Disclaimer: You know the drill...some people are mine, some aren't...

Chapter 15.

(Angela)

A very loud snarling/growling/shouting noise awakens you from your sleep. What the hell are they doing out there now? You run your fingers through your hair before rolling off your cot and leaving your room, intent on investigating this sound. You figure it's not a security breach because there are no alarms going off. You make your way through the maze of corridors to one of the containment areas.

Any questions you may have had die in your throat at the scene in front of you. The extraction team has brought in another "subject", the word they use for your kind. He's clad only in a pair of jeans that look like they were dragged beneath a troop transport and boots and if there's an inch of his skin that isn't covered in blood, you don't know where it is. His hands are cuffed in front of him, fisted, with his knuckles pointing towards his own chest. Just as it occurs to you to wonder why, he breaks his left hand free and three very long claws spring forth from between his knuckles. Ah, so this is the new "feral subject" that Stryker's had such a hard-on for these past few weeks. Looks like they finally ran him to ground. Poor bastard.

The mutant lashes out with his claws and slashes one of the soldiers so deep in the thigh you just know he'll probably bleed out from his femoral artery before anyone can get to him. Another soldier steps forward and hits him with a taser; this seems to just piss him off. You hear Stryker calling for a subdual team and you know that you'd be part of that, so you walk over to him. Three human soldiers join you, two of which have guns loaded with trank darts.

"Hellcat, get in there and keep him busy so we can bring him down." Stryker barks. "Bastard keeps shrugging off all of our tranks, I don't know how."

"Probably the same reason he's covered in blood without a wound on him, sir. Which is the same reason your tranks stopped working on me months ago. He heals, his system adapts." You reply. You hear a crackle of electricity as another soldier gives the guy a bigger jolt with a bigger taser. That at least seemed to slow him down a bit.

"Adapts? That fast?" Stryker looks incredulous. "We may have to put him in the same program with you."

"Whatever you say, sir." You reply, inwardly cringing.

You take stock of the situation, then kick off your boots and slip out all of your claws. The new guy's back is to you and you approach warily, silently, but he knows you're there anyway. He spins quickly, taking a swipe at you with his claws, but you writhe out of the way and swipe at his face with yours. He barely dodges, but it gives you the chance to maneuver him so the two guys with the tranks will be able to flank him. The two of you circle one another, neither one sure who's the prey in this scenario. He again comes at you, but you dodge and lash out with a roundhouse kick to his back that rakes the claws on your feet across his flesh. He snarls in pain and goes down to one knee. The tranks hit him from either side and he falls forward, subdued for now. But the one thing you saw before Stryker did will stay with you forever. This guy should be bleeding like a stuck pig, thanks to the five deep slashes you gave him. Except they closed before your eyes before the tranks took hold.

Stryker is barking out orders to get him into a level five cell and to have at least two telepaths work on him for the next thirty-six hours. You know that by the time you see this guy again, he'll be pretty mellow, his head full of suggestions that he's here by choice and part of a new elite special forces unit. They'll train him, condition him, then ultimately flay him alive and do the same thing to him they did to you. Except he won't get the advantage of dying every so often to relieve the pain. No, he'll live through the whole thing. If you can call this life "living".

Poor bastard.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

It was Tuesday afternoon and I was in the Danger Room, fighting with Logan. It couldn't rightly be called "sparring", because we were both angry, so neither one of us was holding back. It was no-holds barred and downright ugly. And all because people, even Logan, can be fooled by their eyes.

It all started just after breakfast on Sunday, when Scott asked if he could talk to me alone. I told Logan I'd catch up to him later and went with Scott outside to the patio. Naturally, I was on the defensive because I wasn't really fond of him at all and our last two meetings had been less than agreeable. He sat down on a bench and invited me to sit with him but I chose to remain standing.

"I've been thinking about what you told the kids yesterday." He began. "I've been trying to wrap my brain around the things you said and I just can't."

"Which part?" I asked, genuinely curious.

"All of it, really. But especially the parts about Jean." He swallowed hard. "I know she made a choice and I know it couldn't have been easy, but why didn't she let Kurt teleport her back after she had the plane off the ground?"

