Disclaimer: Marvel, please don't sue me, I love you. And to M. Night Shyamalan; I so didn't even realize that my title was the same as your movie, I wasn't just excited that it was my first story that wasn't named after a song, so please don't sue me either, I love you as well. On with the story!

It was my first day back to school and I had already been called into the Principle's office because I 'smelled like alcohol'. I had to take a sobriety and drug test. Yes, I smelled like alcohol, I lived in the upstairs of a barn-converted bar, the whole place smelled of various forms of alcohol.

"Okay Miss Wells, here is your back pack back, you've passed all of the tests so you are free to go," Mr. Hayger, my school's principle, told me, handing me my bag before sitting in his chair behind his desk, directly in front of me.

"I think that I deserve an apology," I said.

"I don't think that we took any unnecessary actions that would merit an apology," he said, aligning his fingers and peering at me from over top of them.

"I was falsely accused of drinking. I think that everyone knows that my foster parents' house is above a bar that they own and operate together, I'm bound to smell like beer every once in a while, I can't help that. However, I've been a good student, a really good one, and you and your staff of teachers treat me as if I'm no good, white trash. So, I suggest that if you don't want anyone knowing about your wife's little rendezvous' with a fighter named Jet Jackson you'll advise them to stop being discriminate towards me because of where I live,"

"That's blackmail," he said.

"Call it what you want, but to be quite honest with you, I don't care. I'm having a rough year so far and I just want to get through this school year without having to worry about why my grades are lower that they should be,"

"You background has nothing to do with your grades,"

"And I'm sure that after this talk it never will again," He didn't reply to me, he just nodded his head, so I started to leave, but before I opened the door I paused to turn around and say to him before I left, "I am a good student, I only want to finally get the grades that I deserve,"

At this moment you opinion of me has probably changed, and for that I truly apologize. I'm not a mean, ruthless, conniving person; it's just that I was raised to get what was needed in any way possible. I had never wanted to 'blackmail' my principle, but I knew that I probably wasn't going to be finishing my school year there, and I just wanted to finally be treated with a sense of respect while I was there.

No, my life had never been fair, but I felt that I deserved to be treated well. My life had been full of compromises, pulling on worn strings to get to where I had to go. It's all I had ever known, my only example in life to follow by, and so I did.

As I left his office, my thoughts floated to Father McCarol, the Priest in Carnive City. I was surprised to have thought about him, considering I hadn't since the day that I had met him, and wondered what he would have thought of my actions and how I should have dealt with the situation. My mind was pulling me in two different directions; How Father McCarol would have handled it, and how Logan would have handled it. Polar opposites of each other, but both believing it would have been the best way. I wondered if there was such a thing as 'right or wrong' or if we were merely taught only to deal with them to believe one is right and the other is wrong. It's like how I had always wondered if we saw colors the same way, or if my orange was someone else's green. Is there really a set of standards to go by, or simply was my right someone else's wrong?

"How was school?" Viv asked as I walked into the kitchen where she was cooking dinner.

"I hate that stupid place, I don't know why I can't go to a different one," I said, plopping down in one of the kitchen chairs and propping up my chin in my hands.

"We tried to get you switched but they wouldn't let us because of zoning rules," she said.

"I still hate it," I muttered.

"There's not much you don't hate,"

"It doesn't make it any better,"

"Oh, Wolverine left this for you last night," she said, pulling out a napkin from her pocked. She tossed it to me and I caught it with both hands. To my surprise, there was neat handwriting on it that said 'FOR CHLOE'. I unfolded the napkin and saw a fifty-dollar bill since. "Now, you can't tell me that he isn't fond of you if he left you that as a tip,"

I looked up at her. "I never said that he didn't like me, I said that I didn't like him,"

"Well, I wouldn't have a problem with him if he left me tips like that for not doing anything,"

"Yeah, see that's the thing; I actually do do something, it's like I'm his assigned waitress or something. The only person who's offered to wait on him is Nancy, and she's far too stupid to get even the simplest things done properly,"

"She's not that dumb,"

"Yes she is, she's completely incompetent of having a single intellectual thought, let alone a conversation. And she looks like a test animal with all of that crappy makeup on,"

"They say that ignorance is bliss,"

"That's just because they're too stupid to know any better,"

"Your problem is that you're too smart for your own good,"

"That's not true, and even if it was, how would that be a problem?"

