Family Forgotten
Chapter 6: A Relationship Blossoms
Getting back to the mansion we found the professor eager to talk with us about our search, my father began by informing him about the estate and our reclamation of the home and land around it. He became intrigued when my father explained Creed's happenings in all of this and how their feud evolved over time to even have them forget the true cause of it all. We had begun to wonder what had come of my uncle but we soon realized the search would be fruitless for the chances of him being alive were slim to none. Concluding the search we were glad to know that we still found some of the secrets to our family's past, I could just hope that we would live to build a future.
As for life around the mansion, it slowed down. We were coming to the time were some of my better friends around the mansion were beginning to graduate and move on with their lives, some others decided to stay behind and become instructors in the training fields that they excelled in. Even thought I was like a father to most of them, not only in age but in experience as well they were still friends to me and would forever be in my memories. Like I mentioned some had decided to stay behind and become instructors, like Scott, Jean, Kittie, and Rouge. The Professor in his aging years was happy to have them around, not only for help, but for personal company as well. The usual people stayed like Hank, Ororo, and my father Logan and the sound of wedding bells could be heard in the distance as my father and Ororo announced that they would be tying the knot not too long in the distant future.
My duties around the mansion had taken on roles of more academic purposes as I became the head history teacher and I also took on a class of physical education alongside my father. As usual Ororo took on her role in science, Kittie had her art class, Xavier had his English class, Jean enjoyed music, and Scott held mechanics. Rouge got one of the better jobs though she got to do survival training with the greater bunch of them. Of course my father always had that spot but Ororo wanted to keep a close eye on him so that he couldn't run off and leave the mansion for months at a time, hey I couldn't blame her I have the same habit and it could be a bit of a change for me to be hanging around the mansion for a year or two straight. To tell you the truth it felt weird to have a place to call your home, I mean I know that I have survived all this time in the woods but that wasn't a true home for you had to move due to seasonal changes and you couldn't settle down or unwanted guests could arrive at your doorstep. But the irony of it was that they had found me anyway. It's funny that fate has loops like this for a person to jump through, I went through a significant lows to get to where I am now and that is far better than what I had before back in the woods. I've found my father and learned about my true beginnings.
. . .
"Okay today class we are learning about the significance of World War Two," I explained to my student body of twenty. "Of course everybody should have heard about this war and at least know something about it right?"
What I got from the students were the usual answers, Hitler.the Jews.the holocaust.Pearl Harbor.General Patton.D-Day. I was impressed our history was actually sinking in to their minds, not just skimming off and fading in to a useless amount of nothing. Pulling up a map of Western Europe I began to show the students on the board some of the significant points during the war itself. Pulling up a map of the camps over all over Europe, they were astonished to see how many there were.
"As you can see there were dozens of camps all over the occupied areas of Germany, but the first death camp was also the most popular. Its name was Auschwitz, there stood a vile and disturbing hellhole." I started a bit shakily but from beside me came a voice.
"And you spent time there right?" the voice asked.
"Huh?" I questioned, turning to my side to find Kitty in the doorway. "Yeah, I was a guard for two years," I told them weakly.
Kitty and I had grown closer over the past couple of months and I knew if I needed her for anything she could be there to help me, she was a dear and loyal friend, everybody needs those, and I was glad to have her.
Then another voice this time from the class, "you helped the Germans?"
"Let me explain. Back in the late 30's I was coming more and more out of the mountains and moving into town so I could openly barter for goods. Someone drug me into a recruiting office and basically forced me in to the forces. When I went overseas I had landed in France and detached from the groups of soldiers. I left them and went through and began to learn the languages in hopes of avoiding the war. German was the easiest to pick up and I caught on early, having good pronunciation and verbal skills. Passing for a German citizen was easy and I could walk through any town and not get a second glance," I told them.
"How could you pick it up that fast, German sounds so different from English?" a student asked.
"Actually English is derived from German, so there are quite a few words that are the same. But as I was saying, one day while moving through one of the industrial towns in the Ruhr I ended up saving a young worker from falling equipment. A SS soldier saw me and brought me to his officer. From there I was given a position and I held up pretty well. To tell you the truth I was in luxury, I got my three square meals a day and not long hours so we were well rested. Then came the time when I was stationed, I was sent out into the countryside where I came across a camp. Going into the center of the camp you are met by an arch with steel gates guarding the entrance. A single rail line went in but didn't leave. I was stationed at the front of one of the barrack entrances in which the prisoners stayed. For the next two years I witness hundreds of executions and mass murders, but like my officials told me it was for the better of Nazi Germany. The smell of the burning, and rotting corpses." I began as my eyes started to fill with tears and I had to leave the room.
