Disclaimer: I own nothing, not even my own pride anymore. I slipped and fell while shopping today and injured myself something pretty. My foot's killing me and I can't really walk on it much. But at least I have an excuse to sit and type up another chapter. I hope ya'll enjoy the story!

Sidenote: I want to thank katemary77 for informing me that I had misspelled the title of my story. That should be fixed now. Also, I wanted to thank everyone for the reviews so far. I get so nervous when I write because I never know what ya'll will like or hate. Like with 'Family Portrait', it's my highest viewed story to date and I nearly stopped it about three chapters in because I didn't know if it was any good or not. So, if ya'll like it, please drop a tiny review to let me know if you do. Or even if you don't, drop one and tell me what you hate. Just so I can know in the future... Yes, I'm stalling, now on with the story!

I didn't know who she was, this Jean, but I had seen her in a number of my visions. She meant something to all of them, but to him in particular. She meant a lot to Logan.

I see them, in a jet, there's a man I had seen only once before and he's screaming 'no'. I don't know if it's because of the situation or because Logan keeps repeating that she's gone, over and over, and he's near crying. They both stand there, Logan saying that she's gone and the other man, Scott, he keeps screaming 'No, we'll get her back, we'll get her back' before he falls against Logan, crying. I hear someone reciting The Psalm of David, but I never see who, and then I see this man Scott, fall to the floor. Logan stumbles back into a seat, all the while mumbling that she's gone. Both are crying. I see his face, I look into his eyes and it's as though right then, everything had been taken from him and he had nothing left.

And that's when I woke up.

Broken sunlight spilled in across my bed from the window, leaving a streak of white to lay across my legs as I sat up with a gasp. My head was pounding and I grabbed it to try to stop the pain. Although the vision was gone, I could still hear the echoes of the screams in my head.

"Hey Marie, I'm gonna' have to call you back later, darlin'… Alright, bye," I heard Logan say, hanging up the phone. "Hey kid, you alright?"

"Make it stop. I don't want to hear it anymore, just make it stop," I pleaded, the voices screaming louder.

'Jean's dead.'

'Don't you say that!'

He pulled my hands away and replaced them with his. He sat down in front of me and looked straight into my eyes, reminding me of the first night we met. "Can you hear me?" he asked. I shook my head 'yes'. "All right, listen to me; just me, okay? Whatever you're hearin' ain't real, it ain't here. I'm the only on talkin' right now." I couldn't stop the tears and closed my eyes to try to focus. "Come on kid, it's just me, listen to me."

'She's gone. She's gone. She's gone.'

It felt as if there was a large amount of pressure being pressed against my brain and with each scream I heard, each echo in my mind, it felt as if the pressure doubled. I wanted to scream out in pain, in a sort of horror over the agony in the sounds of their voices, but when I opened my mouth, all I could do was gasp and whimper.

"Come on kid, listen to me, not else, alright? No one else is here."

"It hurts, I want it to stop. Make it stop!" I cried, gritting my teeth.

"Just listen to me. Listen to my voice, Jayden!"

It stopped. All the voices, all the pain, all of the pressure, in a split second, it was gone. All of it.

I opened my eyes and looked at him. When I saw him, I don't know why, but I hugged him. And I don't know why, but he let me. I buried my face into his shoulder and cried. Over the past few years, I had gotten used to having visions, and with him, emotional ones. But out of all of the ones that I had had, that was the only one that had stayed with me after it had ended. Never before had one ever hurt. But that one did and I was scared to think that soon, they may all be like that one. However, as he held me, the fear soon faded. I couldn't be scared with him.

"You wanna' talk about it?" he asked.

I shook my head. "No, I think I'm okay," I said, muffled into his shirt. I pulled away and wiped the tears from my face with the back of my hand. "Thank you."

He pushed my hair out of my eyes. "Don't worry about it," he said. "Are they always that bad?"

"No, it's never been this bad before. I don't know why this one was so different."

"What happened?"

"I don't know. Everything was like it usually is; it was just a vision and when it was over, I woke up. But I could still hear everything. All of the screaming and yelling, it was so loud and I didn't know what to do," I said, trying to wipe away what tears were left. I sat there for a moment before I thought of something; I didn't know if what I had seen was something that had already happened or if it was something that could be stopped. "Do you know anyone named Jean?"