"You work in a bar; you don't need to be so smart,"

"I'm not exactly planning on working in a bar for the rest of my life, you know,"

"That what are you planning on doing with your life?"

"I don't know, but it's not going to involve waiting on drunk men," I said.

"Well…good luck to you on that one,"

The week went pretty well, school was much easier when I didn't have teachers making snide comments about me while I was leaving their classes, and by Friday, I was all too excited to get to my first weekend away from school.

I was working the bar that night, which seemed to be very empty after Tom had hired a few guys to hang some makeshift walls to separate the bar from the fighting area. Since Logan had arrived there had been more people coming through just to watch the matches, and not all of the regular costumers appreciated the extra crowd while they tried to drink away their sad, pathetic, poor excuse for a life into oblivion. Seriously, if your job or wife was so bad that you looked forward to your first scotch of the night, drinking it down like it was the solution to every problem in the world, wasn't it time for your two weeks notice and the divorce talk?

I heard some cheers from the next room and moved to a spot behind the bar so that I could see what was going on. A man had Logan down on the mat, up against the cage, and kicking him. I watched as he kicked him repeatedly with his big motorcycle boots. I could imagine the pain and began feeling sick to my stomach, as if I were the one being fought. It didn't take much longer before Logan found his footing and go back up. He shoved him into the wire, punching him in the stomach over and over until the man began to throw up. Logan was named the winner and the rest of the fights were called for the night so that the cage could be cleaned out.

It didn't take hardly half an hour before almost the entire fighting crowd was gone and the bar was left littered only with a handful of people, a very unusual thing for a Friday night.

I saw Logan coming into the bar room to sit down, so I grabbed a beer and sat it down on the counter, giving him a smile small.

He smiled back and sat down on the stool in front of me. "Thanks," he said.

"Nice fighting, I think I even got a little sick on that one," I said sarcastically.

"Are you this nice to all of your customers or do I get special treatment?" he asked with a sideways smirk.

I let out a sigh and pretended to ponder the thought. "I do believe that you get special treatment, but let's not tell anyone, they might get jealous," I said with a smile.

At that time, over the noise of the radio, TV and people talking, I heard someone start singing 'Happy Birthday'. When I looked to my left I saw Viv carrying a small cupcake with a candle in it and singing; 'Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Chloe, happy birthday do you,'

"Thank you," I said, taking the plate with the cupcake on it and blowing out the weak flame that danced on top of it before pulling out the candle and locked the icing off it, then throwing it away.

"Why don't you sit down and eat it, you can take the rest of the night off," she said.

"Are you sure?" I asked.

"There's not enough people here for you and Tom to be working,"

"Alright," I said, pulling up a stool behind the bar and sitting down.

"Goodnight," she said, leaving to go back upstairs.

"Goodnight," I said. "Would you like a bite?" I asked Logan.

"No," he said, taking a pull of his beer.

"Good, it tastes like crap," I said as I took a bite of the doughy cupcake.

He laughed at me and I was mesmerized by the sound of it. "It's probably poisoned,"

"I think poison tastes better," I said, turning to the garbage can, spitting it out and throwing the rest away. I grabbed myself one of the bottles of water that I kept in a cooler for me and sat back down.

"Did you ever get enough money to buy a car?"

"Not quite, Tom and Viv are going to help me with the rest, though,"

"What kind are you gonna' get?" he asked, taking a drink.

"I don't know, I don't really know about cars, I just want a cheap, used one that I can go back and forth to school in,"

"You should get a truck," he said with a puff of his cigar.

"I can't drive a truck,"

"Why not?"

"Because only certain girls can get away with driving trucks, I'm not one of them,"

"I think you could,"

"I might think about it, then," I said with a smile.

