A Man After Her Own Heart – Chapter Two
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the story idea, Val and her family.
A/N: Thanks for the reviews - they really keep me motivated. This is still rated R, but it's only for language.
~~
Logan slammed the door of the cab and swaggered up the front walk toward the mansion. His cross-country trek had taken almost three days between hitchhiking, trains and cabs. His borrowed leather still smelled of Val and he stuffed his fists into the pockets to keep out the biting wind. The door opened before he even touched it and immediately Charles was in his head. Welcome back, Logan. Was your trip restful? Logan thought about it and answered, You could say that. I'm glad to hear it, Charles replied as Logan moved toward the older man's office.
"Why's that?" asked Logan aloud as he opened the door to Xavier's study.
"You're back just in time for a mission," explained Charles kindly from behind his desk.
"I just walked in the door and already you're sendin' me back out?" Logan protested half-heartedly.
"We need you," said Charles simply.
Logan blew out his breath and leaned against a wall. "Where?"
"The Midwest. Storm has all the particulars. I picked up a new mutant with Cerebro who is just coming into her powers. She's still very young, but her potential is incredible. We would do well to have her here, rather than someplace Magneto can get his hands on her."
Logan narrowed his eyes the other man's name, still trying to remember his entire encounter with him. Charles noticed and asked, "What is it?"
"I ran into Magneto while I was out there."
"Indeed? And what happened?"
"It's a long story," began Logan. "I think Magneto had a small, underground base or holding facility up by where Alkali Lake is. You know that's where I went." Charles nodded, remembering his urgings to Logan about being careful, "While I was there something happened. One minute I'm sittin' on the rocks lookin' at the water and the next I'm comin' to from a blackout. They had me on a table. Sabertooth was there and so was Mystique."
"But you were able to escape."
"Yeah," finished Logan, leaving out the part about Val.
"And you're all right? That isn't the jacket that you left with, is it?" Charles was looking at him quizzically now.
"I'm fine. I swiped the jacket from someone on my way back here."
Charles, hearing the shift in Logan's tone of voice, knew he was lying about something, but decided to let it go. He trusted Logan. "If there's anything else that you remember and would like to talk about, I am always here."
"When do we leave?" asked Logan, ignoring Charles' offer.
"Within the hour. I suggest that you freshen up if you need to and meet Storm and Cyclops on board the Blackbird as soon as you are able."
Logan nodded, scowling at the phrase "freshen up", and left the study without another word.
The mansion was quiet and Logan liked it that way. A glance at the day's newspaper in the train station had told him it was mid-week, so classes were in session, which would account for the silent hallways. Logan reflected that the mansion was usually fairly silent in the teacher's wing, anyway. Jean's death had cast a pall over the entire faculty and most of the students. Digging themselves out from the depression was an unending process it seemed.
It was funny…before this last trip Logan had been consumed with sorrow, but during the few short hours spent with Val, Jean had not weighed quite so heavily on his mind.
On his way to his room, Logan caught sight of Scott heading toward him. Neither man spoke as they passed each other, but Logan thought that Scooter looked a little better. There'd been a period of time when Scott had not left his room for anything. His depression and grief over Jean's death had threatened to take him whole. Slowly, though, Scott was dealing with it, putting weight back on and teaching a few classes again.
Once in his own room, Logan took off Val's jacket and laid it carefully on the bed along with the borrowed tee shirt. Once in the bathroom, he tossed his socks, jeans and boxer-briefs into the hamper and jumped in the shower. He wondered what Val was doing right now. He rolled his eyes at himself and sighed. Why did he even care? She was just another woman and Lord knows he'd had his share. There'd been more redheads since he'd met Jean, but other than that, his drive had remained steady. She was just one more.
~~
The morning after she'd left Logan at the bar, Val headed into town in her old Ford to check her post office box. Mail delivery didn't happen way out where she was, so she went into town once a week for her mail, groceries, and anything else she might need. She was trying to get used to not having Logan around, but everywhere she turned some memory of him would flaunt itself in her mind. It was a relief to get out of the house.
Pulling up outside the post office, she parked and entered the building. Her box wasn't even half full. There was some junk mail, some coupons from local businesses, and an envelope. Should be my check, she thought to herself. Leaving the post office, she got back in her car.
Opening it, Val found that the contents were not a check, but a letter. Scanning its contents quickly, she closed her eyes and pressed her lips into a thin line. This was bullshit.
Val pointed her battered old car toward home and gunned the engine. It responded by dying a quick death. "Fuck!" she shouted, frustrated. "Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!!" Panting at the exertion of screaming so loudly, Val turned the engine over and listened to it cough to life. Slowly, she put the car in gear, eased out of her parking space and allowed the car to toddle homeward while she inwardly seethed.