I softened enough to sit with him. "Scott, I wasn't there, so I can't tell you what was going through her head. I can only tell you what I would do if I was faced with sacrificing myself to save the people I care about."

"But it's not the same for you. You always come back."

"Sure, if no one gets a hold of my internal organs before I come back. But when I jumped into the fight to help Logan get out, I wasn't thinking about saving myself, not really. I didn't expect to make it out of there alive and part of me didn't want to. I used to have a pretty serious death wish, due to other circumstances. But today? Not so much. If I found myself in the same kind of situation as that escape tomorrow, I would still jump in and fight to the death to make sure everyone got away, because I have the ability to do so. Even if it meant getting back into their clutches and being tested to destruction. But I would make damn sure I took as many of them out as I could before they got their hands on me."

"See, that's the other thing I don't understand. You're so cavalier about death, whether it's your own or you taking life. How can you act like it's no big deal?"

"Because it isn't." I shrugged. "When you've died as many times as I have, you get a unique perspective on the whole concept. And when you've faced off against people who are hell bent on killing you, you learn quickly to kill them first. It's a bad world full of bad people, Scott. You could have categorized me as one of the bad people a long time ago, but people can and do change. I haven't killed anyone just because I wanted to kill in a very long time. Of course, if one of Stryker's merry band of torturers showed up here tomorrow, I'd have to fight Logan for the right to kill them first, but they would die. Not just because I want them all dead, but because they deserve it."

"No one deserves to be murdered when they could be brought to justice."

I shook my head with a bitter chuckle. "Scott, it's you that doesn't understand." I shifted so I was sitting sideways, looking right at him. "Those people will never be brought to justice, not as long as you live. They are well-protected government monsters. What they do is so deep under the term 'black ops' that I'm willing to bet no one knows what they're really doing. The only way to stop them is to do so in a very permanent manner. Or did you already forget what Stryker almost made you do at Alkali Lake?"

He paled visibly, his hands shaking a little. "No, I haven't. I could see what I was doing but I couldn't stop myself. I could have killed Jean. I'm still not sure how she had the power to stop me, but she found it somewhere."

"And that woman that Logan killed was under the same mind control that you were. Not to mention, Stryker almost succeeded in making the Professor kill every mutant on the planet. Had you found Stryker before Logan and Magneto did, would you have been able to hold back enough to spare him in the hopes of getting justice?"

He thought about that for a long moment. "I don't know, I really don't. I like to think that I would have, but I'll never know for certain." He sighed. "I guess that's what scares me the most, the fact that I don't know if I could have left him alive."

"Don't let it scare you, just learn from it. You may be a mutant, but you're also human and you have all the same messy emotions as the rest of us." I don't know what prompted me to do so, but I took his hand. "You have to own the dark parts of your soul or they will eventually own you."

He gave a brief snort of bitter laughter. "What, like Logan?"

I tamped down the rising anger I felt every time Scott insisted on taking digs at Logan. "Logan isn't owned by his darkness. But with the way his memory is all fucked up, it's taking him longer to control it. There's still stuff he doesn't remember about Alkali Lake because there's no connection to me in those areas. But if you really think he's just an animal, then so am I."

"You're nothing like Logan."

"I'm more like him than you, I assure you." I replied, dropping his hand. "I'll tell you the same thing I told him before we came back here. Everything you see about me is a very carefully constructed façade. I would much rather be running barefoot through the wilderness chasing down some poor guy just because he saw too much. That's what they trained me to do, that's what they wanted me to be, a mindless animal. They tortured me, cut me open and augmented me, put me through things you can never imagine. They almost broke me, almost made me exactly what they wanted. They came closer than you'll ever know to making me surrender to the animal. And it's a struggle every day to keep that animal at bay. It's been over fifteen years and I still have to resist the urge to hunt someone down. Sooner or later, I'm going to give in to that urge and hunt down the rest of the monsters who did this to me and to Logan. And when I do, I'm going to make them suffer."

"Angela, I'm sorry. I had no idea…"

"I'm sure you didn't." I snapped, cutting him off. "And it's no different for Logan. You've been letting jealousy cloud your judgment when it comes to him. If you can get past that, you'd see he's really a good man who's willing to put his own life on the line to protect the people around him."