I had to get out, this was a part of my past that I wanted so much not to be a part of. The killing of all those people, the children, and the elderly. I WAS A PART OF IT!!! I secluded to my room in the mansion, and poured my heart out here on my bed. I could never have thought that anything could hurt a person so much as this. I remembered a young Polish boy however that was just developing his mutant powers, his parents left him at the gate and as the other guards tried to drag him away then something he did bent the gates down moving them into a twisted pile of metal. I had little contact with him before I fled the camp about a year before it ea liberated. I just truly wondered if that young boy got out or even lived to get out. Just then came a knock at the door snapping me out of my train of thought.
"Yes?" I asked.
"Are you alright?" the soft voice asked. "Can I come in?"
"Yeah, come on in," I told the voice.
In walked Kitty, I wasn't surprised it was her but I was glad it was not one of the students for none of them needed to see me like this. She came over to the bed and put her arm around me, in honest truth it felt comforting.
"Sorry about bringing that up. You could have changed the subject and completely avoided those horrid memories," she told me.
"I don't know, maybe it just needed to come out. Of course that's only one of the things that I've done that I would like to forget. It seems like every time I walked out of that damn forest something had to happen that could never work in my favor," I explained shifting a bit. "It happened back in 1914 and again in 1939, man why does shit like this happen."
"Hey! You made it here didn't you?" she said looking me in the eyes.
"That's true," I replied.
"Think about all the good you can do here, you're practically a walking history textbook," she said giggling a bit.
"Now that's not funny, I'm not that old!" I told her wiping a tear from my eye.
"Please, you're what? 104, 105,"
"NO! I'm only 103. So what if I have a few miles on me, I'm still in showroom condition,"
"Yeah, yeah think whatever you want it shows," she said slyly poking my gut.
"Whatever, prove it," I taunted her.
"War medallions, battle scars, company tattoos, the military attitude and discipline methods. You're just like your father."
"Ok, you got me, I'm old so what?" I asked her.
"Eh, nothing. Come on lets go for a ride it'll make you feel better."
"Yeah why not, it would be good to get out for a bit," I told her walking out of the room to the garage calling out to Scott at the last moment to tell him we were taking his car.
We left the mansion and headed down through the streets of Bayville and out along the coast, we didn't have to cruise fast but it just felt good to drive. After a while Kitty was getting a bit hungry and I had to admit so was I. Driving up Main Street we stopped at a little café and ordered up some sandwiches. I went to pick them up and I got the sudden urge to look to my side, and there sat and old man about the age of eighty, who was looking right at me with this look of astonishment in his eyes. It was if he just found a long lost friend or something.
"You there son look very familiar to me," he said getting my full attention.
"Really?" I questioned taking a seat across from him. "Who do I remind you of, that is if you don't mind telling me."
"Oh not at all, this man's name was Jack Howlett a young Canadian boy. We found him wandering around West Germany during the war. He was dressed in a German uniform and we gladly picked him up." as he continued it became clear to me this was the same guy that first got to know me when the group found me, his name was Ben Morris. "Of course we had to question him and do a thorough search to make sure he was one of ours."
Not thinking I interrupted him, "Ben Morris, I didn't recognize you at first but I never forget a friendly face."
Of course he was very taken back by this, and in that time Kitty had come over from the table we were at and sat down with us. He just looked at me and I could do nothing but smile.
"You can't be. there is no way in heaven nor hell that you could be the same guy. Definitely related but for sure not the same guy," he spoke, carefully looking at my face, studying it in hopes he could find a flaw to call me a phony.
"Ben I have to tell you something, I remember that day like the back of my hand because I was just hoping an one of our guys would be by to give me a lift. And you guys were the only guys for nearly a day and a half," I told him. "I remember sitting across from you in the back of that half track and sharing a cigarette telling each other about our homes back before we were called in."
"Ok if you are who you say you are, then I must have told you about a condition I have," covering his shaking hand and trying to hide his quivering leg
Of course I remembered that one, "you have Parkinson's,"
"Yeah but where did it start?"
"It started just after a bombing raid in Berlin in your right hand. You though you just had the jitters but I told you to go see the M.O and he told you about the disease," I told him. "Come on Ben you know it's me and I'm just as surprised to see you just as you are to see me."
"But how, did you find the fountain of youth or something?" he questioned.
"No, I'm a mutant. I have been from the day I was born which was back just before 1900,"
"Really? But how does that increase your longevity?" he asked.