We both sat quietly for a while as he drank his beer and I tried to figure out what song was playing on the radio. When a group of younger guys that were sitting a table a few feet away realized it was Celine Dion, they started booing it. I got cracked up and started laughing and Logan smiled at me. He had an honest smile, one that seemed like a rare thing and that you should feel excited to witness it, but even more excited to be the one who caused it.

He was a beautiful man, no doubt about it. Not only was he typically good looking, but he also had everything that I had found attractive about a man; beautiful eyes that I could get lost in and could spend the rest of my life just staring into. Strong hands; I had always thought that hands could tell a lot about people, and I felt that his strong hands represented a strong person. Not just psychically, I knew that he was psychically strong, but I felt that he would be mentally strong, capable of holding a lot on him, which was, in itself, a double-edged sword. But the clincher, what really sold me on him was; his voice. For as long as I could remember, I had always had an infatuation with men's voices. I would always pay close attention to the sound, the way they wrapped their mouth around words, the deep manly way they would speak, and his voice had quickly became one of my favorites. It was rough and rugged. I found myself wanting him to say anything to me, just to hear him speak.

"Where did you learn how to fight?" I asked, taking a sip of my water.

"I don't know," he said, puffing on his ever-present cigar.

"You don't know, like you just picked it up as you were growing up, or what?"

He looked at me for a moment, before taking another sip from his bottle. "I don't know, like I don't remember. My memory ain't been too good in the past few years,"

"Like amnesia?"

"Yeah, kind'a like that,"

"Wow…I'm sorry," I said sympathetically.

"Don't worry about it, darlin', it's not your fault," he said as a large man came up to where I was sitting at behind the counter.

"Give me a beer," he said to me.

"Uh, yeah, I'm not working, go tell that guy at the end of the bar," I said, pointing to Tom.

"You're already back there, why can't you just give me a beer?"

"Because I'm not working," I repeated with a slight…okay, more than slight, condescending tone.

"Maybe you shouldn't be behind the bar if you're not working," he said.

"Maybe you should leave if you have a problem with me sitting behind my own bar,"

He swore at me, calling me a whore.

Logan stood up and pulled the cigar from his mouth. "Hey bub, I think she told you to leave," he said.

"Who are you, her pimp?" the man asked, and with that, Logan swung a punch to his nose, making it bleed immediately. He grabbed the back of his neck and dragged him out the door.

"What's going on?" Tom asked, running over to where I was standing, staring out the door after Logan.

"Just an unruly customer, Wolverine's taking care of it," I said sheepishly.

"I didn't seem him acting unruly,"

"He called me a name," I defended.

"So Wolverine punched him?"

"Yeah,"

"He's settling it then, it won't be a problem for me in the morning, will it?" he questioned.

"Well…once he gets done doing whatever he's doing to him, I doubt he'll be coming back here again. So, I'm thinking there won't be a problem,"

"Are you sure?"

"Look, it wasn't my fault, I just told him that I wasn't working and that he should go to you to order, then he said something else, I told him to leave, he called me a name and Logan punched him,"

"Who's Logan?"

"That's Wolverine's name,"

He looked at me hard for a moment, thinking. "Okay then, tell him his order is on the house tonight," he said.

"Alright, I will," I said with a weak smile as he walked away.

After about five minutes, Logan walked back into the bar, looking very casual and as if nothing had happened. He came over, sat back down on his bar stool and took another long drink from his bottle, finishing it off in one smooth gulp.

"You didn't have to do that, you know?" I said to him.

"Yeah, I know,"

"I've had guys say worse things than that to me before, it's nothing new,"

"Just 'cause someone's done it before doesn't mean it's right, kid,"

"So are you going to beat up every guy that says something like that to me?"

"I don't see no reason why I wouldn't,"

A small smile danced across my face. I felt bad about misjudging him before and was happy that he hadn't let it bother him. I was also happy because I finally had someone to talk to.

The summer faded away and soon we found ourselves in the middle of November. It had been three months and Wolverine was sill there, breaking the record for the longest winning streak of a fighter by a month and a half. I was surprised by how well we had learned to get along with each other. I looked forward to seeing him every night and enjoyed watching him fight more than I had anyone else. I think it was because he looked so natural while doing it, it wasn't forced, he was very good at it and it showed.