Scott sat there for a moment before standing abruptly. "You've given me a lot to think about, you know."

I stood and faced him. "Yeah, I know. No one ever said having me around would be easy." He smiled and reached over to grip my hand briefly before walking away. I shook my head, not really sure what had just happened, but I figured it could only mean he was starting to move on. I shrugged to myself and went in search of Logan. I found him back by the stream. What I didn't know at the time was that he'd seen me talking to Scott from across the lawn. I didn't find that out until much later.

The second thing to fuel this fight happened on Monday. The Professor had invited us to a staff meeting that morning, which was bewildering to me. After all, I wasn't a member of the staff and neither was Logan. But, we went anyway and had a bombshell dropped on us.

"Logan, Angela, I want to invite you both to teach the students self-defense." He began. "With your combined talents and training, I'm certain that we'll never have a repeat of the incident with Stryker."

"Now wait just a minute." Scott said. "I don't think that's such a good idea. They're trained to kill people."

"I know that Scott. Who better to teach someone how not to be killed than someone who's trained to kill you?"

No one could dispute that logic, so the Professor continued. "I would also like you to teach combat strategy and tactics to the older students who wish to learn them."

Again, it was Scott who disagreed. "Professor, do you think that's wise? These are children we're talking about. They have no business learning how to make war."

"They won't be learning how to make it, just how to fight in one. Whether we like it or not, there is a war on the horizon and it's our duty to make sure they're prepared for it."

"He's right, Scott." Storm piped in. "We have to ensure their safety above anything else. It would be imprudent of us to let them go with no way to defend themselves and others. Right now, they get basic self-defense but if things go as badly as I think they will, then they'll need so much more than that."

"But they're just children! They have no business fighting in a war."

"Like it or not, they'll have to." Logan said. "Do you really think that the people out there are gonna look at them and see nothin' but a bunch of kids? The secret about this place is out, bub. Everyone knows this place is full of mutants, no thanks to Stryker. It's only a matter of time before someone else gets in their head to come back and finish the job."

"Besides, they're not all just children." I added. "Some of these kids are already old enough to join the army if they want to. Some of them were already living on the streets for months, even years before they came here. Whether you want to admit it or not, we are outnumbered in this issue and we have an obligation to prepare these kids for the very worst. Keeping them wrapped in silk in this place is not going to do that."

Once again, my superior logic won the day and Scott grudgingly agreed that we were right. The Professor also asked Logan and I to use our experience and training in infiltration to create a new security system. No one could argue with that, although I'm sure that Scott would have liked to try. Even after our conversation the day before, he still had a lot of knee jerk reactions to both Logan and myself. I figured he just needed more time.

Once the meeting was over, we all went our separate ways. Those who had classes went to teach them, while Logan and I went to the lounge to plan ours. We decided the defense classes would all be co-ed, divided by age group. We also wanted to include using mutant abilities in the classes for the older kids, since they were the most likely to have some modicum of control over their gifts. The strategy and tactics would be confined to students fifteen and older, since they were the ones that would most likely need them. What we weren't planning on telling anyone was that we'd be training those older students to be an army, although Xavier would probably know anyway. But I got the impression that much as he abhorred violence, he was also realistic in the knowledge that a time was coming where it would be unavoidable. He may never resort to it himself, but that didn't mean that others wouldn't need to eventually.

After dinner, Logan went to the Professor to discuss working the new classes in with the existing class schedule. It was coming up on summer break and those kids that still had contact with their families would be going home. We wanted to give any kids that were staying the option to get a jump on the new classes over the summer so they wouldn't have to take them during the regular year if they didn't want to. Since I was at loose ends, I went for a walk on the grounds.

It didn't surprise me when Scott found me in the rose garden. I'd seen him lurking around the periphery since I got here, but he hadn't tried to speak to me privately before the previous day. I heard him come up behind me and I gave him a cool nod and a smile in greeting. "Hey Scott. What's up?"

He shrugged. "Nothing, really." He shuffled his feet and looked around. "I just wanted to apologize for my outburst during the meeting. I don't like to think that it'll actually come down to war for us."

