Disclaimer: Logan's not mine, which is a source of great sorrow to me...Marvel and Fox own him along with all the other X-Men and their stuff...Angela IS mine, along with Buzz and some other characters that pop up in this story...they're all very territorial and don't like it when other people try to play with them...so hands off!
Author's Note, Part 1: Due to popular demand (and my upcoming vacation in exactly one month), I will be updating with 2 chapters at a time from now until this story is done...after that, you'll probably have to wait til I get home for the next story, already in progress...:)
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Interlude: Dreaming
(Logan)
He senses her before he sees her. He's never seen her around here before, but that's no surprise. He's allowed to go into the officer's club if he wants to, but he prefers the bar in town. It's smaller and it's not packed with a bunch of career military men trying to one-up each other with war stories or tales of female conquest. Give him the civilians any day; at least they're honest.
She slinks to a table near the back, her movements so graceful that even the simple process of walking takes on elements of a dance. She's tiny, almost delicate, but he also suspects that the delicacy is carefully cultivated, a charade she uses to her advantage. A few moments later, a man that he has also never seen before joins her. He swallows a surge of disappointment as he finishes the last dregs of his beer. He signals the bartender for another one, lighting a cigar as he tosses a bill on the counter. He hears the musical sound of her laughter over the din in the bar and again curses his hesitation. A day late and a dollar short, it's the story of his life.
A few moments later, the tiny woman leaves with her companion. He watches as they leave, wondering if she'll ever come in here again. He shakes his head, knowing that luck of that nature would never come to him. Women he could have in plenty, with a mere crook of his little finger. But THAT woman, she's something different. Something…special. He shakes his head again, wondering where that thought came from. He tosses back the last of his beer, grinds out the stub of his cigar and leaves the bar.
The base is only a mile and a half away, but he catches a scent on the wind less than halfway there. Following his nose down an alley, he parses out the different scents it contains. There's the expected smell of refuse and urine, along with the scent of a stray dog nosing through a pile of trash. He also catches the scent of blood. Clenching his hands at his sides, he makes his way further down the alley to the scene of a bloodbath.
The woman's companion is lying slumped to one side facing the wall. A pool of blood is forming beneath the body, the walls liberally splashed in red. He reaches out and turns the corpse over, eyes widening at the carnage that used to be this man's throat. He straightens quickly, scanning the alley for the woman but she's nowhere to be found. Whoever or whatever attacked this man had obviously taken her. He searches the corpse's pockets for identification, but finds nothing. Whoever this poor bastard was, he'll probably wind up buried in Potter's Field, forgotten.
Wiping his hands absently on his pants, he backs away from the body, not wanting to be found near it. He'll call this in to the local authorities when he gets back to base. In the meantime, he hopes the woman fares better than her companion did. He didn't give her very good odds.
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Chapter 4.
(Logan)
I woke up a few minutes before the alarm, confused by the dream I'd just had. I tried to follow the thread of it, but it was fading fast. For some reason, it left me with the strangest feeling that I had seen Angela before being captured by Stryker. On the other hand, if that was true, why hadn't this one come back when all my other memories of her came back all those months ago? I shook my head, trying to clear it and hold on to the images of the dream, but they faded away too quickly. Oh well, I'd ask her about when we were back on the road.
I reached over and turned the alarm off. No sense in letting it go off when I could give Angela a little more sleep while I took a shower. I got up as gently as I could, not wanting to disturb her. She moaned a little in her sleep, then rolled over to my side of the bed. I smiled at that, she did that whenever I got up before she did. I kissed her on the forehead and went to the bathroom.
She was still sleeping when I was done, curled up around my pillow. I cursed myself for not having a camera to capture the moment. Still, we had to leave in a little while, so I pulled on my jeans and a shirt before curling up behind her. I kissed her just below her ear and she moaned sleepily. "Angela. Darlin', it's time to wake up." She frowned in her sleep, which made me smile again. "C'mon baby, we gotta get goin'."
