Chapter 2: Memories

The well built, lanky man tossed and turned on top of the sheets. He was still wearing the jeans and white tank top he'd been wearing during the day. He'd lost his shoes and socks somewhere along the way to the bed. A thin sheen of sweat graced his temples. Whatever he was dreaming about disturbed him, maybe even scared him.

He walked down the dark hall. There were no doors, save one at the end. The door was cracked open and light spilled out in a soft play against the floor. From behind the door came a child's voice. Whoever it was, they were humming some sort of tune that probably had words that only they would know. It seemed like such a sad song for a child to be humming. Like whoever was humming was forcing back tears. He finally made it into the room. This place was dated. The wallpaper looked as though it could have belonged on the wall of a 1950's kitchen. The television in the corner looked as though it belonged in the 60's and the carpeting was that disgusting shag in lime green that had seemed so appealing during the 70's.

Late afternoon sunlight streamed through the windows and illuminated the room in patches. Everything was shown in black and white and grey. He never dreamed in color. A tiny girl, maybe about four or five, sat in the middle of the room brushing a doll's hair as she sang a song he couldn't hear the words to. In fact, it seemed as soon as he'd entered the room, all sound had stopped. The girl's lips still moved, but there was no noise. Her incredibly long hair hid her face so that all he saw was half of a profile. He tried to get a closer look at her, but it was as if the harder he tried to see her, the less of her he saw. Suddenly she turned and began to crawl towards him, all that hair forever enshrouding her face.

"Logan, don't leave me. Please don't leave me here. I'm scared." Her whispered woods screamed eerily in the silence. Their sudden sound startling him. "You promised." She whimpered. The echo of that final phrase continued as the girl slowly raised her head. "You promised." It was both an accusation and a plea. She had no face. Logan let out a yell and backed away. Blood slowly began to run from her eyes, her nose, her mouth. "You promised." The room was falling away behind him, or he was getting dragged backwards. The girl slowly began to morph. Her hair shortened and lightened. Her face narrowed, she grew taller, and suddenly he was looking into Jean's eyes. It was her voice begging him to stay.
He backed all the way out of the hallway and the door slammed shut, closing on the desperate cries of whoever was inside. He was standing on a porch. He turned around and walked down the stairs and out to the driveway. He looked to see where he was. The house had white siding and three windows facing this direction. He remembered the window in the back room had been a bay window complete with a window seat. The roof was shingled with something strange. An old, rusted car leaned drunkenly against one side of the house. From somewhere he had the vague sense that he'd seen this before; that he'd been here before.