"No one does." I said and started walking. He fell into step beside me. "But not liking it won't make it go away. I was serious the other day when I said I have an obligation to use my gifts for good. Right now, that means I have to defend my own kind. Someday, I may have to use them to defend normal people against my own kind. An enemy is an enemy, no matter what face he wears."

"Am I the enemy? Is that why you're always so defensive around me?"

I shook my head. "No, Scott, you're not. I'm defensive because I don't fit into your black and white world. Something either is or isn't to you, you don't leave any room for middle ground. You want everything to be neatly tied up into its cubbyhole and anything that violates that sense of order is immediately suspect to you. But as soon as something chaotic shows up that can't be categorized, you immediately attack it whether you realize it or not. Logan and I embody that chaos to you and you've been reacting the only way you know how. And I've been reacting to that the only way I know how."

"Yeah, I've been a right bastard, haven't I?"

I put my hand over my heart in feigned shock. "Oh my gods! He admits he's wrong!" I laughed. "I wish Logan could see this. He'd have a heart attack."

Now it was his turn to laugh. "I can't promise that things will change between me and him. We have a bit of…history that'll be hard to let go of."

"I know and I'm not expecting a miracle. But maybe you can stop seeing him as the enemy, huh?"

"I'll try, that's all I can do." He smiled. Just then, a bit of dandelion fluff landed on my cheek and he reached over and brushed it off. I smiled back at him. "I gotta go. Papers to grade and all. See you around." He walked away and I gave him a wave. Now, what I didn't know was that Logan had seen the last part of the exchange from the window in the lounge. Again, I didn't find that out until later.

Which brings me to Tuesday morning. I'd begged off our usual morning run due to cramps (why can't the healing factor get rid of those?) and was sitting in the kitchen with a cup of tea, reading the morning paper. My story had gone from front page to a bare paragraph near the end, which meant I was no longer interesting enough to waste column inches on. All to the good, as far as I was concerned. I had just gotten engrossed in the comics when Scott walked in, yawning.

"Good morning, starshine." I said with a cheerfulness I didn't really feel. He simply scowled irritably. I laughed. "Just be glad I don't start singing it."

"Is your voice that bad?" He asked, fixing himself a cup of tea.

"Not at all. But it's such a chipper little tune, it tends to grate on ones nerves."

"In that case, thank you." He sat down at the island across from me and picked up the parts of the paper I'd already read. We sat there in companionable silence, it being too early for either one of us to be particularly chatty. A few minutes later, I got up to fix another cup of tea, a process that's usually pretty simple. I'm still not sure what happened, but I must not have had a very good grip on the teapot because no sooner had I picked it up, it slipped in my grip and hot water cascaded all down my front.

"Bloody fucking hell!" I yelled, dropping the teapot and jumping back. The water was just under scalding temperature and it burned like hell. Scott's head snapped up and he was out of his seat in a flash. Unfortunately, he hadn't been thinking about the water-slicked floor. He hit the puddle and slipped, crashing into me. I gave a most undignified shriek and we went down on the floor in a tangle of limbs with him on top of me. For some reason, this whole situation struck me as unbearably funny and I started laughing right away. A heartbeat later, so did Scott and we just lay there in the puddle, laughing uncontrollably. Until Logan walked in.

The only warning we had was the low-throated growl before Scott was picked up by the collar of his shirt and thrown into the wall, a fistful of blades inches away from his face. "What the fuck are you doin' with my woman?" Logan snarled.

I snapped to my feet and pushed him away. "Logan! Stand down! It's not what you think!" I yelled, standing between him and Scott. He pushed me roughly aside and lunged for Scott again. Scott, however, already had his hand up to his glasses, ready to pull them off. I again inserted myself in between them, hands raised to ward the off from each other. "Make up your minds now, boys. I'm either getting blasted or stabbed and when I recover, I guarantee I'll be cranky."

"Angela, get back and let me take care of this." Scott said reasonably.

"No. I gave you the options. Now back off or I'll kick both your asses."

"Darlin', I'll deal with you later." Logan said, breathing hard. "Right now, his ass is mine."

