Disclaimer: See previous chapter...nothing has changed...:)

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Chapter 5.

(Angela)

It's been nearly a month since you and Wolverine (Logan, his name is Logan) escaped from Stryker's hell. Thanks to Mother Nature, you've been snowed into this cabin that belongs to Paul Jennings all that time, unreachable until the first thaw at least. It's the only reason you're still free and still alive and you thank Her every day for this chance.

It hasn't been an easy month. Logan is still prone to bouts of suicidal depression, but they're getting shorter and less frequent. You hope that you'll be here long enough for them to disappear completely. There are times when he says that his mutation isn't a gift, but a curse, something that was put on him to punish him for all the terrible things he's done in his life. Unfortunately, he's losing his hold on his past, losing all the places he's been before this and you don't know how to stop it. Your mind dredges up a memory of some kind of cranial implant that suppressed memory that was being developed, but you never found out if they'd completed it. At least he's not forgetting anything that's happened since he came to the base. Not yet, at least. Your heart skips a beat at the thought that he might forget you someday and it surprises you. Sure, you've lusted after him since pretty much day one, but this forced closeness has changed your feelings. Much as you almost hate to admit it, you're falling in love with the guy. Almost, because it also pleases you that you are still capable of loving.

He's been really quiet these past couple of days, which worries you. Of course, talking about anything except mission parameters, strategy and tactics is pretty foreign for you both. You've shared some personal information here and there, stories about your lives before all of this, but not enough for either one of you to have an intimate perspective on the mind of the other. It's getting easier, but old habits die hard and he'd spent too much time avoiding the attraction you had for one another for it to be entirely comfortable for him.

You're sprawled in the armchair, reading a Stephen King book you found in the nightstand drawer, munching on a bowl of chips on the floor next to you. Logan is sitting in front of the fire, seemingly hypnotized by the flames. You glance over at him and your chest constricts at the sight of him. He's so incredible, even beautiful. But you sense that he's falling back into a funk, so you carefully mark your page and roll off the chair onto the floor next to him.

"Hey Logan." You say softly. "Penny for your thoughts."

"They ain't worth that much." He replies bitterly.

"Actually, they're priceless. But all I have is a penny."

He pulls his knees up to his chest and rests his forehead on his knees. "I'm a monster." He says.

"No you're not." You reply, putting your arm around him. "The real monsters are the ones who did this to us."

"They made me like them. They stole everythin' that makes me who I am. Or was. Or whatever."

"You are not like them. You are a good man."

"I'm not a man at all. Not anymore. I'm a thing."

You move in front of him and grasp his head in your hands. With a small effort, you force him to look at you. "Listen to me. You are not a thing. Or a monster. You're a man, a good man. Sure, bad things happened to you, to both of us, but that doesn't make us bad people."

"How can you say that after the things they made us do for them? They made us killers. They made us want it. They made us LIKE it!" He clenches his fists and you can see the tips of his claws just beneath the skin. "You told me once, a long time ago, how you felt powerful when you were killin' someone. I didn't know what you meant by that for the longest time. But as time went on, I began to understand. I was never afraid of what I am until Stryker brought me here. Now…I can never go back. I'll never be able to sit in a room full of normal people and fool myself into believin' I can pass as one of them."

"Logan, don't worry about that right now. As long as we're stuck here, we'll figure something out." You kiss him softly, your heart aching for him. "But you'll always have me, no matter what."

He looks at you curiously. "What do you mean?"

"I…Logan, I won't leave you as long as you need me." You say, too afraid to tell him you love him. "Don't you think I know how you feel? I can't imagine living among normal people right now. Half the time, I feel like nothing but an animal, totally ruled by my feral instincts to hunt and kill. The other half…I don't know. I don't feel very much at all, except when it comes to you."

He looks into your eyes with something like wonder. His hand comes up to cup the side of your face, then he pulls you in and kisses you. Your arms slide around his neck and you mold your body to his. He feathers kisses down your throat and you gasp as he grabs a handful of your hair to pull your head back. His mouth travels back up to yours and you kiss him hard, tasting a bit of blood as you bite down on his lip. He growls and pulls you down to the floor. He pauses for a moment to just look at you.

"Angela, I…" He begins, but trails off.

"Shh, you don't have to say anything. Just come here."

He lowers himself on top of you and neither of you say anything for a very long time. You lay in front of the fire in a tangle of sweaty limbs, too spent to say anything. You curl up next to him, your head on his shoulder and he wraps his arms around you protectively. Just as you drift off to sleep, you hear him mumble something. You think it was "I love you", but before you can respond you sink into the world of dreams.

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I'm not psychic. I don't read minds or feelings and I can't see the future. But I'm sure that everyone has heard the term "women's intuition". Imagine that mixed with a finely tuned animal instinct and a dash of paranoia. It still doesn't make me psychic and I need to make sure that's completely understood.

We hiked for three more days, checking in with the Professor at least once every day to make sure we were going the right way. On the third day, we saw our first signs that we were in the right area. Rather, Logan smelled the first signs that we were in the right are. We'd come across a place where someone had obviously camped the night before and I was poking around for clues when his head snapped up and he started scenting the air.

"Logan, what is it?" I asked, curious.

"I don't know." He replied, his brow furrowed in concentration. "It smells like…us. But not either one of us."

"What do you mean?" I asked, looking around.

"Human, but feral." He replied, walking slowly to the east. "And he's not far away."