"Mmm, I don't wanna." She complained.
"I know. But we have work to do, remember?"
She rolled over and wrapped herself around me, then her frown deepened. She opened an eye and looked me over, her frown turning into a scowl. "You have clothes on. This is never good."
"It is if you don't wanna get arrested for indecent exposure."
"There's nothing indecent about you being naked. You should be naked all the time." She opened her eyes, yawned and sat up. "I suppose this means I have to get up now."
"Yeah, you do. Sorry darlin', but we do have places to be."
"Fucking hell." She ran her fingers through her hair and yawned again. "It's not even light out yet. You're evil."
"No, I'm just drawn that way. Now get up, we gotta go."
She grumbled the whole time, but eventually she had her things packed and we left the motel. She let me drive without complaining, which was a first. We found a cozy little diner to have breakfast in, taking advantage of all the modern conveniences while we could. She finally started perking up after her fourth cup of coffee. "So, where are we headed?" She asked.
"I figure we'll head in the general direction of the base." I replied. "There's several provincial parks up in that direction, but eventually we'll get into mountains and unprotected land. There's a lot of empty out there. Findin' one guy in all of it ain't gonna be easy."
She nodded. "I kinda figured. We'll just have to keep in contact with Charles until we lose the signal." She called the waitress over for another refill on her coffee, then continued once she left. "I suppose we'll have to leave the Jeep at some point."
"Yeah. I have a feelin' that there won't be many roads where we're headed."
"Shit. I am so not used to this! I'm spoiled by city life."
"That you are. Now finish up, we gotta go."
She tossed back the last of her coffee as I went to pay the bill. She went back to the ladies room while I went back to the Jeep and waited. She emerged a few minutes later and scowled at me. "Logan, you already had a shift. It's my turn to drive."
"C'mon, just get in. We don't have time to waste fightin' over it."
"So don't fight. Let me drive."
"I'll let you drive all the way home, ok? Just get in."
She glared at me again, but finally climbed in the passenger side. It's not that she's a bad driver, but I prefer to be in control in a vehicle. It's nothing I can explain, but I just feel better if I'm driving. Of course, she felt the same way, which explains why we always fought over the keys. If that's the worst thing we'll ever fight about, I'll take it.
We traveled for a couple hours before I asked her about the dream I'd had. Her eyes widened as I described what I could remember. "Damn, Logan! I didn't even know you were there! That was like six months before Stryker brought you back to the base."
"You're kiddin', right?" She shook her head and I cursed under my breath. "So you didn't see me at all that night?"
"No. I was sent to intercept that guy, he had some files on disk that he'd stolen from Canadian Intelligence. At least, that's the story they gave me. He was supposed to pass them off to some other woman, but I killed her and took her place. He didn't want to make the drop in the bar, so that's why we left. Once I had what I needed, I took him out. Gods, I'm so stupid!"
"Why you say that?"
"You don't understand, Logan. I'm the best at what I do, the very best. Until just now, I thought I'd never been seen. I never left witnesses. You must have gotten to that alley less than three minutes after I left it. Had you known it was me who did it…" She trailed off and looked away.
I swallowed hard. "Had I known it was you who killed that guy, I'd have come after you."
"And we wouldn't be here now. My cover would have been blown and they'd have killed me. Permanently."
I shivered with a sudden chill that had nothing to do with the weather. From what I remembered of the dream, memory, whatever, was that I assumed the man had been killed and she'd been taken somewhere. It had never occurred to me that she'd been the killer. But I also hadn't known anything about her at the time, that she'd been altered, trained and set loose to kill.
Everything happens for a reason. Angela had told me that at some point, I don't remember exactly when. But even if we don't see the reason right away, it will eventually make sense. I had seen her months before we were thrown together into our own personal hell, but she'd never known it and I hadn't recognized her for what she was. If I'd followed right after her, everything would be far different now. I shuddered to think how much different.