Logan awoke with a start, breathing hard. He rubbed his head and grunted in pain. Ever since that run in with Stryker earlier this year at the base, memories had come back. The only problem was they came back in fragments and he was having a hard time putting them together. It was like trying to put together a snow globe, he put pieces together, but when he tried to fill back with water, he found he still had cracks. He sat up and looked at the clock that glowed from across the room. 4:30, great. He may as well get up now. I won't be sleeping any more tonight.
He got up and made his way downstairs. The Institute was quiet. It was something strange for a school that he knew housed several insomniacs, himself included. The school bore the silence like an ill fitted suit. Usually one of the younger ones was up suffering from nightmares of people trying to come and take them away in the night. It was times like these Logan wished the government would see, that they were just kids. They were too scared to hurt anyone with their powers, they didn't even want to use them for fear of hurting themselves. It hadn't helped when earlier in the year a group of trained military men had stormed the school in hopes of doing god knows what to the children along with stealing Cerebro.
Cerebro was a machine that the professor, Charles Xaivier, the owner of the school as well as being one of the most powerful mutants ever, made. It allowed him to use his powerful mind to track down mutants by finding their brainwaves, or at least that's about all Logan understood about it. Stryker had wanted to use Cerebro to kill all the mutants. That never happened. Despite what Stryker had done, Logan had wished he'd had more time to get some answers from him. Maybe even pummeled a couple of answers out of the bastard.
Logan had made his way down to the kitchen and plopped down in a chair. Christ he wanted a beer, but they were in a school. He settled for putting his head in his hands and wishing his headache away.
"Logan?" A voice asked questioningly. "Are you all right?" Logan looked up to see a beautiful white-haired African woman looking down at him. She had light brown skin and beautiful eyes. Next to Rogue and the professor, she was the most tolerant of him. He couldn't remember a time when anyone was ever really nice to him. She was nice though, but she also knew how to take charge of situation if it called for it.
"I'm fine Storm." As her name suggested, she was able to manipulate the weather. It was a potent ability. "I just have a headache, did you need something?"
"No, I was working with the professor and he said you might want to speak with him and that I might find you here. He's in his office."
"Okay, thanks." Logan pushed off from the table and made his way to the professor's office. He didn't like this silence. He didn't trust it. He was about to knock on the door when a voice from within his own head said, "Come in Logan." Show off. Logan thought. "I heard that." came the voice inside his head again. Logan just smirked. Professor Charles Xaivier could read minds, communicate with people through thought. He'd also been known to freeze time. Logan began poking around the books. He wasn't seeing them though. He'd known someone else who could read minds. Jean. She was gone now, so it didn't matter. Besides, in the end, she hadn't wanted him. He resisted the urge to pick up the bookcase and throw it across the room.
"You should go." Came the professor's calm and collected voice from behind the desk. Logan sat down. He really was tired.
"Go where? Did I do something wrong? Are you mad at me?" Logan wondered when he'd begun to care about what this man thought of him.
"I'm not kicking you out Logan, simply telling you to find the house."
"You invaded my dreams?" Logan wasn't too upset yet, the professor had great respect for people's privacy that had only been enhanced by his gift, but he knew when to stick his nose into matters.
"Not on purpose. Someone was projecting onto you, the power of it sucked me into the dream as well. Someone was sending you a message."
"You mean those aren't my memories?" Logan paused. He didn't know why he wanted to remember about his past so much. Something seemed to tell him that it was important that he remember though, so he was constantly searching.
"Perhaps. To be honest, I'm not sure what that was. Storm is preparing the jet, and Nightcrawler will accompany both of you. Don't argue, it's too far for you to ride your motorcycle and I need you all back here as quickly as possible. Plus, with the world the way it is right now, I don't want any of you out there alone. Summer break is about to begin, so enjoy the excursion while you can." For once Logan decided to do something smart. He gave in.
"All right."
"Don't worry, they know how much this means to you and they will not get in the way and they've promised not to bother you. Oh and try to be nice to Kurt, he's having a hard time."
"I'm always nice." Logan couldn't help but quip as he went off to pack his bags and say goodbye to Rogue.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA(A/N: I can't get any symbols to load on here, but I need some way to seperate parts of a chapter so if you see a string of capital "A's" that's all that it means.)

"Bobby?" A young girl with reddish brown hair with one lone white streak poked her head inside his room. Her abnormally pale skin looked almost normal in the dim interior of the room. "Bobby, you awake?" Her voice still clung to her southern roots but at least her accent was not as thick as when she first arrived here. One of the beds was empty. The boy in the other one rolled over, mumbling something. When she made no response he sat up, put on his thick glasses so he could see and said, "He's not here."
"Well, do you know where he went?"
"I dunno." The boy said as he proceeded to get out of bed sighing. Rogue walked out the door. Storm was walking down the hall when Rogue greeted her.
"Storm have you seen Bobby? I can't find him."
"Rogue, didn't he tell you? His parents called. They wanted to try and work some things out this summer. He left late last night." Rogue was both perplexed and worried; it showed on her face. "C'mon, don't look like that and don't worry. Bobby had Scott come with him, at least until he knew his parents weren't going to do anything drastic." Rogue let out a breath that she was unaware she was holding.
"I just wish he would have told me." Rogue headed towards her room where she sat on her bed clutching her pillow. She had met Bobby's parents only once before, right after the school had been invaded. It had been the closest place for them to stay. Bobby had finally told his parents what he was, and they'd reacted as expected, but then the cops came. Bobby's brother had called the cops on them. It was something that still bothered Bobby a lot. It hadn't helped that John had attacked the cops with his ability to manipulate fire. John. She was worried about him too. She had thought that they were friends, but when they fought at the lake to safe the professor, he'd just walked out on all of them. They had no idea where he had gone. If the professor knew where he was, he wasn't telling.

