Disclaimer: Marvel and 20th Century Fox own the good stuff...i'm just playing with them...:)

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Chapter 8

(Logan)

You're sitting on the bank of a river, the water rushing mere inches away from your feet. The sun is setting behind the mountains in the distance, the sky above you fading from blue to deepest purple, the clouds ablaze in orange, yellow and pink. You flick the ash from the end of your cigar and sigh, knowing this is the last day of peace that you'll have for weeks. You're being sent on another covert mission, this time to Hungary and the team you have assembled are all the tops of their fields.

You hear a furtive sound in the long grass behind you and you smile a little. You know you're being stalked by the deadliest of predators and you have to time this perfectly or else all will be lost. As the sound draws closer, you tense a little and wait a few more seconds before springing your surprise counter attack. You fall on the predator with a growl, pinning it to the ground and launching your offensive. The shape beneath you giggles helplessly as you tickle him mercilessly.

"Daddy, stop it!" He says breathlessly. "Stop tickling me I can't breathe!"

You scoop the boy up and toss him over your shoulder, striding purposefully to the river. "The only way to defeat the Blakemonster is water!" You snarl and he pummels your back with renewed laughter. You flip him around and grab him by the ankles, dangling him just above the water's surface. "Do you surrender, Blakemonster?"

"No, no, no!" He screams through his giggles. "I have a secret weapon!"

"Oh yeah? And what might that be, bub?"

Just then, another small figure grabs you around the waist and starts pulling you away from the river. "I'm the secret weapon!" She screams and you allow yourself to fall gently to the ground, cradling your son carefully so you don't hurt him.

"Oh no! Not the Katiebeast!" You yell as the two of them fall on you and start a tickle attack of their own. Being ticklish is your biggest weakness as far as they're concerned and they take full advantage of that fact, leaving you gasping for breath when they finally tire themselves out. By then, full night is upon you, a billion stars filling the skies with their diamond glints. The Katiebeast snuggles in to your shoulder and you wrap an arm around her and kiss the top of her head. "Daddy, I love you." She says and you smile.

"I love you too, Katiebeast." You reply as you gather your son into your other shoulder. The three of you lay there in the grass, watching the stars until more footsteps come up behind you.

"Logan, how many times have I told you not to lay around in the grass with the kids?" She says, her irritation mostly feigned. You sit up and grin at her and she sighs before lowering herself to the ground next to you. You move your daughter in front of you and wrap your arm around your wife. She kisses you on the cheek and cuddles up close to you. "You are the most impossible man."

"Ah, but you love me anyway." You say and she chuckles softly. The four of you stay that way for a long time, long enough for the children to fall asleep in your arms. You gather up your son as your wife cradles your daughter to her breast and you make your way back to the house. You carefully tuck the children into bed, kissing them softly and closing the door behind you. You make the rounds of your house, checking the locks on all the windows and doors before joining your wife in your bedroom.

She's sitting at her dressing table brushing out her long black hair in even strokes. You come up behind her and lift a portion of it to your lips, running the silken strands through your fingers. She puts down her brush and stands, smiling at you as she slides into your arms.

"I wish you didn't have to leave tomorrow." She says as she presses herself against your chest. "I hate it when you're gone. I'm always afraid you'll never come back."

"I know, Elena, I really do." You reply as you maneuver her towards the bed. "But after this I'm bein' reassigned to the trainin' facility. I'll be home so much you'll get sick o' me before you know it."

"That will never happen, my love. I'm yours until the end of time." You make it to the edge of the bed and sit, pulling her down with you until she's stretched out on top of you. You cup her face in your hands, studying every feature from her deep blue eyes to the curve of her lips, your thumb softly caressing her cheekbone. You truly wish what she said was true, that she'd be yours forever. She knows that you're a mutant. You had to tell her, to give her a chance to leave before it was too late for either of you to turn back. But she didn't care, she loves you just the way you are. What she doesn't know is how old you really are, how your mutation keeps you young and healthy. She'll figure it out eventually, when you haven't changed but she's gotten older. You hope your love will be enough when that happens.