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It was late afternoon when Angela checked in with Chuck again. He told her that we were still heading in the right direction and gave us the coordinates of the mutant's current position. We'd already left most of the protected land behind, coming up on the mountains and other unprotected areas that only the most hardcore adventurers go into. About an hour later, I found a good place to stash the Jeep and we started out on foot into the wilderness.
I'm not as familiar with Quebec as I am with the more western parts of Canada. Which makes sense, since I spent so much of the past fifteen years out there. But wilderness is wilderness and I love it all the same. I loved my new home at the mansion, don't get me wrong, but being behind walls all the time makes me feel almost claustrophobic. I much prefer being under the open sky, surrounded by trees and clean air. I checked our heading with my internal compass and we started the hard part of our journey.
Naturally, Angela had me carrying all the really heavy stuff, like the tent and bedrolls, while she carried what provisions we had and the water. Out here, we could easily live off the land and would do so as often as possible. We'd just have to be careful when hunting to make sure we didn't kill more than we could eat and to dispose of the remains carefully. No sense in being thought of as poachers or something. It was colder here than back in Westchester, the bite of winter already obvious in the air and it would only get worse as we went higher. Angela was already grumbling about having to wear shoes and I really didn't blame her. She's better off barefoot, since her claws give her better traction on the ground, but I also didn't want to chance her getting a case of frostbite that her healing factor couldn't take care of. It was no big deal for me, but hers was so much slower that stuff like that was always a concern.
We hiked until full dark, setting up camp and starting a small fire for warmth. I set up the tent while she prepared some of our provisions over the fire. As I walked back to the fire, I was awash in memory as I realized this was exactly the way we'd done things in the Bad Old Days. Not out of any sexist notions, but because she was better at the cooking than I was. In fact, I recalled a time when she threatened me with a slow, painful death if I tried to cook again because the results were always so chancy. But it also bothered me a little, that no matter how far away from that we'd managed to get, things still hadn't changed as much as I wished they had. We'd fallen into familiar patterns far too easily and it was uncomfortable to say the least. We weren't even talking, which was unusual for us now, but had been the norm back then.
I looked across the fire and found Angela staring at me. It was uncanny because she'd done the same thing way back when but I really didn't like it now. We sat there like that for a long time, like two predators feeling each other out. I finally got fed up with the whole thing. "Why are you staring at me?" I asked, scowling.
"I don't like this." She stated simply. "I don't like anything about it. Let's go back."
"Angela, we can't."
"Yes, we can. We should. I don't…this feels to much like…back then."
I shivered. "Yeah. I was just thinkin' the same thing." I got up and crossed over to her. I knelt down and took her hands in mine. "But we told Chuck…"
"I don't fucking care!" She said and I could hear the worry in her voice. "I just…I can't explain it, Logan. Something about this is very seriously not right. I can feel it in my bones."
"Darlin', listen to me." I said, gripping her hands tighter. "I won't let anything happen to you. I promise."
She smiled weakly and squeezed my hands back. "I know, lover, believe me I do. But there are some things that are just meant to happen." She leaned over and kissed me before I could ask her about her cryptic remark. By the time we fell asleep a few hours later, I'd forgotten all about it. Looking back, I wish I hadn't.
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Author's Note, Part 2: I have many people to thank, starting with Zac and Turiel Tincdaniel, my ever vigilant beta readers...also, huge thanks to DBK(tm) for being the most lovable pain in the ass i've ever known...love you! Next, i'd like to thank Dee (MidLifeCrisis) for her helpful suggestions when i get really stuck...we really need to collaborate someday girl! Also, i'd like to thank my readers...without you, i have no reason to do this...finally, i'd like to thank the 10 percent of my readers who have also reviewed...the reviews are the only way i know if this story is good, bad or otherwise...love it or hate it, i want to know...:)
So click the little button that says "submit review" already! Good reviews get the happy dance...flames will be met with a troupe of drummers and belly dancers...:)