been slowly getting back to my normal duties, but I still needed some time to grieve. "Let's talk about it over a beer at Pete and Mike's place."
He sighed. "Just a second." He looked at the pictures he had of the dead, including Professor Xavier and Jean Grey, and the missing, like Scott Summers and Hank McCoy. "I'm still on the job. I haven't forgotten any of you."
He turned and headed to the door, brushing past me quickly. "Let's go."