But you're not going to worry about that right now. You draw her face down to yours and kiss her, sliding your hand down her back and lifting her nightgown over her head. A moment later, she carefully undresses you and the two of you explore one another tenderly, memorizing every curve, every line. Hours later, as the moon is rising and the two of you are bathed in it's silvery glow, you hold her close as she falls asleep, locking the image in your mind. You'll be back in a few weeks and after that you'll never have to be apart from her for that long again. Still, you want to take this image with you, so you'll never forget the woman you love.

Five days later, as you're sitting in a hotel room in Hungary, a fire raged through the isolated Canadian prairie, taking your house, your wife and your children with it. You didn't even find out until you returned home almost a month later.

Three years later, Fate delivered you into the hand of a madman. Three weeks after that, he took your memories away. Three months later, you were sent into the field with a woman so much like you that you loved her from the start. A year later, you escaped with her from the only life you'd ever known and started down a path you could have never predicted.

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I woke up all at once, sitting straight up with a cry of pure anguish. I looked around the room and for a second I didn't know where I was. The bed was in the wrong place, the closet was on the wrong side of the room and Elena's dressing table was missing. I felt a hand on my shoulder and I jumped a little, whipping my head around to face Angela. As soon as I saw her, I broke down completely.

"Logan! What's wrong?" She cried, cradling my head against her shoulder and stroking my hair. "Answer me, please!"

I shook my head, not able to put into words what I'd just seen, just remembered for the first time in almost twenty years. I'd had a wife, a family and they were gone; Stryker had seen to that. Granted, it had been an accident of nature that killed them, but Stryker had stolen my memories of them. Until now.

"Logan, come on talk to me!" Angela pleaded. "What did you see?"

I turned into her and wrapped my arms around her waist, my face buried in her neck. I breathed in her scent, which always has a calming effect on me, but it still didn't stop the tears from coming. I'm not the kind of guy who cries over just anything and Angela knows that. But this wasn't just anything, this was remembering another life, another family and another woman I'd loved enough to marry. A family that I'd lost and probably grieved over, but had forgotten all about until now. I shook my head again and just let her hold me until I could pull myself together enough to face her.

It took longer than I thought it would. Grayish light was seeping through the window when I finally took a deep breath and raised my head. She looked just as upset as I felt, but she had a right to know what I'd seen, that I'd had almost twenty years of grieving come crashing in on me all at once. Steeling myself, I told her.

To her credit, she didn't move or say anything, she just let me tell her everything. I thought I saw a bit of passing jealousy in her eyes, but what did I expect? Here I was, telling her every chance that I got that I loved her and only her, that I would be with her forever, yet I'd said the same things to another woman in another place and time. Would I be here right now, in Angela's arms, had Elena lived? Probably not. Probably never. As much as losing Elena had hurt me, the thought of losing Angela hurt me more, which should have told me something. At the time, I just felt like I was betraying Elena's memory by having a somewhat happy life, even as my grief over my wife and children overwhelmed me. Everything that a person feels as they grieve had hit me in that moment, the sorrow of the loss, the anger at myself for not being there, the guilt for being glad I was alive. For the first time in months, I was not safe to be around.

I threw myself out of bed and pulled on one of the Xavier School sweat suits we always had a stock of. Angela was out of bed right behind me. "Logan, where are you going?"

"Danger Room." I snapped, running my hand through my hair. "I need to think." She reached out to grab a sweat suit of her own, but I grabbed her wrist. "What the hell you think you're doin'?"

"Coming with you."

"No, you're not." She glared at me and I dropped her arm. "I need to be alone, all right? Just, leave me alone!" I stalked out of the room, ignoring her voice calling my name behind me and ran down the stairs to the lower level. Once in the Danger Room, I locked the door behind me and shamelessly used my authority to disable the override codes that would allow anyone to end the program and come in after me. I wasn't in a killing mood, but I needed to hit something, someone, so I called up a scenario Buzz had done for me months ago. "Computer, run program 'King of the Cage'." I barked and the steel walls morphed into the rough walls and sawdust covered floor that looked like every other cage-fighting bar in Canada. "Set to level ten. Begin program."

The bar was instantly filled with a wide array of people, mostly hard-eyed men and even harder women. I made my way through the press of bodies to the cage that was set up in the middle of the room, two thugs duking it out while the crowd cheered them on to new levels of violence. I stripped off my shirt and waited for the match to end before taking my place inside the cage.

