Disclaimer: I wishI owned Wolverine, sadly I don't, I own no rights to anything from Marvel nor do I from Maroon 5. Although I do own comic books and CDs from both. I hope everyone enjoys this chapter.
After crying for about half, I finally went to take a shower and wash off all of the glitter from my skin and hair. I wrapped my hair up in a towel and pulled on a pair of pajamas that I had brought with me and when I walked back into the bedroom area I saw that Logan had gone and bought us food.
I smiled. "Well, that was very sweet of you, Logan," I said, going to sit on his bed with him where he was eating.
"I thought you might need something to make you feel better," he said, handing me a bag with a cheeseburger and fries, then he handed me a chocolate milkshake.
"You know, I think that you're the only guy that I've ever gone out with that remembers what I eat at fast food places,"
"Really?" he asked with a cocked eyebrow.
"Do you not believe me?"
"No, I do, I just can't imagine someone not wanting to remember everything about you,"
I smiled and blushed a little. "Well…maybe it's unfair to compare you with them,"
"Why?"
"Because none of them ever loved me as much as you do,"
"They're the ones that missed out on it, then,"
"Thank you for coming with me," I said after a few moments while we ate.
"No problem,"
"No, I mean it. Not many people would fly all the way from New York with me just to go to a funeral, and it means a lot to me that you didn't even pause for a second when I said that I wanted you to come with me. My family isn't exactly perfect, but the fact that you're willing to meet them means a lot to me,"
He thought for a moment and then let out a deep breath. "I'd do anything for you, Haven,"
Something was happening to me; I was the happiest I had ever been with Logan, but it was a tainted happiness as I didn't think we ever would have had that conversation if the situation of my grandfather passed away hadn't brought us to it, and for that I was sad. Sad because the one man who had been stable in my life had passed away, he was dead, he was gone and I didn't even get the chance to thank him properly for all that he had given me in my life. My grandparents took me into their home when everyone thought that I should have been shipped away to a reform school. They had both given up a lot for me and the pure, simple fact that he had never seen me do anything better with my life ate away at me. I realized that it had been nearly two years since I had seen them, making myself wonder why I had let my fear of going home keep my away from the only family I had. At that moment, I banned myself from any more thoughts of my mother's boyfriend that was in Canada. He wasn't part of my life anymore, and I realized that it was a waste of time to try to remember him when my mind was so adamant about blocking him out. I had a real family, a real person that I loved, someone that I could hold onto; a real set of friends that were grounded in what they truly believed in, and agreed with everything that I believed. That was all I needed and from that point on, I promised myself that I would not spend the rest of my life chasing after a person that even if I did remember him, I wouldn't know what to do with the information. I was going to pay my full attention to the ones who were there with me. It wasn't easy to give up; I had been having dreams of him almost every night since I had moved to Canada, but when I was prepared to give up was so little compared to what Logan had been offering me.
Logan and I arrived at the funeral home a little after seven o'clock that night. I went to try to find my grandmother, and on the way, we met a few of my grandparent's friends who all told me how sorry they were about my grandfather and gave me their most sympathetic looks. We finally made it into the parlor room and I saw my grandmother sitting in a chair, next to my grandfather's casket. Seeing him in there made me cringe and I turned away. My breathing caught and I fought a lump in my throat, as tears threatened to flood my eyes.
"Are you alright?" Logan asked me.
I took my time trying to calm my breath. I slowly nodded my head. "Yeah, I'm fine," I said quietly.
After a moment of trying to collect myself, I turned back around and walked straight to my grandmother. When she saw me, she stood and hugged me tightly.
"Oh Haven, sweetheart," she said, crying.
"I'm so sorry, Nana," I said, hugging her back, still fighting against my own tears.
She pulled away and placed her hand on my cheek, looking me over. "Have you been eating? You look so thin," she said and I couldn't help but laugh. That was my Nana; even in times of deep depression of her own, she put it all aside to focus on me.
"Yeah, I've just been working out," I said, wiping a small tear from my eye.
"How's school going?"
"It's going good,"
"Good, good," she said, moving her hand, grabbing mine and petting it. "And who is this with you?"
I turned around to look at Logan, took his arm and link mine with his. "Nana, this is Logan. Logan, this is my Nana," I said, introducing them.
She reached out her free hand to shake his. "You take good care of my sweet little Haven; she deserves to have it good from now on,"
"I will, you don't have to worry about her," he said.
"Sweetheart, I'm so glad that you're here, you mother said she didn't know whether or not you were going to be able to make it,"
"I told her that I was coming straight down here,"
"Oh, well she told me that you were busy and not to expect you,"
"Where is she? I would like to talk to her," I said, more that a little upset. Why had she told Nana that she didn't think I was coming when I had plainly told her that I was?"
"She's in the kitchen with Carl,"
"Alright, I'm going to go see her," I said.