Her rant was as much about the letter as the car. After all this time away, her parents were asking her to come home. Not permanently, of course. Val narrowed her eyes and spat, "Fucking assholes." Just until something could be done about her younger sister, Annie.
It's blackmail that's what it is, she thought to herself as she threw clothes in a bag to take with her. They're withholding the money until I come home and deal with the problem. To bad they didn't tell me what the problem is. Fucking typical.
She didn't have any reason to say no, though. She didn't work, she didn't have pets, and she had no reason why she couldn't go, other than she hated that town and everyone in it. As long as they held the purse strings she had to go, though. She hated herself for that. If she'd really wanted, she could have gone out and gotten a job. She was just too scared to try. Scared of herself and keeping her temper in check and what other people thought of her. So, she'd allowed herself to fall into this position of weakness. Well, this was it. Once she got back from her parents', they could kiss her ass. She wasn't going to take anymore of their money.
Tossing the bag into the old Ford, Val started it up and headed for the highway.
It took her two and a half days to drive from her little house in Montana to her parent's place in North Dakota. As she exited off the highway and drove the familiar streets leading to her hometown, she hurt a little inside. Her stomach ached and she instinctively put a hand over it. As an adolescent she'd had chronic ulcers over the stress of hiding her burgeoning strength and she could feel the bile start to swirl as she got closer.
Navigating the streets of this small town was something she could almost do blindfolded. Nothing had changed. Everything was exactly where it had been when she'd left. Her internal autopilot kicked on and she began to pay more attention to where she was than where she was going. Main Street still held the post office, the market, the bookstore, the diner, and the video store. The only thing that had changed was the faded paint on some of the buildings.
Passing it all, she shook her head and wondered what she'd find at her parents' house. The Morrow's were middle class all the way. They had a medium sized farmhouse with a wraparound porch. From the time that Val was a child her parents would have it repainted the same white with black trim every five years and she could see as she pulled up in front of it that nothing had changed. The swing was still attached to the roof above the porch. There was still a rocker next to it.
Val recalled warm summer nights sitting on the swing with her mother, enjoying the cool breeze the night air afforded. It was just about the time that Val began to exhibit her powers that her mother had gotten pregnant again. Val had always been an only child, but when she was of fourteen, her parents had another daughter and they named her Anne.
A few years later, Val was off to college, then back again in disgrace, then married, and then gone. Annie was like another only child. The sisters barely knew each other. At thirteen or fourteen, Annie was probably an awkward girl who had oily skin and watched too much TV. Val assumed that they would still have nothing in common. In fact, she couldn't imagine what "needed to be done" with her sister that would require her presence.
The snow was deep on the lawn and she made her way up the walk trying to avoid the patches of ice that hadn't been eaten away by the clumps of rock salt her father had strewn about. Up the steps of the porch she went and to the door where she knocked. That was the most bizarre thing of all. Knocking on the front door of the house where she'd grown up. Pulling her jacket tighter around her slim shoulders, she knocked again, louder this time. It was too fucking cold to be left outside.
Finally, she heard footsteps on the other side of the door and it opened slowly to reveal her mother, looking quite older than Val remembered. "Hello!" her mother cried, looking fearful but happy to see her all the same. "It's so good to see you again Lizzie," she continued as Val was pulled into a stiff hug. The door closed behind her and Val could see that the interior of the house had not changed, either. The same furniture and carpeting decorated the space that Val had once known so well.
"Won't you come in?" her mother asked as if she were a guest. Val understood. She wasn't here as a member of the family, but as a guest and a temporary one, at that. Margaret Morrow looked like an older version of Val herself. She was petite with dark hair and blue eyes, fair skin, and the same small nose. Val noticed a lot more gray in her mother's short hair than there'd been when she'd left and more worry lines around her eyes and forehead.
Margaret led her daughter into the living room and they sat down. "So, how have you been, Lizzie?" she asked.
Val looked at her mother with an expression of disbelief. "Are you kidding me?" She'd echoed Logan's expression without even thinking about it. "I mean…can we not pretend that you care?" she asked in a biting tone.
"Lizzie, please," said Margaret, her voice drawing on years of peacekeeping. "Let's not have any ugliness."
"Whatever," replied Val. She wasn't Lizzie anymore and yet she was. "What am I doing here? The letter said to come as soon as possible. What gives?"
"Annie is going to be staying with you for a while," said Margaret with false cheer. As if the two would sit up every night giggling and braiding each other's hair.
"What?" asked Val sharply. "What are you talking about, 'staying with me'?"