The thing I like about the Danger Room is how real Buzz can make everything seem. Don't get me wrong, Cyke wasn't half bad at programming it, but Buzz can do things with a computer that should be impossible. So as I waited for my opponent to enter the cage, I shivered a little in the chilly air, my skin breaking out in gooseflesh when a cold draft breathed down my neck. The air smelled of beer, smoke, sweat and fresh blood with an undertone of overused women. If I tried hard enough, I could make out a hundred different actual conversations through the constant babble. Hell, knowing him, I could walk over the bar and get a beer that every part of me would swear was real. I hadn't set foot in a real cage in almost a year, but with this scenario I'd never need to again.

The emcee asked for my name, then started his spiel while his partner took bets outside and scanned the crowd for a likely opponent. I simply stood off to one side, my back to the cage just like in the old days as I waited for my first victim. He had the build of a logger, going a little soft around the middle as some of them do as they get on in years. His hair was cropped short and he didn't waste any time getting in a few shots to my kidneys while my back was still turned. I threw my left elbow back and felt a satisfying crunch as his nose broke, following it with a quick jab to his gut and an uppercut to his jaw, laying him out flat on his back, out for the duration. I took my place back to one side and waited again.

On and on they came, one thug after another, getting progressively harder to beat as the scenario wore on. One of them came complete with brass knuckles, no match for my adamantium ones. Another snuck a knife in and managed to stick it in my thigh before I smashed his face with my knee. An hour passed, then another and still they came, an endless supply of opponents, each one upping the ante a little when he stepped into the cage. And still I beat them, none of them able to do enough to me take me out. By the end of the third hour, I'd beaten four times as many people as the virtual bar would actually hold, but that didn't matter. As long as I stayed in the cage, the computer would continue to try and come up with an opponent who could beat me. But that wasn't the point of this scenario. It was designed to let me pummel as many assholes as I could without needing to resort to using my claws. Buzz had told me there were a few surprises in this program, but I'd never tried to figure out what they were. I just got in the cage, fought until I was done and left.

I was coming up on the end of the fourth hour when I realized someone was watching me from the observation booth above. I wiped the sweat out of my eyes and left the cage, pushing my way back to the center of the virtual bar. I called out to the computer to end the program and peered up into the booth, expecting to find Angela in there. I raised an eyebrow when I saw that my audience was actually Scott. I nodded to him and his voice came over the intercom. "Logan, would you like to open the door so that I can come in there, please?"

"What for?" I snapped, still not done working through the emotional roller coaster that remembering my lost family had put me on.

"Because Angela's worried about you and quite frankly, so am I. I swear, it's just me. No one's going to ambush you when you unlock the door."

I grunted, but did as he asked and unlocked the main door. A moment later, he came in and stopped a few feet from me, arms crossed. "You know the rules about level ten scenarios without backup." He stated.

"Yeah, what of it?" I said, glaring at him. "This one ain't a killer, it's a fighter. Nothin' in here gonna hurt me for long."

"That's not the point and you know it." He leveled his gaze at me and I'm sure that under that visor he was giving me his hardest stare, but it was naturally lost on me. "Anyway, that's not why I'm here."

"You said Angela was worried 'bout me. Well, you can go back and tell her I'm just fine, all right?"

"You're not fine. Logan, she told me."

A growl escaped from my throat and my fists clenched involuntarily at my sides. "She had no fuckin' right to say a damn thing to anyone!" I shouted.

"Maybe, maybe not. It's too late either way." He lowered his arms and sighed. "Look, she asked me to come because she didn't think you'd talk to her."

"And she thought I'd talk to YOU? No fuckin' way. It'll be a damned cold day in hell when that happens."

"Logan, as hard as it is for you to believe, I know what you're feeling."

"NO YOU DON'T!" I snarled, my claws popping out on their own. "Don't you fuckin' dare compare what happened with Jean to this!" My breath came in harsh gasps as it all came back in a flood. How I met Elena, the day I asked her to marry me, the day Blake was born, Katie following three years later. My wife, my children, and I wasn't there to save them. I threw my head back and screamed, then fell to my knees clutching my head.