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Storm headed down by elevator to where the jet was deep underneath the school. She wasn't paying much attention, and she almost ran into a very strange looking creature. It was hard to tell how tall he was because he had the tendency to hunch down, whether from years of abuse due to his looks or because his joints just worked that way she wasn't sure. She felt it was probably some of both. He looked demonic with his blue skin, self- inflicted symbols carved into it, and his bright yellow eyes. He had three fingers on each hand and three toes on each foot. Plus, he had a tail; not one of the more inconspicuous mutants they had on board. However, she'd gotten use to how he looked quickly. She didn't have time to be scared of every little monstrosity that Mother Nature decided to send their way.
"Oh, hallo. I vas just coming to speak wit you." Oh yeah, he also hailed from Germany.
"Is there something wrong, Kurt?"
"No, I vas just going to let you know that de jet is ready."
"All right, thank you Kurt. You go tell the professor and I'll go track down Logan."

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Logan had his sack thrown over his shoulder and knocked on Rogue's door. He didn't get a response so he peeked in to see if she was there. She was sitting there, but her mind was miles away. "Hey." He said. She jumped. "Sorry, but I don't think there was any other way of doing that without scaring you." She noticed his sack on the floor as he pulled out her desk chair and sat in it, backwards, so he could prop his arms on the back.
"You leaving again?" She asked.
"Yeah. I may have another lead on a memory."
"That doesn't make me feel better, look what happened last time you got a lead on a memory." Logan winced mentally. He still felt bad about everything that happened at the lake.
"Don't go." It was too much like what the girl from the dream had said. It startled him and he asked, "What did you say?"
"I didn't say anything. You all right, maybe you shouldn't go." Logan shook his head. His headache was back.
"Logan?" Storm joined the party.
"I'm ready to go, just saying goodbye."
"All right, well you can head down to the jet. Kurt should be down there. I'll be down after I talk to the professor." Logan nodded. Something about this trip made him nervous. No it scared him.

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Bobby and Scott had ridden the whole way mostly in silence. Bobby was nervous to be going home, something he thought he'd never feel. He doubted his family and that made him angry and sad. In his one true moment of need they'd failed him. It wasn't necessarily their fault the circumstances were bad. At least, that's what he kept telling himself. Scott pulled into Bobby's driveway, turned off the motor and looked at him. Scott was a handsome man with chiseled features and short brown hair. He wore red tinted sunglasses all of the time, otherwise, he'd fry you with energy beams that shot from his eyes. No joke. Next to Scott, Bobby looked very different. He had spiky blond hair and ice blue eyes. That was funny, that his eyes would be described that way, because ice was his specialty. He could produce and manipulate ice just by thinking about it, but he usually needed a focus like using his hands. He was wearing everyday clothes of khakis and a blue T-shirt. Scott was wearing black jeans, a black T-shirt, and a leather jacket. It really was too hot for leather, but Bobby wasn't going to say anything.
He and Scott looked at each other across the top of the car as they got out. "Ready?" Scott asked. Bobby nodded and they proceeded up the walkway to the front door. Bobby hesitantly knocked something he wouldn't have normally done. After several seconds of no answer, Bobby rang the doorbell.
"That's odd." Bobby said.
"What is?" Asked Scott.
"Well, it's just, they knew that I was going to be here. I mean they're the ones that called me. I called earlier at the last rest stop and they said they'd be here. I wonder what's going on?"
"I don't like this, something's wrong. Bobby get back in the car. I'm going to check this out."
"They're my family, I want to make sure they're okay."
"For once, don't argue with me, get back in the car and stay there." Scott proceeded to open the door.

A/N: If anyone can tell me some better way to split up my sections, I'd be grateful.