I stood my ground. "This dick waving contest has gone on long enough. I'm not about to be caught in the middle of it. One of you better walk away or you're both gonna be recovering in the infirmary in five minutes."

The seconds ticked by, feeling like hours. Finally, Scott lowered his hand. "In deference to the lady, we'll save this for later, Logan. But this is not over." Logan just snorted and Scott walked angrily out of the kitchen.

Logan retracted his claws and grabbed me by the arm. "What the fuck was that all about?" He growled.

"It was a stupid accident!" I hissed. "He slipped on some spilled water and we fell, nothing more!"

"Oh yeah? Then why all of a sudden is he treatin' you so nice? Even called you a lady. It doesn't look like 'nothin'' from where I'm standin'."

I narrowed my eyes. "What, exactly, are you implying?"

"I ain't implyin' nothin'. I've just been usin' my eyes is all. And the two of you have been lookin' pretty cozy these past few days."

I stepped back, bewildered. "What are you talking about?"

"Ever since you did that Q and A for the kids Saturday, I've seen the two of you hangin' all over the place. I saw you holdin' his hand the other day and yesterday in the rose garden."

"Oh for fuck's sake!" I said, rolling my eyes. "All you saw was me comforting him, that's all. We'd been talking about Jean and he was upset. Gods above, Logan, are you actually JEALOUS?"

He narrowed his eyes at me. "Of the Boy Scout? No way!" He replied, but I knew he was lying. I could hear his heartbeat speed up and I saw the faint flush that crawled up his neck.

I crossed my arms. "Yes, you are. You're jealous." I shook my head in disbelief. "What in the world would ever make you think that I'd do anything to betray you?"

"It ain't you I don't trust, darlin'. It's him. I've been watchin' him and he's been watchin' you."

"Oh please! I'm not even his type!"

"Oh yeah? Well let me tell you somethin', sweetheart. Jean was his type and she was my type too. Do the fuckin' math."

I stared at him, gaping. He really thought that Scott and I had been sneaking around behind his back. Cold rage filled me and I slapped him. "Fuck you, Logan. He and I have just come to a sort of mutual understanding. I know who my mate is and he's not the one. You do the fucking math."

I stalked out of the mansion, breaking into a run as soon as I was outside. I made my way to what I had begun to think of as "my" tree and climbed to the top. I lit a cigarette with shaky hands and then burst into tears. I sat up there for a long time, alternately cursing and crying, when a distinctive "bamf" sound beneath me startled me, followed by the odor of brimstone, and I almost fell out of the tree.

"Vhat is the matter, mein freund?" Kurt asked, looking at me with concern in his eyes.

"Men." I replied shortly.

"All of us or just two who are, shall ve say, acting like little boys?"

I couldn't help but smile. "The little boys. Gods above, Kurt! Doesn't Logan know I'd rather die than do anything to hurt him?"

"I am sure he does. But he is not thinking right now. He is letting his eyes fool him. And he is thinking of vhat almost happened vith him and Miss Grey, even though she loved Scott very much."

"But it's different with me and Logan. He should know that." I shifted on my branch to better look at Kurt. "We have this animal inside us and it knows things the human parts of us don't. I belong to Logan, for life. Even when we were apart, I knew that." I lowered my eyes as new tears started to fall. "I thought he knew it, too, but I guess I was wrong."

"No, you are not wrong. Logan is afraid to lose you and it makes him do crazy things." He reached up and took my hand. "He loves you, you know. He vould rather die than hurt you, but he is not thinking in that vay right now."

I nodded, but didn't say anything else. I didn't know what to say. Kurt seemed to understand and didn't say anything else either, he just sat there with me until my tears stopped again. A few moments later, I heard the Professor's voice in my head.

'Angela, please come back inside.' He said. 'You're late to teach your class today.'

Ah crap. 'All right, Professor.' I thought back. 'I'll be right in.'

Kurt smiled at me. "I heard. Do you vant a lift down? It vill be quicker." I nodded and he got on the branch behind me, wrapped his arms and his tail around my shoulders and teleported us to the ground. I stood still for a moment, recovering from the shock of it.