It was a Saturday night and I was working the bar when a man in a suit came in. I assumed he was just another lawyer who hated his life and wanted to drown himself in vodka, so I didn't think anything about going up to him and asking for his order.

"I'm not here for a drink," he said.

"Oh, if you're here for the fights, they're in there," I said, pointing to the room where Logan was head butting a man.

"Actually, I'm a legal representative from Happy Homes Foster Care; I'm here on behalf of Christopher Wells. Do you know where I can find Tomas and Vivian Griffiths?"

"Uh, yeah, Tom's at the end of the bar just there," I said, pointing to Tom just as Nancy walked up to me.

"Chloe, Wolverine needs a shot," she said.

"Are you Chloe Wells?" the man asked.

"Yes I am, and tell him he's got like, half a bottle of Jack Daniels in his corner,"

"He wants a glass," she said, smiling at the man.

"You're not old enough to be working here," he said.

"No, I'm not old enough to sell alcohol, but I can waitress," I told him, grabbing a shot glass and handing it to Nancy. "Here, tell him if he breaks this one, he's cleaning it up,"

"If who breaks what?" Nancy asked.

My head felt like it was pounding and I wanted to scream. "If Logan breaks that glass, the one I just gave you, he's going to have to clean up after himself," I said slowly.

"Wolverine's the one that needed the glass, not Logan,"

"Wolverine is Logan, that's his real name," I said, trying to stay calm.

"Oh, okay," she said, turning and leaving.

I let out a sigh of frustration. "I'm sorry sir, what can I do to help you?"

"I need to speak with Mr. and Mrs. Griffiths about your father,"

"What about him?"

"I would prefer to discus it with them first," he said as two men were dragging their friend from the fighting room and heading outside through the door to my left.

"Hey, tell your friend he owes us some money," one of them yelled at me.

"Hey, tell your friend when he wakes up, that if he fights a man three times and loses he's more than likely to lose the forth time,"

"He fights cheap," the other friend said.

"You got a problem with how he fights; you take it up with him, not me, sweet cheeks," I said as Logan let out a loud growl from the next room.

The suited man looking through the doorway and saw Wolverine kicking a man on the floor of the cage after he had won the match.

"Is this really a suitable place for a young lady to grow up?" he asked me, looking shocked by the place.

I gave him a smile and shook my head. "It's not as bad as it seems, I assure you. I haven't had any social problems so far, and I don't think I will,"

He sighed. "Where did you say I could find your foster parents, again?" he asked, rubbing his brow.

"Tom's there are the end of the bar, he's the guy with gray hair and plaid flannel shirt," I said.

"Okay, thank you," he said, walking to the end of the bar.

The man from Happy Homes stayed until it was almost time to close and Logan was done fight and had come to sit on the stool in front of me, where I was sitting behind the bar, watching the man and Tom talking.

"Are you alright?" Logan asked me after a moment.

"Yeah, why?" I asked, giving him a quick glance and noticing that he had blood on his face. "You have a bit of blood on your forehead," I told him, pointing to where it was and he quickly wiped it off with the sleeve of his shirt.

"You've been watchin' that guy all night, who is he?"

"He's from Happy Homes Foster Care,"

"What does he want?" he asked, lighting up a cigar and puffing out the smoke.

I fanned the smoke away from my face with my hand. "I don't know, he wouldn't tell me, but he said that he was here on behalf of my dad," I pulled my feet up to the top bar of the stool, propped my elbows on my knees and held my face in my hands.

"It's probably just because he's gettin' outta jail," he said to me over the sound of the TV. A Senator from the United States was arguing with someone named Dr. Green or Grey (one of those color names) about the Mutant Registration act in America. I hated the news.

"What if I have to go live in foster care again until it's decided where I'll live?"

"Why would you have to do that?"