"Your mother was supposed to wait for me to have this discussion with you." John Morrow made his appearance in the doorway to the living room and frowned at his wife. His silver hair and aged face belied his position of power in the family. He ruled his home with an iron fist and always had. No one had ever been physically beaten, but his words were often even more damaging than a physical blow would have been. Coldly, he sat down in his chair and turned his furious gaze from his wife to his daughter. "Elizabeth," he said by way of greeting.
"Father," Val returned, sarcasm dripping from the word.
"How much has your mother told you?" he demanded to know.
"Just that Annie would be coming to stay with me for a while," replied Val, trying to sound bored and unaffected. They would not hurt her again. "Where is she anyway?"
"School. She should be home in about an hour," supplied Margaret before a sharp look from her husband silenced her.
"Anne has begun to show signs of…that is, she's displayed an unnerving power as of late. We feel that it would be best for her to live with you from now on."
"From now what?" hissed Val. "No way. You can't just…."
"Elizabeth," her father said icily. "You are a legal adult. It is perfectly normal for family members to visit each other. We feel that Annie would benefit from time spent with you. And that's that." Val understood. He wasn't going to lay it all on the table because that's not what they did in this family. Everything was in code. By "benefit" her father meant that Annie wouldn't embarrass them or call attention to them any more. She'd be gone, just like her sister.
"How can you do this?" asked Val, still grappling with the news that she'd be getting a thirteen-year old to raise very shortly. "How can you just throw your daughters away?"
"When the daughters are as different," he said the word as if he were referring to garbage, "as you both are, it isn't so difficult."
"Well, good," said Val, suddenly on board with the whole idea. "Perfect. I'm sure she will benefit from getting out of this puritanical hellhole. I know I did. Where are her bags? I'll go put 'em in the car." Val stood up and stalked out of the living room. She stormed up the steps to her sister's room and pushed open the door. Her mother scurried up the stairs behind her and entered Annie's room.
"He means well, you know, Lizzie."
"I understand that he's the asshole here," said Val, trying to keep her voice level. "But you. How can you let him do this to her? How could you let him do it to me? You realize what he's asking, don't you? You'll never see us again."
Sorrowfully, Margaret dropped her head and said, "I know, Lizzie, but I think…I think it might be for the best." The words were so unconvincing that Val could barely stand it. Her stomach churned and she put a hand over the pain. Annie had packed nothing. Clearly, they hadn't told her that she'd be leaving. Val closed her eyes and a sat on the bed with a defeated sigh. Things had been so simple yesterday. Yesterday. Without asking, Logan drifted into her mind and she fought to push him out. She needed to focus on this right now. She could brood about him later.
~~
Logan stood up and followed Storm and Scott off the Blackbird. He'd never seen such flat country before. North Dakota looked like it had nothing to offer. They'd landed in the middle of a field, near what looked like a county highway and there seemed to be no one and nothing around for miles. From the belly of the Blackbird, Storm opened a trapdoor by remote and out rolled a sleek black car. Since this was just a recruiting trip, they had not worn their X-Men uniforms. They would merely be teachers from a private school on the east coast who had heard about this student whom they thought would make a wonderful addition to their academy. Logan had opted to continue wearing his borrowed leather jacket, though, and he breathed deeply the still-present but fading scent of Val.
Casting a disdainful eye on the bleak countryside around them, Logan followed his companions into the car. Storm used the internal navigational system to find their mark and they were off. Within thirty minutes they were driving through a small town looking for 112 Sioux Trail. As they pulled up to the correct address, Logan noted with discomfort that he recognized the old Ford out front.
"Who is this kid, again?" he asked hesitantly.
"The name is Anne Morrow," said Storm, reading from the file. "She's got incredible telepathic abilities as well as telekinetic. She's almost like another Jean," Ororo finished half to herself.
Scott snapped his head to look at Storm before noting curtly, "No one could replace Jean."
"Of course not, Scott, I didn't mean –" tried Ororo.
"Let's just go," interrupted Scott, staring straight ahead again.
"Okay," agreed Storm quietly.
"Wait," cautioned Logan. "Who's that?"
The three mutants sat in silence as they watched a slim young girl walk down the street toward the house they were parked in front of. She was wearing tight, low-rise jeans and a puffy winter coat with gloves. On her back was a pack that resembled the kind you might find on any high-school student anywhere. She gave them a once-over before turning down the walkway at 112 Sioux Trail.
"That's her," said Logan, already seeing the resemblance between the girl and Val. "Shit. This ain't gonna be easy."
"You never know," disagreed Ororo. "Her parents might be an easy sell."
With a deep sigh, Logan noted, "It ain't her parents I'm worried about."