Scott didn't move from his spot, but he did keep talking. "Yes Logan, I do. Don't you think it kills me every day knowing that I couldn't do anything to save her? And unlike you, I haven't been given a second chance, not yet. You're not the only person who's lost someone they loved more than life. Or did you forget about Emma, too?"

It was like he'd doused me in ice-cold water when he asked me that. One second, I was holding onto my sanity by a thread, my rage threatening to overwhelm me and the next, my head snapped up and I was looking at Scott, horrified. I didn't want to admit it, didn't want him to be right about any of it. But he had lost Jean, who had meant so much more to him than she had to me. Angela had lost her only child to Stryker's chamber of horrors. Unlike Scott, I did have a second chance at all of it, with Angela and now our baby. Yes, my grief over my family was still there, very raw and very real, but I had a new life now that I had to think about and even if the guilt at having this life ate at my very soul, it didn't change the fact that I loved Angela more than I'd loved Elena. And that was almost the hardest part of the whole thing to swallow.

My claws finally slid away and Scott crouched down in front of me. "I know it's like all of that just happened to you a few hours ago. I can't imagine what that's like. But you have a woman upstairs waiting for you who only wants to love you, who believes you're worthy of that love. Please do yourself a favor and prove her right."

"Cyke, you don't know what you're talkin' about." I whispered harshly.

"Yes, I do. I loved Jean so much and I miss her every minute of every day. I have no doubt that you loved your other family just as much. But they're gone and you have Angela right in front of you and she's going to be with you for as long as you want her to be." He snorted bitterly. "Hell, even death can't keep her away from you for long. She lost her daughter and she wasn't able to save her. Now you both have a second chance. Don't throw it away, Logan. She deserves better than that." He stared at me for another moment before turning his back on me. I listened as he left the Danger Room and doors slid closed behind, finally allowing myself to break down when I was sure I was alone.

Damn it, he was right about all of it and as much as my heart was breaking all over again for Elena and our children, it was also completely devoted to Angela and now the baby we were going to have together. I couldn't help but wonder what kind of fucked up world it was when an asshole like me was given chance after chance, yet a stand-up guy like One-Eye seemed doomed to live with losing the only one he'd get. Damn it, he was right.

I dragged myself to my feet and retrieved my sweatshirt, wiping my face with it before pulling it back over my head. Yes, I grieved deeply for the woman I'd loved and lost, the children I'd never get to see grow up. But I'd also never suffer the agony of watching them grow old and die while I endured. Angela would be there as long as I was, watching as the world moved on without us. I scrubbed my face and let out a long sigh, still not completely ready to face her but out of excuses to put it off any longer. I slowly made my way back upstairs, pausing for a moment outside the bedroom door to compose myself the rest of the way.

When I pushed the door open, I stopped and smiled at the scene in front of me. Angela was sleeping, her body wrapped around my pillow, her hair fanned out around her. She'd let it grow long and the curls reached almost to her waist, chocolate brown and currently streaked with a shade of violet so dark it almost blended with the rest of it. Her breathing was slow and even, but I could still smell the faintly bitter tang of tears; she'd probably cried herself to sleep. A lump formed in my throat when I thought of the pain I'd caused her and I could only hope she'd forgive me for being such a dick. I closed the door as softly as I could and crept to the bed, then stretched out behind her and wrapping my arm around her waist. She stirred a little and turned over, opening her eyes slowly. "Hey tiger." I whispered. "I'm sorry I was an asshole."

Her voice was soft, but her eyes were hard. "Logan, you can't shut me out like this." She murmured. "You have over a hundred years that's catching up with you. If you're just gonna take off every time you remember something bad, tell me now so I can go."

My heart clenched painfully in my chest. "What're you talkin' about?"

"I can't do it, Logan. I can't be your lover and your mate only when everything is good inside your head. It's all or nothing. I love you, more than I'll ever be able to tell you, but you broke my heart again today."

"I know, darlin' and I'm sorry. It was just too much, too fast and…"

"Don't you think I know that? Don't you think I understand that it's not gonna be easy to live with? Gods only know how many other memories you'll get back that hurt you just as much. Is it gonna be like this every time, you taking off to the Danger Room or gods know where and leaving me here to wonder and worry? Or will you remember that I'm yours for life and that includes the bad parts too?"