His body tensed, his breathing quickened and he moved his hand from my arm. "Yeah, she's dead," he said bluntly.

I nodded. "I'm sorry."

The look in his eyes from my vision returned and my heart sank. He had been in love with her and she had died. That's why he had looked as though everything had been taken from him; it had.

When we got to our next motel, I was so exhausted from the events of the night before and that morning that I decided to take a nap. When I woke up, it was part two in the morning and the only light was coming from the open bathroom door.

I rolled over and sat up, feeling groggy and hungry. I stood and walked to the refrigerator. Logan and I had bought some food for us both earlier and I was particularly craving one of the tacos I had bought. Right as I was about to open the door, I saw the note tacked to it.

'Went into town for a fight. Be back at around three or four. If you leave before I get back, take care of yourself.

L'

I took it down and threw it in the trash bin before grabbing two of the tacos from the refrigerator and sticking them in the microwave to heat. I walked over to the window and pulled back the curtains to look out at the parking lot. It was raining. Still. It seemed as though that's all it had done since I had arrived. I generally liked the rain and storms had never bothered me, I actually enjoyed them, but over the past few weeks, it had gotten a little ridiculous. Perhaps I wouldn't have minded it so badly if it wasn't so cold.

I stood by the window until I heard the timer on the microwave go off. Half way through eating, I saw headlights shine through the open curtains, as I heard the sound of Logan's truck pull up outside. A few moments later, he was unlocking the door and walking in.

"There a reason why you're sittin' in the dark?" he asked, shucking his wet jacket from his body.

"I've got a headache and I thought the light might make it worse," I said, mouth full of food. "That and I'm too lazy to turn one on."

He grunted out a laugh. "Fair enough."

"You're back kind of early, aren't you?"

"Yeah, they closed early. I didn't even get a drink."

"Isn't that what the beer in the refrigerator's for?"

"That's for breakfast," he said, walking over towards it. "That reminds me, though."

"You know, I've never met anyone that drinks beers with their breakfast, before. Though I'm sure if anyone else did, without your healing, they'd be a week away from an AA meeting."

He pulled out a can and popped it open, drinking about half of it down in one sip, as he stood with the refrigerator door open. "Ever had one?" he asked, closing the door. He then pulled out the chair beside me and sat down.

"No, I was taught it was bad manners to get sloshed. Also, I'm a little too young."

He cocked an eyebrow at me. "Ain't it bad manners to put your elbows on the table and talk with your mouth full, too?"

I shrugged. "I get tired of being mannerly all the time."

"I wasn't aware that you were ever mannerly."

"Ha, funny," I said dry and sarcastically.

He just smirked at me. He was like my older, angrier, slightly more male, alter ego.

We fell quiet for a moment as I continued to eat and he finished his beer before getting another one and popping it open. "You still wanna' find your real mother?" he asked.

I pulled my feet up to my seat, wrapping my arms around my legs as I rest my chin on my knees. "Yeah. I don't know why, but I really think she might be able to help me."

"Is she a mutant, too?"

"I don't know. I would think that would be something I couldn't forget, but I don't remember anything ever being said about it. I don't know that I expect her to be one, though. But I don't really know what I expect."

"You think she'll wanna' see you?"

I shrugged again. "I don't know, I don't see why not."

"She did give you away."

"Not because she wanted to; she just couldn't take care of me."

"You remember much of her?"

"No. I remember bits of her, but mostly I just remember the last day I saw her. She had long, black hair and she had it clipped back. She was wearing this green dress and uh…she read me this book, some Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, or something, and there was this one line that stuck it my memory. It was…well, it's uh, it's kind of silly, but it was 'my favorite part of the day, is when you and me become we'. Right after she finished reading it, she told me she had to leave me. There was no transition, there was never any talk that she might have to leave me, one day we just got up, she took me to the orphanage and she told me that I was going to live with the other kids there. She said that she loved me but she couldn't take care of me anymore and that there I would be able to find a family that could. I was okay the first few days, but after I realized that she wasn't going to come back for me…that was sad. I really missed her."

"Why had you never thought of contacting her before now?"

"I wanted to get in contact with her, but when I was about ten, I asked about it and they told me that until I was eighteen, they couldn't tell me anything about her."

"How long you been eighteen?" he asked, taking a sip of his beer.