He popped his claws and continued his slow progress to the east. Not wanting to be caught short, I quickly unlaced my boots and set them aside. To hell with frostbite, I wanted all my claws ready to go. I came up beside him quietly and he motioned for me to take the high road. I quickly scurried up the nearest tree and followed him from up there. Our route took us up a fairly high hill, although I could argue that it was a mountain, having lived in a very flat place for so long in Michigan. We reached a plateau and Logan motioned for me to stay where I was. I crouched on a branch of a huge spruce about ten feet off the ground and watched as he cautiously inspected the area.

The attack came so quickly I almost fell out of the tree in shock. Logan had just reached the southern edge of the plateau when a blur leaped out of a tree onto his back. Without hesitation, I sprang from my perch and dashed over to join the fight. Logan reached up and grabbed the figure from his back and tossed it over his head with a scream. It twisted in the air and landed in a defensive crouch, a trick I thought was unique to me until that moment. It (no, HE) took a moment to look us both over, his eyes widening when his gaze fell upon me.

"Hellcat?" He said with a vaguely Oriental accent. His shape was a mixture of panther and Oriental, Japanese if I had to guess, yet he also had long claws not unlike my own and a long black tail. In a way, he reminded me of one of the students, Rahne Sinclair, whose mutation was best compared to lycanthropy. She could shift into the form of a wolf, but she also had a half-wolf form. This guy here looked like he was half-panther. I stopped in my tracks when he said my name, dropping into my own crouch.

"Who are you?" I asked, narrowing my eyes. Logan moved as though to attack him anew, but I gestured for him to stay where he was.

"I am called Totem." He replied, approaching me cautiously. "I am your mate."

"No, you're not." I said, allowing a touch of anger to color my voice. "That would be Logan."

"Who is Logan?" He asked me, clearly confused. "I see only Wolverine."

A ripple of shock went through me. I had been right, Stryker did have a collection of feral mutants. "Listen to me. You're safe now. Stryker's gone and…"

"HE'S DEAD!" Totem screamed. "My father is dead."

Yet more shock on top of shock. "Your…he was your FATHER?"

"He took me in when my own family cast me out. He was my father in all but name only. He made me what I am today."

"And what might that be, bub?" Logan asked, coming up next to me and falling into his own defensive crouch.

"I am his perfect creation." He looked Logan in the eye, then gave a slight bow at the waist. "I am here to take my mate home."

"That ain't gonna happen. She's not your mate."

"I will have her. Father promised her to me." He smiled, but it was cold. "Nothing will stop me."

"Oh yeah?" Logan said and lunged forward. Totem met him halfway and they clashed in a flurry of claws. Totem was as well trained as we were; in fact, it almost looked like he'd been trained specifically to fight us, especially Logan. However, it didn't matter how skilled he was, there was no way he could take both of us on.

I jumped into the fray, taking a swipe at Totem's face with my claws. He dodged under my arm, but was met by Logan's claws as he came back up. The gleaming blades sliced into his forearm and I thought for sure his arm had been cut off, but they stopped when they hit his bones. Logan stepped back and I saw the glint of metal underneath the wound. Shit, he had an adamantium skeleton, too. I circled around behind him as Logan came in for another attack. As Totem concentrated on blocking him, I moved in and jumped on his back, raking him with all four sets of claws before leaping over his head and coming down next to Logan.

What I didn't realize during the fight was that Totem had maneuvered us so we were right at the edge of the plateau. It's no surprise, really, that I didn't notice. My feral side was in control and my mind and body were focused on the enemy before me, not the two hundred-foot drop behind me. However, I was about to become intimately acquainted with it. Logan and I had just moved in for a dual attack, him going in high with me going low. Totem was in full feral mode as much as Logan and I, so I don't think he realized what he did when he lashed out with his foot and sent me reeling to the edge of the plateau. My arms windmilled in an attempt to keep my balance, but the ground was weak there and I fell.

"Angela!" I heard Logan scream as I reached out wildly for something, ANYTHING, to grab onto. My hand slapped hard against a small outcropping of rock and I literally held onto it by my claws. A heartbeat later, Logan's face appeared above me and his hand shot down and grabbed my wrist. "Hold on, baby, I'll pull you up." I could tell he was straining, so I tried to help by digging my foot claws into the side of the plateau, but the earth merely crumbled and I couldn't find a foothold to push myself up with. Just as he started to pull me up, Totem jumped on his back, grabbed his throat and ripped across with his claws. Logan's eyes went wide with shock as a great gout of his blood splashed my face.

"Logan, no!" I gasped in horror. I saw his lips moving, trying to say my name but his throat had been slashed so deep that he couldn't speak. He shook his head and tried again to pull me up, but he was losing blood too fast. His eyes fluttered and I felt his grip on my wrist relax. The last thing I saw was him trying to say "I love you" before his entire body went slack and he let go.

It felt like I hung in the air for a second before falling to the bottom of the ravine. The only good part was the fact that I can't break any bones. However, the sudden stop after a fall of that distance isn't easy on the internal organs. Pain shot through my entire body when I landed, second only to the adamantium bonding process. I could tell I had massive internal bleeding and my hold on life was slipping rapidly. I knew I would be back tomorrow, but I wasn't sure about Logan. I don't know how much blood he can lose before it's fatal or even if it would be fatal. My vision went black and I felt myself growing cold as I receded from reality. As the darkness swallowed me, I heard a scream of anguish come from the top of the plateau that I knew came from Totem. Before I had a chance to process anything else, I died.

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AN: Ooh look, a cliffie:) Just think, you'll have to wait another three days to see what happens next...:) All the same thank you's and stuff as the previous chapter...but before i forget...

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