"I, like my father have a heightened healing factor which means that we can heal much faster than other people. Simple cuts heal in a matter of seconds; bullet wounds in minutes, and larger ones take around a day or two. The reason why I have retained my youth is because in the human body when new cells grow they are not completely new there is always that bit of wear in each one that increases with age. My mutation on the other hand takes the new cells and heals them so that they are brand new from the start, there is no preliminary wear in them," I explained.
"Incredible, oh by the way I forgot to ask who is this young lady with you?"
"This is Kitty," I told him.
"She your daughter?"
"ME? Hell no. If I was his daughter I doubt I could have lived this long putting up with his antics," she said poking me in the ribs.
"Hey I'm not that bad," I told her taking her finger out of my ribs and placing it on the table.
It was then I got this look in her eye, I couldn't tell what it was but it was different than really anything that I had seen before. We finished talking and then left the café and Ben, I told him that he could drop by the institute whenever he wanted so that we could talk about old times. He said that he would really enjoy it and that was where we went our separate ways. Kitty and I got out to the car and I opened the door for her and then it happened she casually walked up and just kissed me, it was brief but I was speechless. She simply put on a smile and sat there waiting for me to get in, I walked around the car and hopped in the driver's seat still in a bit of shock. We left the center of the city and moved out into the countryside heading back to the mansion. She sat there calm and relaxed and listened to the radio while I drove Scott's car hard around the corners, coming over the last few hills to the gate of the mansion. We pulled into the garage and we got out, I had this strange feeling it was if I had a stone in my gut and I thought why the hell not. Kitty was just about to enter the house when I lightly touched her arm.
"Kitty?" I softly called to her.
"Yes?" she questioned back turning to face me.
It was then I went for it and brought her close to me, giving her a light kiss on the lips. There was an odd pause before anything happened and I wasn't really sure if I had done the right thing or not. Bu then she simply smiled at me.
"Took ya long enough," she noted slyly, pulling away and heading back into the house.
I was dumbfounded, I mean, I knew that we were close but I didn't think that she had wanted to go farther or even had the intention to. I headed inside and threw the car keys to Scott. I needed to find my father he would have an idea on how to handle this. I mean his wife or his future wife I should say could be his grandchild so he's in the same boat I could be in.
Chapter 6: A Relationship Blossoms
Getting back to the mansion we found the professor eager to talk with us about our search, my father began by informing him about the estate and our reclamation of the home and land around it. He became intrigued when my father explained Creed's happenings in all of this and how their feud evolved over time to even have them forget the true cause of it all. We had begun to wonder what had come of my uncle but we soon realized the search would be fruitless for the chances of him being alive were slim to none. Concluding the search we were glad to know that we still found some of the secrets to our family's past, I could just hope that we would live to build a future.
As for life around the mansion, it slowed down. We were coming to the time were some of my better friends around the mansion were beginning to graduate and move on with their lives, some others decided to stay behind and become instructors in the training fields that they excelled in. Even thought I was like a father to most of them, not only in age but in experience as well they were still friends to me and would forever be in my memories. Like I mentioned some had decided to stay behind and become instructors, like Scott, Jean, Kittie, and Rouge. The Professor in his aging years was happy to have them around, not only for help, but for personal company as well. The usual people stayed like Hank, Ororo, and my father Logan and the sound of wedding bells could be heard in the distance as my father and Ororo announced that they would be tying the knot not too long in the distant future.
My duties around the mansion had taken on roles of more academic purposes as I became the head history teacher and I also took on a class of physical education alongside my father. As usual Ororo took on her role in science, Kittie had her art class, Xavier had his English class, Jean enjoyed music, and Scott held mechanics. Rouge got one of the better jobs though she got to do survival training with the greater bunch of them. Of course my father always had that spot but Ororo wanted to keep a close eye on him so that he couldn't run off and leave the mansion for months at a time, hey I couldn't blame her I have the same habit and it could be a bit of a change for me to be hanging around the mansion for a year or two straight. To tell you the truth it felt weird to have a place to call your home, I mean I know that I have survived all this time in the woods but that wasn't a true home for you had to move due to seasonal changes and you couldn't settle down or unwanted guests could arrive at your doorstep. But the irony of it was that they had found me anyway. It's funny that fate has loops like this for a person to jump through, I went through a significant lows to get to where I am now and that is far better than what I had before back in the woods. I've found my father and learned about my true beginnings.
. . .
"Okay today class we are learning about the significance of World War Two," I explained to my student body of twenty. "Of course everybody should have heard about this war and at least know something about it right?"