"Not even three months yet. I've been a little preoccupied since then. In case you haven't noticed."

"Hate to say I haven't spent a lot of my time noticin' what you do with yours."

I smiled at him. "You do not hate to say that."

He smiled back. "You're right; I don't," he said with a wink.

I let out a sigh and stared at him in the dark. He was a good-looking guy, I suppose, if you were into older men. His hair was a little weird, but it worked for him. His smiled was nice, when he actually smiled, rather than smirked or scowled. But his eyes, they were so much like mine. I didn't know how, didn't know why, and didn't care. He was a gruff man, a little scary looking, actually, but when I looked in his eyes, they felt so familiar that I couldn't help but be comforted by them. Along with their shape and color, which matched mine to a near perfect, there was also a look of loneliness, something of which I had felt quite a bit. Until I met him.

"Miss Rivers, am I understanding correctly that this man, whom you admittedly still didn't know very well at this point, whom you had seen, as you claim, commit a murder and a man from what you say had a lot of emotional problems caused by the death of a woman whom you say he loved, when you were with him, all your feelings of loneliness over your lifetime went away?" Dr. Lewis asked, interrupting me once again to interject a question.

"Yes sir, you understand correctly that that's what I'm saying. However, he had emotional problems far before Jean died, and I didn't see him commit murder, my eyes were closed. But he did kill him, and only because he didn't want him to go on and hurt anyone else. I told you that."

"So you believe that he chose the lesser of two evils?"

"No sir, I believe that Logan did what he thought was right. Despite how you may see him by how I describe him, Logan wasn't a bad guy. He may have done bad things-"

"Like committing murder?"

"Yes, but he…had a strong moral sense, I guess."

"I'm sorry Jayden, but how am I supposed to believe that a man whom you say killed another innocent man, had a 'strong moral sense'? That doesn't make sense to me."

I had been staring out at the rain, idly talking until I could continue with my story, but when I heard him use the word 'innocent', my head snapped towards him. "Innocent? Innocent? Have you been listening to anything I've been saying? The man was going to rape me, how does that make him innocent?"

"He never committed a crime, but you let Logan lead you to believe that those were his intentions. If there was no crime committed, then he was innocent."

"It was self defense, whether a crime was actually committed or not. He was forcing me against my will to go with him."

"It wasn't self defense, not on his part, and you were living with a murderer who was manipulating you to believe that you were only safe with him."

"Oh my word!" I exclaimed, standing from my seat and walking to the window. "When we started this, I told you that you had to believe me. Why would he want to manipulate me into believe anything? He had no interest in me what so ever and the only reason he was letting me stay with him was because he didn't want me to go out and wander the streets. He let me go with him, not because he had to, but because he didn't want me to end up with someone who would try to manipulate me. Because he was worried about me."

"Why?"

"I don't know," I snapped, crossing my arms.

I watched as his flipped back through some of the notes in his notebook he had been keeping since the beginning of our session. "I think you do."

"Really, and why do you think that?" I asked angrily.

"Because before you told me that he found something about you that was familiar."

"So?"

"So, what was it that he found familiar?"

"I don't know."

"I think you do."

"Do you also that I care because you'd be wrong about that, too."

"Miss Rivers, your attitude with get you no where; we're just here to talk."

"No, I'm here because I promised my parents that I would talk to you, and you're here because you get paid out the freakin' wazoo to sit there and tell me that apparently I'm extremely gullible and believe everything anyone tells me. I'm not stupid, I'm not gullible and if you don't want to believe what I'm saying, then don't. But I'd rather just keep the rest to myself then, if you don't mind."

"I'm not judging you Jayden, if that's what you're implying. I'm simply trying to understand your mindset that would allow you to go against a better judgment and stay with a potentially dangerous man."

"I told you; I can't explain it, but I felt safe with him. The only time I ever saw him fight anyone was in a ring for money, if someone else started it first, or if they were hurting the people he cared about. Logan was, is…whatever, capable of killing anyone, but that doesn't mean he does. He protects the people he cares about."

"Which brings me back to my other question; why did he care about you?"