"Okay," she said, giving Logan and me a kind smile before we walked off.
I led him into the kitchen, which was there for people to bring food to the family, for people to sit and have coffee, and there was a door to go out to a smoking area. I wasn't sure if it was just a southern thing to have them at funeral homes or not, I had never attended a funeral outside of the south.
We walked into the room where there was no one but a man sitting at a table by himself, drinking from a coffee cup, with another cup sitting on the table beside him.
"Have you seen a slightly tall woman, with dark curly hair in here?" I asked the man.
"Maria?"
"Yeah,"
"Yeah, she was just in here but she stepped outside for a little bit,"
"Okay, thanks," I said, managing a weak smile.
"Are you…Haven?" he asked.
I paused for a moment, looking him over. "Yeah,"
"Wow, you look just like your mother. I'm Carl," he said, standing to shake my hand.
"Oh, hi," I said unenthusiastically, shaking his hand.
"Why don't you sit? Your mother should be back soon," he told me, motioning to the two seats across from his own and the empty chair beside it, which I assumed was my mother's seat.
"Alright," I said, sitting down.
Logan bent down to me and said, "I'll be right back," into my ear.
I assumed he had to go to the bathroom, so I just said. "Alright," and let him go. Then he walked out of the room and left me in there with Carl.
"So, is that your boyfriend?" he asked.
"Yeah,"
"How long have you been dating?"
"Since the beginning of summer,"
"Wow, that's a long time,"
"Are you being patronizing?" I asked.
"No," he said, looking suddenly uncomfortable.
"I know that you're dating my mother, but you don't have to treat me like a child. I'm twenty-two, not twelve, and five months is not a long time to be dating someone. If you think that, then perhaps we need to have a discussion about how long you've been dating my mother and how long it's going to take for you to take advantage of her,"
"Excuse me?"
"I think you heard me quite clearly,"
"I think I did, but why would you think that I would take advantage of Maria?"
"Because every man she's ever dated has,"
"Well, maybe I'm not like any other men she's dated,"
"For her sake, I hope you're not," I said just before she walked into the room.
"Oh, sweetheart, I'm so glad that you're here," she said, rushing to hug me.
"Why did you tell Nana not to expect me because I was busy at home?" I asked.
"Because if you changed your mind I didn't want her to think that you just didn't care,"
"Why do you keep doing that? You liked to Pop, you lied to Nana, I'm used to you lying to me, you've done that all of my life, but don't lie to them about serious stuff like that,"
"I didn't lie,"
"No, you were just telling them something that wasn't the truth because you were afraid that it would look bad on you,"
"How would it look bad on me?"
"You thought that if you told me about Pop or if you told Nana that I was coming and I didn't, everyone would know that I didn't want to be here because of you,"
"I know that you don't like coming home,"
"But it's not their fault, so I would come home for them,"
I was ready for her to argue back her instead her eyes became fixated on the doorway.
"James?" she asked, sounding confused.
That name, James, something in my mind clicked and I remembered that was his name. My teddy bear's name was Peaches because he had given it to me and my favorite book was 'James and the Giant Peach'.
I looked to the doorway to see Logan entering the room, coming back to sit with me.
"Maria, are you okay?" Carl asked my mother as he noticed her sudden change of mood.
"James, what are you doing here?" my mother asked Logan, ignoring Carl.
Logan looked at her curiously. "Momma, this is Logan, he's my boyfriend," I said.
"Logan? No, his name is James! Don't you remember him?" she said, looked to me with desperation in her eyes.
"Remember him from where?" I asked.
"When we lived in Canada, we dated for nearly a year, you have to remember!" she said to me.
And in that moment, a flash of memories flooded my mind, all of the dreams that I had had of a man with no face were suddenly pushed to the front of my mind, filling the clouded space with Logan. The laugh, the feeling of his hands, they all belonged to Logan. I was tempted not to believe it, how could it have been possible? That's when I realized that I was six years old when we left, Logan couldn't remember anything past sixteen years at that point, it all added up and I did everything I could not to run from the room.
"No, you've got to be wrong, there's no way that could be true, I would have remembered," I argued, trying to make myself drown in from my thoughts, but I couldn't.
How could I not have remembered him? How could I let myself fall in love with the same man that had been like a father to me? I didn't know but as all of the information was rushing at me, I realized that I had begun having my dreams after I had moved to Canada again and was working in the motel, right after I had seen Logan for the first time. I looked over at him and knew that he didn't remember any of it.
"I'm not wrong, didn't he tell you who he was?" my mother asked.
"He doesn't remember," I said lamely, trying to allow everything to absorb.
"Those medical experiments, they gave you amnesia, didn't they? They told you that it would, I told you not to have it done, you should have listened to me," my mother said to Logan.