I looked at him again. "You must have really beaten those guys tonight, you've got some more blood under your eye," I said as he wiped it away once again with his shirtsleeve. "They may make me go back because I'm not old enough to be working in a bar; they could say that they're unfit for me to live with. And I'm not real sure how legal cage fighting is. Illegal things and underage kids don't usually mix well for the most part,"

"I wouldn't worry about it,"

"That's easy for you to say, you didn't have to live in that place. It was gross and crowed; I never got along with the other kids,"

"You don't get alone with anyone," he interrupted.

"Yeah, but these kids were mentally damaged, or something. They use to call me Socket Girl because my hair was slightly frizzy and they said that I looked like I had stuck my finger in an electrical socket,"

He laughed. "Yeah, that's real terrible, kid," he said sarcastically, talking around his cigar.

I looked at him. "To an eight year-old it is," I defended.

"Yeah, now I know why it doesn't bother you when those guys come in here calling you names; Socket Girl's pretty bad," he said with a smirk.

"Shut up, you've got a cool name; Wolverine. You don't have any right to make fun of me unless you can understand the pain of a bad nickname,"

"That was over seven years ago, you could probably step on half the kids there your age now," he said, pulling the new cigar from his mouth and holding it between his fingers. He was referring to my height, as I was a little over five feet eleven inches tall, dwarfing Tom and Viv by a good four inches at the tallest as I grew.

"I would get the crap beat out of me if I lived there again,"

"Why do you think that?"

"Look at me," I said, sitting up straight. "I'm not intimidating; I scream 'beat me up,'"

"No you don't,"

"Yes I do, I'm weird looking,"

I was tall, had blonde curly hair, big brown eyes, very pale skin and I was, I thought, a little bit too lanky.

"Not to mention just weird," he said with a wink.

"Jerk," I said, punching his shoulder. "Ouch, what have you got in your sleeve, that hurt!" My hand felt like I had hit a solid wall.

"Nothing, that was a bad punch," he said, sticking his cigar back in his mouth.

"See what I mean, then? If I hurt myself from just hitting your shoulder, then I'm going to be dead in like, three days of getting there,"

"You don't even know if you're going back there, why are you worrying about it?" he asked.

"Because I don't want to go back and it's normal for people to worry over stuff that might change their life just slightly,"

"Where is that place?"

"It's down south in Calgary,"

"Did you make any money tonight?"

"Are you changing the subject?"

"Yeah,"

"I made fifty dollars from one guy before that man came in and I couldn't any anymore,"

"Are you ever gonna' get me a beer?"

"No, you have to ask Tom for one while that guy's here," I said just as the man and Tom shook hands and the man started walking back over to where I was sitting. I tried to act casual, as if I hadn't spent those few hours of him being there just staring at him.

"Miss Wells, may I had a word with you?" he asked, looking to me and then to Logan. "Alone,"

Logan made a noise that sounded like a small growl before standing up. "I'll see you tomorrow, kid,"

"No tip?" I asked with a smile.

"Yeah, don't talk to strangers," he said after blowing out the smoke from his cigar and then gave me a small wink.

"I'll keep that in mind when I'm working the street corners next week," I said sarcastically, rolling my eyes. "Goodnight Logan,"

"Goodnight," he said, leaving.

Once Logan was gone, the man sat down on his bar stool. "My name is Mr. Edgers and I'm here because you're father would like for you to live with him once he's out of jail,"

"I know, he wrote me a letter,"

"I'm sure you would like to meet him first,"

"I would like to know why he's in jail,"

"I don't think it's my position to tell you,"

"Then I don't want to even keep this conversation going, if I don't know what my father did that made him get sent to prison then I don't want to meet him and I'll file for legal emancipation from him so that I can live on my own,"

He looked at me with frustration and sighed. "Miss Wells, I just think that he, or even your foster parents, should be the ones to tell you, not me,"

"Tom and Viv know what he did?" I asked, immediately feeling stupid for having never though to ask them about it. I had always assumed that they didn't know either, but they had to read my background check before taking me in, so of course they would have known about my father.

"Yes, they know," he said.

"Hey Tom," I yelled down the bar.

"Yeah?" he said, walking towards me.

"Why did my father get sent to prison?"

He looked at Mr. Edgers and then back to me. "Look, this isn't my business," he said to me, throwing his hands up and walking away.