"Angela, what do you want me to say? That I fucked up? I know I did, I'm an idiot. I was so wrapped up in my own head that forgot everythin' else. It's just…I went to bed last night an' all I could think about was our future, our baby, but I woke up this mornin' and there was this whole other family that came back to me an' I wasn't expectin' that. I didn't mean to shut you out."

She sighed and relaxed a little bit, but her eyes remained as hard as before. "I know, Logan. And believe me, I know what it's like to want to run away and let the grief overwhelm you. I didn't get a chance to grieve for Emma until months after she was gone. I had too much other stuff keeping me busy, what with escaping Alkali Lake and everything that happened in the months after that. But once I was alone, I didn't think I'd make it. I lost you and it was like this barrier came down and opened up the grief I'd held off over her. There were times I didn't want to go on, but I knew I had to, if for no other reason than to see you one last time." She lifted her hand to my face, stroking my cheek gently and her eyes finally softened a bit. "I love you, Logan, forever. I'm not your wife and I don't need to be to know that it's true. I just want you to trust me."

"I do, darlin'. I can't promise I won't do stupid shit anymore, but I can promise that I'll try not be such an asshole about it from now on, ok?"

"I suppose it'll do for now." She leaned in and kissed me gently before snuggling into my chest. I just laid there, enjoying the way she felt in my arms and eventually we both drifted back to sleep.

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We woke up again a few hours later and I could tell that Angela was still pissed at me. Not that I blamed her, not really, but I hoped it wouldn't last for too long. I knew how well my woman could hold a grudge and I really didn't want to be on the receiving end of that if I could help it. But I'm not a man who's known for being overly romantic and I didn't know how to make this up to her. While she took a shower, I weighed my options and decided to corner Sam later and ask him for advice. He and Storm were pretty sickening in their complete devotion to each other, so if anyone would know how to make a grand apology, it would be him.

Still, when she emerged from the bathroom twenty minutes later, she came over and wrapped her arms around me, resting her head against my chest for moment. I leaned down and pressed my cheek to the top of her head, but I didn't say anything. The ball was most definitely in her court now and there was precious little I could do or say to bring this to a close. When she pulled away, she gave me a little half-smile and kissed me softly. "I'm still mad at you, you know."

"Yeah, I know." I replied, resting my forehead against hers. "But I'll make it up to you, somehow."

"I don't want you to make it up to me. I want you to make it never happen again. I was serious this morning when I said I would go." I pulled back, panic raging through my body and she tightened her grip on me. "Not forever, I couldn't do that to either one of us. But yeah, I'd go at least until you've got all those memories back. I can't sit back and just watch you tear yourself apart over every bad thing that's ever happened in your life."

"That could take a long time, you know, gettin' it all back."

"I know, lover. We'll come up with something, but we'll do it together."

I nodded and she kissed me again before opening the bedroom door. There were two notes waiting for us, one from Hank asking her to come to the infirmary, the other for me from the Professor. That could only mean one thing; he knew my memories were coming back. I sighed and Angela smirked at me, then wished me good luck and went to her appointment with Dr. McCoy. I took a quick shower and went to meet with Xavier.

He met me in the study instead of his office, which I think he did so I could smoke while we discussed things. That was fine with me, since it would give me something to do while the Professor lectured me or whatever it was he planned on doing. It was odd, really. The nap I'd gotten after my Danger Room cage fight had done wonders to let the memory of Elena and my children settle itself back in where it belonged in my head. It no longer felt like I'd just lost them, the pain was still there but it was more like a dull ache, something I could live with. I would always love them all, but they were gone and I had my life now to focus on.

I actually beat Xavier to the study by about fifteen minutes, so I settled into an armchair near the window where the ashtray was. I lit a cigar and propped my feet up on the windowsill, going over the memories that were coming into clearer focus as time went on. It seems that I'd been in the military more often than not, since I had memories of all of them up to Desert Storm. It was around then that Stryker had captured me, but I was still in the Special Forces at that time, so I'm sure it was only my untimely disappearance that kept me out of that particular conflict. I had some memories that were as clear as the window in front of me, like the one where I was leading an extraction team through a bombed-out town somewhere in the south of France. Others were still vague, hazy recollections of slogging through jungles or carefully navigating minefields. The parts in between were the hardest to grasp and I could only catch a glittering eye here, a shy smile there. So many things, so many people. I wondered how many were still alive.