"Ugh. That was…disorienting."

"It alvays is the first time." He said. "It gets better."

I smiled and hugged him. "Thanks, Kurt. For everything."

"Bitte schoen." He bamfed away and I made my way slowly to the mansion.

I was surprised to find that it was already almost two o'clock, which meant I only had a few minutes to change into something more appropriate for teaching kids how to fight. I ran to my room and changed into one of the ubiquitous Xavier school sweatsuits that seem to sprout from every closet and made it to the Danger Room only about five minutes late. Logan was already there, still looking pissed.

"Sorry I'm late. Girly trouble." I said, which got a groan from the boys and understanding nods from the girls. The class was small, consisting of Bobby Drake, Kitty Pryde, Rogue, Jubilee, Piotr Rasputin and another boy named Kyle Gibney. For lack of a better term, they were our "guinea pigs", since they were the first class we'd had. Since this was the first session, we were supposed to be teaching them some basic defense moves. However, it soon became obvious that Logan was in a real fighting mood.

It all started out ok. We paired the students off and put them through a basic warm-up before getting into a basic throw. It's a simple one that doesn't require much strength on the part of the defender, since it's based on using your enemies' momentum against him. Since we weren't doing any real combat scenarios, we had the Danger Room configured as a gym, with padding on the walls and floor. It didn't take long for them to get the first move down well enough for us to move on to some more complicated throws and even some blocks. However, since it was Logan and I demonstrating everything to begin with, there finally came a point where his feral side got tired of being thrown around like a sack of potatoes.

We were showing them how to block a punch, then turn it into a throw to get your opponent at a disadvantage. We executed the move perfectly, but instead of just standing up and explaining the physics behind it, he snapped to his feet and punched me hard enough to make me see stars. Had he hit anyone else like that, they would have been out of commission for a very long time. As it stood, my feral side didn't like that and I lashed out with clawed hands and slashed both cheeks open. "Logan! What is your problem?"

"I don't have one, darlin'." He said, but he was in the classic Wolverine fighting stance and that was just not good right now.

"Class dismissed!" I barked over my shoulder, dropping into my own stance and circling him. "You have five seconds to clear out!" They didn't need to be told twice and scattered. I leveled my gaze at my opponent. "All right, we're alone now. Let's dance."

He didn't need any more prompting than that. With a snarl, he lunged at me, popping his claws and swinging. I dove out of the way, coming up behind him with a slash to his back. As he turned, I kicked off my shoes and brought my leg up in a roundhouse kick, but he blocked it and knocked me off balance. I recovered quickly, thanks to my cat-like reflexes and swept my leg under his feet, knocking him down and springing back to my feet. He snapped back up and lunged for me again. I had anticipated that, however, so I spun out of the way and his face met my elbow and the cartilage in his nose shattered, spraying blood. This only fueled his rage and with a primal roar he lashed out with his claws again. I barely evaded him that time, but I managed to duck under his arm and come up with a solid uppercut to his jaw. His head snapped back and I used that split second to kick him solidly in the gut, doubling him over, before bringing my knee up into his partially healed nose, breaking it again. He went down on his back and I leaped on top of him, my claws at his throat.

"Logan! What the fuck is your problem?" I said, gripping his throat with just under enough pressure to break the skin.

"I can't believe you've been sneakin' around with that…that…Boy Scout!" He growled through clenched teeth. "I can't decide who I want to kill more, you or him!" He tried to buck me off, but I increased the pressure on his throat and he stopped moving.

"If you really wanted me dead, you could do it any time." I pointed out.

"I never said it would be quick, darlin'. You ripped my heart out; now I get to return the favor."

"You have got to be the biggest fucking idiot on the planet, you know that?" I said. "Stop and think! You saw some things that you misinterpreted. What do the rest of your senses tell you, huh? Have you smelled him on me? Do you hear my heart beat faster when he's around? Do I get all flushed and flustered? Gods above, Logan! What does your animal tell you?" I stared him down, waiting for an answer that wasn't forthcoming. Disgusted, I pushed off him and stood, taking a few steps back. I put my own claws away and spread my arms wide, palms out in a gesture of supplication. "Fine, Logan. You want it this way? Then come on, do it. Rip my heart out. At least I won't have to feel it breaking anymore." Fat tears slid down my cheeks as I looked down at him. "I love you, Logan. I've loved you since the first day we escaped from the base. I wanted you even longer. I would rather die than do anything, ANYTHING to hurt you. Since it seems like I have, then I deserve it. So come on, what are you waiting for? I won't even try to stop you." I closed my eyes and waited.