I got up from my stool and kicked the cabinets behind the bar. "It looks like you've just wasted your time, Mr. Edgers. I'm not going to see my father without knowing what he's done, so if you're not going to tell me, Tom's not going to tell me and he's not told me in the thirteen years that he's been gone, then I'm just going to contest the hearing when he gets out of prison. I know that you're thinking that me working in a bar is going to be a pretty good case in my father getting me back, because you think that this is unfit, but guess what; I'm old enough to tell the court where I want to live and why. My father is a convicted felon, I don't care if he was sent away for stealing lawn gnomes, he went to prison for thirteen years. He's not been there for me, not paid for anything that I own; do you know how many letters he's sent me since he's been gone? One, and that was three months ago, he just wanted to tell me that he was getting out soon and that he was sorry for what he did to me. I've been lied to all of my life, I know that there's another reason that he wants me to live with him, I'm just not sure what it is yet, but I suggest that if you know anything about it for you to tell me so that when the trial comes up, I won't screw it up for you,"

"How could you screw it up for me?" he asked.

"Because I've been here for seven years and you're the first person from Happy Homes to even come here. Now, that doesn't seem like you're doing a very good job down there, does it. I wonder if they investigated your foster care system how many families they would find that haven't been contacted for an update on the kids. I wonder what they would think of the actual kids there, is it still four to a room there, in those little rooms with the bars across the windows? Oh, and I must know Mr. Edgers, how about those little closets that you put the kids in for punishment, did you put anymore of those in or did you just keep the two you had while I was there? No, I wouldn't want anything like that to accidentally slip out while I'm on the stand,"

He glowered at me, pursing his lips and thinking. "Your father was charged with two counts of armed robbery, that's why he's in prison,"

"Alright, when does he want to meet me?"

"This coming Wednesday,"

"I have school, what about next weekend?"

"He wanted to meet you as soon as possible, but I guess the weekend will work. I'll contact you later in the week with all of the information,"

"Alright," I said as he stood up.

"It was nice to meet you," he said, shaking my hand.

"Yeah, you too," I lied, accidentally shocking him. "Sorry, static," I apologized halfheartedly.

"It's fine," he said, leaving.

I watched as he left and suddenly felt the urge to cry, so I ran upstairs. Tom would just have to get over me leaving early. As soon as I got to my room I sat down on my bed and for thirty minutes or more, I just cried. It had been years since I had shed a tear, so as I found myself bawling I also found myself feeling sick. I heard a knock on my door, rushed to wipe the tears from my eyes, and fanned my face, trying to keep from looking red and like I had been crying.

"Come in," I called.

My door opened and Tom walked into my room. "You left early,"

"I know," I said, looking down at my scuffed up shoes.

"What else did that guy have to say?"

"He wants me to meet with my father next weekend,"

"I don't think that that's a good idea,"

"Why not?"

"I just don't think that you need to meet him until it's time for the trial,"

"But I want to,"

"No,"

"What?" I asked, looking up at him.

"We're not going to take you,"

"That's not fair, it's my father, and I should be able to meet him,"

"We're not taking that much time off for to have a ten minute meeting with him. You'll just have to wait a couple of more weeks,"

"I'll go on my own, then,"

"You can't drive into the states by yourself," he reminded me.

"Well then why can't Viv just go with me, you can stay here and run the bar. We won't be gone but for a few days,"

"No, you're not going and that's it," he said, leaving and closing the door behind him.

It wasn't right, why wouldn't he let me go see my own father? I would only be gone for a few days. I had to think of a way to get to Seattle without them stopping me. It was at that time when I had a sudden idea. I waited until Tom and Viv were in bed and asleep, then I pulled on a sweatshirt, hat and tied a scarf around my neck. I then snuck down stairs, out the front door of the bar and ran to the truck sitting in our parking lot. I rapped lightly on the back of the camper door, beginning to regret ever getting out in the cold weather. The camper began to shake and soon Logan was opening the door and staring at me sleepily.

"What's wrong?" he asked, looking suddenly awakened.

"Can I ask you for a favor?"