Chuck finally showed up when I was halfway through my cigar. He brought his chair to a rest across from me and I nodded in greeting. He didn't waste any time getting to the point. "Logan, why didn't you tell me your memory was coming back this way?"

I shrugged. "I guess I didn't know how to explain it."

"Try." His voice was almost cold, his expression hard. I took a long drag off my cigar and launched into an explanation of what I'd seen the two times I'd been out in a healing coma. His face relaxed somewhat, became less hard but no less focused as I described the setting and the things that had come back during both hallucinations and since the last one the day before. When I finished, he let out a deep breath and his shoulders slumped into a more natural posture. "Logan, although I am deeply relieved that your memory has put itself into some kind of order that you can interpret, I am still disturbed by your reactions to those memories."

"Hey, I've already had one lecture today, I ain't in the mood for another one." I snapped, grinding out my cigar.

"I'm not trying to lecture you. I'm offering to help."

I scowled. "Help how?"

"I may be able to set up a kind of mental barrier to keep the older memories from feeling so immediate when they come loose." I opened my mouth to protest, but he held up a hand and I waited. "No, this isn't the same as the ones that Stryker's telepaths put in. This will simply keep them slightly removed from the you-now. They will still be tangible and very real, but you'll see them as an outside observer as opposed to an active participant."

I pulled out another cigar and chewed on the end without lighting it, thinking about what he was offering. I could see where it might not be so bad to remember some of this stuff from outside of it, especially if it helped me keep the peace with Angela. On the other hand, these were my memories and deep down, I wanted to experience them the way they'd actually happened. "I don't know, Chuck. I'll haveta think about it."

"That's all I can ask." He looked at the clock in the corner. "I believe you have a defense class to teach in a few minutes." He said, backing his chair up as I stood. "Remember what Dr. McCoy said about Angela not teaching with you."

"I ain't the one you gotta worry about." I said and made my way to the class. I'd missed the first class of the day, but Piotr had subbed in for me. This class was shaping up to be the next team if Delta made it through, which spoke volumes for the way the kids had taken to their training in here. At the rate they were going, there wasn't going to be a kid left at the school that wasn't an X-Man. What most of the staff didn't know was the part where that was our intention all along. Sure, we'd heard stuff on TV about how mutants were becoming less of a threat and that the Registration Act had been finally shot down in Congress, but Angela and I never believed a word of it. Stryker was all the proof we needed that no matter how things look on the surface, it's the dark places underneath that you have to worry about. And with assholes like Magneto and his band of psychos running around, it was only a matter of time before the truth came out. So yeah, we pushed the kids pretty hard, but it helped us sleep better at night, knowing we'd done all we could to prepare them to keep themselves alive. No matter what, it had to be enough.

Ninety minutes later, the class filed out of the Danger Room to the showers and Angela came in when they were gone. She slipped her arms around my waist and leaned her head against my chest with a sigh. "I just wanted to say I'm sorry about this morning." She said, her voice muffled by my shirt. "I forgot how the hormones make me an emotional wreck when I'm pregnant."

"So it's not just a libido thing? They have to make you crazy, too?" I replied with a smirk. She giggled a little and looked up at me. "Don't worry about it, darlin'. You were right, I was a dick and I promise I'll let you kick my ass if I do it again, ok?"

"That's fair." She smiled and I leaned down to kiss her, my hands buried in her hair. I liked that she was letting it grow and not just because it gave me something to hold on to. Crazy-colored streaks aside, it gave her this unearthly look, like a tiny goddess right out of a myth. I was about to order the computer to lock down the entire Danger Room so I could have some alone time with her when we heard someone clear her throat from the doorway. Angela broke the kiss with a curse. "I really hate people sometimes." She muttered quietly.

I looked over and saw Storm standing there with a knowing smirk on her face. "It's good to see the lovebirds have made up." She said as she walked in.