What I got from the students were the usual answers, Hitler.the Jews.the holocaust.Pearl Harbor.General Patton.D-Day. I was impressed our history was actually sinking in to their minds, not just skimming off and fading in to a useless amount of nothing. Pulling up a map of Western Europe I began to show the students on the board some of the significant points during the war itself. Pulling up a map of the camps over all over Europe, they were astonished to see how many there were.
"As you can see there were dozens of camps all over the occupied areas of Germany, but the first death camp was also the most popular. Its name was Auschwitz, there stood a vile and disturbing hellhole." I started a bit shakily but from beside me came a voice.
"And you spent time there right?" the voice asked.
"Huh?" I questioned, turning to my side to find Kitty in the doorway. "Yeah, I was a guard for two years," I told them weakly.
Kitty and I had grown closer over the past couple of months and I knew if I needed her for anything she could be there to help me, she was a dear and loyal friend, everybody needs those, and I was glad to have her.
Then another voice this time from the class, "you helped the Germans?"
"Let me explain. Back in the late 30's I was coming more and more out of the mountains and moving into town so I could openly barter for goods. Someone drug me into a recruiting office and basically forced me in to the forces. When I went overseas I had landed in France and detached from the groups of soldiers. I left them and went through and began to learn the languages in hopes of avoiding the war. German was the easiest to pick up and I caught on early, having good pronunciation and verbal skills. Passing for a German citizen was easy and I could walk through any town and not get a second glance," I told them.
"How could you pick it up that fast, German sounds so different from English?" a student asked.
"Actually English is derived from German, so there are quite a few words that are the same. But as I was saying, one day while moving through one of the industrial towns in the Ruhr I ended up saving a young worker from falling equipment. A SS soldier saw me and brought me to his officer. From there I was given a position and I held up pretty well. To tell you the truth I was in luxury, I got my three square meals a day and not long hours so we were well rested. Then came the time when I was stationed, I was sent out into the countryside where I came across a camp. Going into the center of the camp you are met by an arch with steel gates guarding the entrance. A single rail line went in but didn't leave. I was stationed at the front of one of the barrack entrances in which the prisoners stayed. For the next two years I witness hundreds of executions and mass murders, but like my officials told me it was for the better of Nazi Germany. The smell of the burning, and rotting corpses." I began as my eyes started to fill with tears and I had to leave the room.
I had to get out, this was a part of my past that I wanted so much not to be a part of. The killing of all those people, the children, and the elderly. I WAS A PART OF IT!!! I secluded to my room in the mansion, and poured my heart out here on my bed. I could never have thought that anything could hurt a person so much as this. I remembered a young Polish boy however that was just developing his mutant powers, his parents left him at the gate and as the other guards tried to drag him away then something he did bent the gates down moving them into a twisted pile of metal. I had little contact with him before I fled the camp about a year before it ea liberated. I just truly wondered if that young boy got out or even lived to get out. Just then came a knock at the door snapping me out of my train of thought.
"Yes?" I asked.
"Are you alright?" the soft voice asked. "Can I come in?"
"Yeah, come on in," I told the voice.
In walked Kitty, I wasn't surprised it was her but I was glad it was not one of the students for none of them needed to see me like this. She came over to the bed and put her arm around me, in honest truth it felt comforting.
"Sorry about bringing that up. You could have changed the subject and completely avoided those horrid memories," she told me.
"I don't know, maybe it just needed to come out. Of course that's only one of the things that I've done that I would like to forget. It seems like every time I walked out of that damn forest something had to happen that could never work in my favor," I explained shifting a bit. "It happened back in 1914 and again in 1939, man why does shit like this happen."
"Hey! You made it here didn't you?" she said looking me in the eyes.
"That's true," I replied.
"Think about all the good you can do here, you're practically a walking history textbook," she said giggling a bit.
"Now that's not funny, I'm not that old!" I told her wiping a tear from my eye.
"Please, you're what? 104, 105,"
"NO! I'm only 103. So what if I have a few miles on me, I'm still in showroom condition,"
"Yeah, yeah think whatever you want it shows," she said slyly poking my gut.
"Whatever, prove it," I taunted her.
"War medallions, battle scars, company tattoos, the military attitude and discipline methods. You're just like your father."
"Ok, you got me, I'm old so what?" I asked her.
"Eh, nothing. Come on lets go for a ride it'll make you feel better."
"Yeah why not, it would be good to get out for a bit," I told her walking out of the room to the garage calling out to Scott at the last moment to tell him we were taking his car.