He looked confused and out of place standing there trying to understand what my mother was saying. Rarely ever had I seen Logan look slightly scared, but right then he did. I wanted to remember it all, and yet I wanted to forget everything, but most of all I never wanted to see him looking like that ever again. His eyes darted back and forth between my mother and me, trying to make sense of what was being said.
"I knew that I was going to forget everything?" he finally asked.
"You chose to give up marrying me to have the tests done on you," she said.
"You were going to get married?" I asked.
"We had talked about it and yes, we were going to but those men offered him money to help them and he left us. How could you do that to me, to Haven? You told me that she was like your daughter, and you felt like a father to her, but you threw it all away for money."
"I didn't," he said, still looking confused and shaking his head.
"Yes, you did and I would appreciate it if you would leave," she said to him.
He didn't say anything else, he just nodded his head and left. I was too shocked to follow him. I wanted to know more.
"So we left because he had those experiments done on him and he couldn't remember us?" I asked.
"No, I would have stayed with him through it all, but," she said, stopping.
"But what?" I asked with desperation.
"He was a mutant…he still is,"
The sound of the way she said the word 'mutant', making it roll off her tongue in a disgusting, painful way, the sound of it filled with anger, contaminating it with hate and fear, made me snap back into my own reality.
"I have to go find him," I muttered, more to myself than anyone.
"No, you don't need to," she said.
"Why?"
"Haven, he a liar and a mutant, there's no telling what he will do to you,"
"You're a liar, that doesn't mean you're going to hurt me, does it?"
"I'm not a mutant," she spat.
"There's nothing wrong with being a mutant, and he would never hurt me, don't ever accuse him of that," I said and then left.
I left the one person behind that could answer all of my questions to find Logan, who was at the center of my curiosity to begin with. I found him sitting in the car that we had rented and I opened the door to sit in it with him.
"Can we leave?" I asked him.
"Yeah," he said, staring the car.
We drove back to the hotel in silence, both of us busy with our own thoughts. When we got to our room, I went to change into my pajamas and take off my makeup. When I came out, Logan was already in bed. I sat down on mine and stared at him for a moment, he stared back at me.
"I don't want to be by myself tonight," I said.
Without a word, Logan moved over in his bed and threw back the covers. I placed my two pillows on his bed and lay down beside him. He pulled the covers up around us and wrapped his arm around my body, holding me to him. I curled up into a ball and he held me all through the night.
The next morning we drove down to see my Pop's funeral and stayed behind some so that my mother wouldn't see us, but she wasn't there. Logan wrapped his arm around me shoulder to comfort me as the buried him.
On the way to the airport, we stopped to get something to eat at a fast food restaurant and we sat in the car eating.
"You know we're going to have to talk about it, right?" I asked.
"Yeah,"
"I can ask her what you want,"
"No,"
"She has answers, though; she might help you remember who you were,"
"Listen, we both heard what she said, I left you both because Stryker was gonna' pay me for what he did to me, that's not something that I want to remember,"
"Are you sure?"
He looked at me, staring me right in the eyes. "This is it Haven, this is it right now, if we spend time remembering that then it's just gonna' screw this up,"
"It's already a little screwed up; she can help you figure out a part of your past that I can barely remember,"
"I don't care,"
"Why?"
"I don't want to remember it all because I want to be with you,"
"Why can't you be with me if you remember it?"
"She said that I thought of you like a daughter, how…" he said, taking a deep breath and looking away from me. "How could I think of you the way I do now if I remembered how I used to think of you?"
"I'm not that same little girl anymore, Logan; I've changed so much since then. I've seen so much more, I've been through so much more, it would be so unfair of me to make you chose me over something so important as your memory,"
"You're not making me, Haven," he said, a little frustrated. "I can find someone else to help me with my memory, the Professor can help me, but I haven't been able to remember for sixteen years and if I want to give that up for you then it's my choice, darlin'. It doesn't matter if you've changed; I'm not doing it,"
"Okay," I said quietly, looking out my window as he began to drive again.
"Look, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to get angry with you," he said, picking up my hand and kissing it. "I know you're having it rough, it's just that this isn't something that I had planned on happening, I know you didn't either, but if we're gonna' do this then we have to get over it,"
"I know," I said, fighting back tears.
I was confused as I had been the day before, if not more so. There was this reassuring proof that Logan loved me, he was willing to give up what he had been searching for, or a small part of it at least, for me. He was the first person in my life to sacrifice something that they had wanted that badly just to be with me. However, there was a cloud hanging over my happiness, there was a strong feeling of taboo just to be dating him. He was engaged to my mother, he was going to be my stepfather and I was going to be his stepdaughter. It all played through my head like a bad movie, the drama good enough to be a soap opera. But it wasn't, it was real life, it was my life. Almost everything inside of me was screaming 'but that's not what happened!' while that small, tiny part of me, the one that yelled the loudest said 'you still thought of him as a father figure'. Both were right, but I tried to keep the voices out of my head, I didn't want to hear their points, I didn't want to hear anything that they had to say, I just wanted to forget everything. The whole flight back home I was jealous of Logan for forgetting it all and I wondered it there was anyway that the Professor could help me to forget on my own.