"Don't call us that." I said with a scowl. "We ain't 'lovebirds'."

"Sure Logan. If it makes you feel better to believe that, you go right ahead." My scowl deepened and she just laughed at me. "Actually, I came down here because I need to talk to you about one of the new guys."

"Let me guess." Angela said and pretended to think for a minute. "Remy?"

"Got it in one." She called out to the computer to run a program she called "Storm's Sanctuary" and the Danger Room melted into a breathtaking view of the African plains. She smiled and sat down in the tall grass, motioning for Angela and me to make ourselves comfortable. "I had Buzz program this for me a couple weeks ago."

"Feelin' a little homesick?" I asked, breathing in the warm air.

"Once in a while." She closed her eyes as a breeze blew through her hair and sighed. "But as much as I'd love to just sit here, I do have legitimate business." She leaned forward and launched into her story.

Remy had come from New Orleans, where he'd been making a living as a thief and pickpocket with the occasional illegal poker game just to mix things up. It had been during one of these games where his mutation first manifested. By backtracking the dates, it appeared that it happened when Xavier had been captured by Stryker and was being used by him in his attempt to destroy all the mutants on the planet. With little to no control over his powers, he'd dropped from sight and remained hidden until he'd figured out how activate it at will. Shortly after this, he'd run into an old friend who had heard about the poker incident and gave him information on the underground. After a few weeks in a safe house near New Orleans, he overheard the woman in charge down there talking to someone else about the school and the X-Men. Two days later, he took off and showed up on our doorstep a week after that.

That had been just over two weeks ago. In that time, he'd managed to piss off every boy over the age of fifteen in the mansion by shamelessly flirting with all the girls. Even Storm hadn't been safe from his attentions, which annoyed Sam to no end. The only person he hadn't pissed off was Bobby and that was only because Rogue had been in a coma at the time. Now she was awake and it would only be a matter of time before that changed. "Which brings me to the issue at hand." Storm said with a sigh. "Remy is hell bent on becoming an X-Man. I don't know how I feel about that, since most of his life was spent on the streets, doing goddess only knows what to survive."

I cleared my throat and leaned forward. "Darlin', I almost hate to play devil's advocate here, but didn't you do much the same thing when you were young?"

Her mouth gaped and her eyes widened, which made me chuckle. A heartbeat later, she snapped her mouth closed and glared at me. "How did you know about that?"

I shrugged. "Like we've been sayin' for months now, that Buzz is a genius." She intensified her glare and the wind began to pick up. "Look, I asked him for complete backgrounds on everyone, includin' you. Never know when an old talent'll come in handy on a mission and I wanted to know what everyone could do outside of their mutation."

"Why didn't you just ask me?"

"Would you have told me?"

She narrowed her eyes, but relaxed and shook her head. "No, probably not. It's not something I'm all that proud of."

"I understand that. But you can't look down at Remy for the same things. You turned out all right."

"Yes, I suppose I did." She stood up and brushed off her pants. "Well then, I'll put him on the class schedule for defense and strategy starting next week. Congratulations Logan, you have a new recruit."

"Be still my beatin' heart." I said dryly and we all laughed. Storm ended the program and once again left Angela and I alone in the Danger Room. My arm snaked around her waist and I pulled her close with a playful grin. "So darlin', you ever thought about makin' love in the wilds of Africa?" Her smile was all the answer I needed.

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AN: Yay, another chapter done! Only like 13 to go, hehehehehe...:) I do want to mention that i found another story i started before i began "Torn Asunder", so i'm also working on finishing that one so i can get it posted...it's way different from this series, a crossover with a couple books by Dean Koontz that i absolutely adore...:) Look for that at some point in the next few weeks...in the meantime, Special thanks to Zac and Turiel Tincdaniel for being the best beta readers ever...Extra Special thanks to DBK(tm) for pushing me to keep this story going...Super Special thanks to my readers, i'm glad you're still with me! And Super Swanky Special thanks to those who have reviewed, which are Ineluctability, reeltreble1031, sela103 and KatieD...thanks for your kind words!

Now go ahead and click the little "go" button down there where it says "submit review"...even if it's just to say hello! And i'll give you a shout-out at the end of the next chapter!