We left the mansion and headed down through the streets of Bayville and out along the coast, we didn't have to cruise fast but it just felt good to drive. After a while Kitty was getting a bit hungry and I had to admit so was I. Driving up Main Street we stopped at a little café and ordered up some sandwiches. I went to pick them up and I got the sudden urge to look to my side, and there sat and old man about the age of eighty, who was looking right at me with this look of astonishment in his eyes. It was if he just found a long lost friend or something.
"You there son look very familiar to me," he said getting my full attention.
"Really?" I questioned taking a seat across from him. "Who do I remind you of, that is if you don't mind telling me."
"Oh not at all, this man's name was Jack Howlett a young Canadian boy. We found him wandering around West Germany during the war. He was dressed in a German uniform and we gladly picked him up." as he continued it became clear to me this was the same guy that first got to know me when the group found me, his name was Ben Morris. "Of course we had to question him and do a thorough search to make sure he was one of ours."
Not thinking I interrupted him, "Ben Morris, I didn't recognize you at first but I never forget a friendly face."
Of course he was very taken back by this, and in that time Kitty had come over from the table we were at and sat down with us. He just looked at me and I could do nothing but smile.
"You can't be. there is no way in heaven nor hell that you could be the same guy. Definitely related but for sure not the same guy," he spoke, carefully looking at my face, studying it in hopes he could find a flaw to call me a phony.
"Ben I have to tell you something, I remember that day like the back of my hand because I was just hoping an one of our guys would be by to give me a lift. And you guys were the only guys for nearly a day and a half," I told him. "I remember sitting across from you in the back of that half track and sharing a cigarette telling each other about our homes back before we were called in."
"Ok if you are who you say you are, then I must have told you about a condition I have," covering his shaking hand and trying to hide his quivering leg
Of course I remembered that one, "you have Parkinson's,"
"Yeah but where did it start?"
"It started just after a bombing raid in Berlin in your right hand. You though you just had the jitters but I told you to go see the M.O and he told you about the disease," I told him. "Come on Ben you know it's me and I'm just as surprised to see you just as you are to see me."
"But how, did you find the fountain of youth or something?" he questioned.
"No, I'm a mutant. I have been from the day I was born which was back just before 1900,"
"Really? But how does that increase your longevity?" he asked.
"I, like my father have a heightened healing factor which means that we can heal much faster than other people. Simple cuts heal in a matter of seconds; bullet wounds in minutes, and larger ones take around a day or two. The reason why I have retained my youth is because in the human body when new cells grow they are not completely new there is always that bit of wear in each one that increases with age. My mutation on the other hand takes the new cells and heals them so that they are brand new from the start, there is no preliminary wear in them," I explained.
"Incredible, oh by the way I forgot to ask who is this young lady with you?"
"This is Kitty," I told him.
"She your daughter?"
"ME? Hell no. If I was his daughter I doubt I could have lived this long putting up with his antics," she said poking me in the ribs.
"Hey I'm not that bad," I told her taking her finger out of my ribs and placing it on the table.
It was then I got this look in her eye, I couldn't tell what it was but it was different than really anything that I had seen before. We finished talking and then left the café and Ben, I told him that he could drop by the institute whenever he wanted so that we could talk about old times. He said that he would really enjoy it and that was where we went our separate ways. Kitty and I got out to the car and I opened the door for her and then it happened she casually walked up and just kissed me, it was brief but I was speechless. She simply put on a smile and sat there waiting for me to get in, I walked around the car and hopped in the driver's seat still in a bit of shock. We left the center of the city and moved out into the countryside heading back to the mansion. She sat there calm and relaxed and listened to the radio while I drove Scott's car hard around the corners, coming over the last few hills to the gate of the mansion. We pulled into the garage and we got out, I had this strange feeling it was if I had a stone in my gut and I thought why the hell not. Kitty was just about to enter the house when I lightly touched her arm.
"Kitty?" I softly called to her.
"Yes?" she questioned back turning to face me.
It was then I went for it and brought her close to me, giving her a light kiss on the lips. There was an odd pause before anything happened and I wasn't really sure if I had done the right thing or not. Bu then she simply smiled at me.
"Took ya long enough," she noted slyly, pulling away and heading back into the house.
I was dumbfounded, I mean, I knew that we were close but I didn't think that she had wanted to go farther or even had the intention to. I headed inside and threw the car keys to Scott. I needed to find my father he would have an idea on how to handle this. I mean his wife or his future wife I should say could be his grandchild so he's in the same boat I could be in.