I heard him stand and the sound of his claws retracting slowly, but I didn't open my eyes. I could sense him standing very close to me, felt his breath in my hair and his heat on my skin. The tears continued to fall from behind my closed eyes, but I wasn't about to give in and open them. I don't know how long we stood there, but I finally sensed a movement and it was not what I expected. I had felt the depth of his rage and I knew it was the purest killing rage I'd felt in a very long time. So when he laid his hand gently on my cheek and wiped my tears with his thumb, I collapsed with relief. He caught me and we sank slowly to the floor, clinging tightly to one another. I buried my face in his neck and sobbed. He stroked my hair, making little shushing noises that most who know him would never believe him capable of.

"Logan, I'm sorry. I swear, nothing happened, not ever. It never would, I couldn't do that to you. I love you, I belong to you."

"Shh, darlin'. Don't cry." He said, his voice husky. "I'm the one who should be sorry. I was stupid and jealous and I didn't think." He pulled away and cupped my face in his hands. I was surprised to see tears of his own streaming down his face and I reached up in wonder to wipe them away. "I love you, I'm sorry I hurt you."

"Logan, you're crying." I said softly, stroking his cheek.

"I know. I almost killed you, darlin'. I almost did it on purpose this time." He looked away from me and I could sense that he felt ashamed. "I wanted it, I can't believe how much. But every time I closed my eyes, I kept seein' the two of you on the floor, laughin' and it made me so fuckin' angry every time I saw it. I felt like I couldn't breathe when I saw you there like that and I just…I just…oh God, Angela I almost killed you!"

"Shh, Logan. It's over now." I put my hand under his chin and forced him to look at me. "I know you'd never hurt me. Even if I asked you to, I know you wouldn't."

"How can you say that? How can you ever trust me again?"

"I won't lie to you, I really thought you were going to do it. It broke my heart to think I hurt you and I didn't care if you did kill me right then. But deep down inside, I know you'd never hurt me. I love you. I trust you with my life."

He wrapped his arms around me again and we just sat there holding each other close. Our tears stopped and we let the silence enfold us like a blanket, not wanting to spoil the moment. After a long while, he pulled away and looked at me close, bringing a hand gently to the bruise on my cheek where he'd punched me. "I'm sorry about all of this." He said. "Forgive me?"

"Already done, lover." I said with a smile. "I can't live without you, ya know?"

He smiled back. "I know the feelin'. But can you promise me somethin'?"

"Anything."

"Don't tell anyone I was cryin'. It's bad for my image." I stared at him in shock, then burst into hysterical laughter. "What's so funny?"

"You are, you big dope. I won't tell anyone, but I guarantee the girls would all think it's very sweet and very sexy."

"I can handle the second part. It's the first part I'm afraid of." He smiled at me again, then leaned in and kissed me soundly. "C'mon, let's get outta here before they think we finished each other off."

He helped me up from the floor and wrapped his arm around my shoulders. I slipped mine around his waist and we walked out of there, a little battered inside and out, but feeling lighter than we had in a long time. Having survived this, I knew things could only go uphill from there. In retrospect, I should have known better, since trouble increases when we're together. And trouble was right around the corner.

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AN: Uh oh, what am i planning? Wouldn't you like to know? At any rate, many thanks to my most excellent beta readers, Zac and Turiel Tincdaniel, without whom this story would make a lot less sense...Special thanks to DBK(tm) for his constant badgering for more...:) Super Special thanks to everyone who's reviewed...you should know by now how happy they make me and that there's even a happy dance that happens when i get one...:) So don't wait! Click on that little button and review already! Last, but not least, Extra Super thanks to all the readers...without you, i wouldn't have bothered posting chapter 2, much less made it this far! Happy reading!