The next few weeks were hard, I had a lot of homework to catch up on and Logan was busy trying to get the students ready to take off for Thanksgiving break. We had made plans to go out for three weeks and every week something had come up. Finally, the night of Thanksgiving we got to sit in the den together, while I did my homework and he graded tests. We put it all away and decided to watch "The Sixth Sense" together on TV, sadly by the time the little creepy kid was whispering out his 'I see dead people' line, I had fallen asleep.
When I woke up I was in my room and it was past ten o'clock the next morning. I went downstairs to try to find something to eat and realized that everyone was gone. They had all gone out shopping. The mansion was a little creepy when it was empty. After eating some cereal, I went to the music room to play the piano. I had written a song that was stuck in my head and I wanted to get it out. As I sat down I began playing and singing my song.
"It's like a rose that's lost its color. It's like a song that has no name. You can make up your own life story, but it's still haunting all the same.
Bittersweet amnesia running through my mind, bittersweet amnesia, remembering from time to time, or the things I've lost and the ones I've loved, I don't know what I'm dreaming of. Bittersweet amnesia has taken over me again.
It's like a star that's faded out. It's like a storm without the rain. You don't remember why you're here, but I'm glad that you've decided to stay.
Bittersweet amnesia running through my mind, bittersweet amnesia, remembering from time to time, or the things I've lost and the ones I've loved, I don't know what I'm dreaming of. Bittersweet amnesia has taken over me again.
I'm not sure if we've ever met before, I would like to think I'm not someone you could forget. I'm not sure that we've kissed before this, but I don't think it's something I could regret.
We can't remember out lives, but now all we have is time, to build back what we've lost, to win a fight that we've both fought. So please stay with me right now and maybe in the morning we'll remember some how.
Bittersweet amnesia running through my mind, bittersweet amnesia, remembering from time to time, or the things I've lost and the ones I've loved, I can't remember what I'm dreaming of. Bittersweet amnesia, oh bittersweet, some things are better left forgotten,"
"Did you write that?"
I spun around on the piano bench and saw Logan standing a few feet away. "You scared me," I said, forcing a smile. "Yeah, I wrote it a few months ago,"
"A few months ago?" he asked with a cocked eyebrow.
"I've changed a few words since then," I admitted.
He stood there for a moment, not saying anything, and then he walked over to me, pulled me up and kissed me. He kissed me in a way that he hadn't kissed me in weeks, a more passionate way. It was as if I had been gone and he had waited so long to see me and kiss me. He slowly moved from my mouth and kissed up along side my jaw line, he then made a trail down my neck, grazing his teeth against my skin, then going back and following the path he had made with kisses. He kissed down to my collarbone.
"No," I said, choking to get the word out.
He paused, his mouth hovering over my skin. "Yeah?"
I nodded my head. "Yeah," I said. He moved his head back up so that I could see his face. He placed his hand on my cheek and I held it there with my hand. "I wanted you to stay with us; I thought you were going to be my father. I felt like so many of my problems could have been solved if you had stayed. I prayed so many nights that you would come find us and take care of us. I know that you don't remember it, but I do," I told him, tears running from my eyes, down my face.
"I'm sorry, but I'm not gonna' leave you now,"
I hugged him, laying my head on his shoulder. I tried to fight the words that were forcing themselves from my mouth, but I had never been very good at keeping what I was thinking from anyone, especially Logan. He always knew what was on my mind, good or bad, because I always told him, but this was something I didn't want to admit. I wouldn't be able to throw it out to see how he reacted to it and then take it back. Once it was out, that was going to be it. But aside from not hiding my thoughts from Logan, I also wasn't very delicate. Maybe it was because no one had every handled me in a manner that I could learn from. If I loved you, it was with all of my heart, and if I hated you, it was with the exact same level of passion as my love, just opposite in feeling. I didn't hate Logan, not in the least bit, but I couldn't allow myself to love him the way that I had. So, for once in my life my feelings for someone were stuck in a passionate limbo, a part of hell that I didn't want to go to, in order to further explain my feelings, so I took the traitor's way out.
"I can't do this anymore," I cried. "I want to, but I can't, not with how I feel, not that I remember everything now. I want to still be in love with you the way that I was and I don't know how to do that,"
I heard him let out a shaking breath. "Are you sure?"
I let go of him and looked up at him with tear-filled eyes. "Yeah," I said, nodding my head.
He leaned down and kissed my forehead. "I'll always love you, kid," he said. Then, he walked away.