Logan and I stayed up talking in the dark for another hour. I had never had that before, someone to talk to about nothing. Someone I felt so comfortable with that I could just let go, be myself and talk about whatever. Maybe it was because I was so much like him, or maybe he just put me at ease. I don't know, but once we were done at the kitchen table, we relocated to our beds, respectively, and watched TV. I wasn't sleepy again and he was still too hyped up from his fights that night to rest just yet. We watched an episode of Jerry Springer, laughing at the various freaks and sharing our confusion about the man who had duct taped fish to his chest and admitted to his girlfriend that he had secretly been 'making love' to them.

"Well, ain't that just something you don't hear everyday?" Logan said, standing from his bed.

"Which is a good thing, otherwise you might have to reevaluate who you're hanging out with."

He grunted out a laugh. "That's it for me; I'm gettin' in the shower," he said.

I laughed. "Oh come on, I think they're going to have a man who's sleeping with his father-in-law next."

"Father in law?" he asked, turning with a cocked eyebrow.

"That's what it said. That has to just get complicated, don't you think?"

"At least it's not fish."

"Good point."

He entered the bathroom and within moments, I heard the water in the shower turn on. After the commercial break, the man who was cheating on his wife with her father wasn't quite as entertaining as the fish guy and soon I found myself falling back to sleep. In between drifting from sleep and awake, I heard the TV go off and felt someone covering me up, tucking me into bed. I wanted to believe that he was doing it because despite how hard he fought it, he had started to care about me some. But I knew that the reasoning behind it was because he cared about Marie. She was the reasoning behind everything he did and I knew that he was taking care of me, because he couldn't take care of her. I knew it, but as I rocked myself to sleep, humming the same song as every night, I let myself believe that the man sleeping in the bed next to mine cared only about me. As I was nearly asleep, I was surprised by how much I wanted it to actually be true.

The next day I woke at noon. There was something liberating about waking up at whatever time I wanted. When I lived at home, my parents insisted that I be up at six during the week, and eight during weekends and the summer, but out by myself, I could do whatever I wanted.

"What have I told you about leavin' your crap out in the bathroom?" Logan asked.

Well, maybe not whatever I wanted.

"You told me to put it up because you can't shave with it in your way," I said, talking into my pillow. "But seriously dude; shouldn't it only take you, like, three minutes to shave? I shouldn't take too long to keep up those muttonchops, which went out of style in like, the seventies."

"I don't care. If you don't keep your crap outta' my way, I'm trowin' it out."

"Alright, I'll move it," I said, settling back down into my bed.

There was a pause between us. "Doesn't that require gettin' outta' bed?"

I let out a small growl and stood from my bed, marching into the bathroom where Logan was standing with his hands at his waist, waiting for me. I snatched my things off the counter, giving him a sleep scowl as I excited the room. However, I'm sure the scowl would have been more effective if I hadn't banged my foot on the doorway going out, causing me to trip. I heard him laugh and when I looked back at him, I saw him smirking at me.

"Yeah, hardy-freakin'-har," I said dryly, trying to recompose myself enough to get to my bag to put away my things. As I was walking over to it, I saw a cockroach crawl across the floor. I screamed and jumped onto one of the chairs by the small kitchen table.

Logan came running from the bathroom. "What's wrong?"

"I just saw a massive cockroach!"

"Are you serious?" he asked, his voice falling flat and bored.

"Yes! It nearly crawled over my foot."

"Look, unless you're hurt, someone's tryin' to break in, or it's one freakin' big bug, don't scream like that again. All right?"

"It was a freakin' big bug!"

"Was it big enough to eat you?"

"No."

"Then don't scream."

I threw my arms down, motioning to the floor where the cockroach had just been. "Dude, we're staying in a motel with bugs!" I nearly shrieked.

"First of all, stop callin' me 'dude', and second, it's a bug; why are you scared?"

"Well, Logan," I said, emphasizing his name, "bugs happen to freak me out. I can't help it. Much like clowns, they're just a little bit creepy."

"You're scared of clowns?" he asked with a cocked eyebrow.

"Don't even plan on making fun of me for that, because it's not going to bother me. I'm dead set on believing that they're evil."

"I think you need to go back to sleep, kid," he said, turning to go back to the bathroom.

"Well I would if there wasn't a roach lose in here!" I yelled after him.

"So what're you gonna' do, stay up on that chair all day? They can climb too, you know?" he said, the smirk returning to his face.

"You're enjoying this, aren't you?"

"Yeah, a little bit," he said with a small laugh.

"Jerk," I muttered under my breath.

"I heard that."

"Crap."