Miss Maia has returned, and she's two pounds of crazy in a one pound bucket! Luckily that's Logan's specialty.

"I thought love wasn't meant to last
I thought you were just passing through
If I ever get the nerve to ask
What did I get right to deserve somebody like you?
I wasn't expecting that It was only a word
It was almost misheard
I wasn't expecting that
But it came without fear
A month turned into a year
I wasn't expecting that." (Wasn't Expecting That- Jamie Lawson)

Of all the things he'd expected, she hadn't been one. Logan had expected to see his daughter, a little girl, but this… The female in front of him wasn't his daughter. He wasn't sure what she was. A leather muzzle was strapped to her face and her sightless eyes were wild, but this wasn't his daughter. Maia. This angry red headed creature was Maia. And she was trying to strangle him.

Scott was panicking, whispering loudly about getting her to stop. Jean was silent.

Maia scratched and growled and her thin fingers scrambled against his skin, but they did nothing to him. Logan inexplicably knew what to do. He grabbed her arms, and shook them, "Enough, damnit!" Her eyes widened in shock, and she went limp in his grip, panting behind the mask. "Jean, get this damned thing off her."

Jean just stared, but Scott actually managed to have the balls to duck under Logan's arms to unbuckle the metal monstrosity from her face, which she tried to bite him for.

Logan shook her arms again, "Fucking stop that shit." She turned her attentions to him, lunged at him, and sunk her teeth into his neck. Logan growled lowly, and let go of her hands to get his own free from where she'd pinned them between their bodies. He remembered hearing Kitty talk once about a dog she'd had as a child that had had a problem with biting on occasion, and he pulled her close to him, his arms around her body lifting her closer to his neck. He let one hand sit on the base of her neck as he growled, "Let go, Maia." She gasped as she obeyed, and went completely limp, whining softly in his arms.

Had he done this to her? She was crying, and he wanted to make her stop. The anger and tears had tainted her sweet scent and he hated it. They had to get her out of this place. "Time to go." He said, picking her up. He was almost useless on their way out of the facility though because she started fighting him almost as soon as they'd left her macabre bedroom. Scott had had to grab Jean's arm though to get her to move, so Logan was on his own fighting the little harpy. Before they got out of her cell though, her heaving breaths seemed to get the best of her and she went completely lax.

Logan put her over his shoulder and let loose of one set of claws. Four-Eyes was cocky, but even he couldn't compensate for Jean's weird quiet while trying to get the four of them out with minimal damage. Dr. Rice tried to stop them, spouting off shit about her needing him, but Logan didn't care to listen, and skewered the man who'd tormented the female in his grip. Rice had tried to touch her even as Logan's claws were sheathed inside his disgusting body. "She's mine." He whispered, hand just touching some of her hair before Logan tossed him away. He was dead before they left the building. She wasn't his.

Logan was relieved that Charles had gotten a room in the inn outside of Valleyview. He didn't know what the hell was going on, but Leslie Kinney didn't need to see this. As soon as they rejoined with Charlie, Maia woke up. Logan tightened his grip on her, unsure of what she was going to do.

"You're safe now, Miss Kinney." Charles said softly, putting a hand on her arm. Maia shook, and flung herself from Logan's grip, hitting the ground hard. She cried out and started crying again.

Jean just sat in the chair across the room staring at her.

Charles reached a hand out to Maia again, "You've been through a great deal of trauma, Miss Kinney, but you're safe here. No one is going to hurt you."

Logan picked her up again and put her on the bed, using a hand to keep her from getting close enough to bite again, "Easy kid."

Maia went completely still, turning her face towards him, and said in a small seeking voice, "L?" She was asleep before she could say anything else, and Logan sat awkwardly next to her.

Charles smiled softly, "She'll be asleep for a while. I helped."

Jean looked at him, her expression nearly as lost as Maia's had been, "Her mind is fractured, Logan." She sighed heavily, "We can't even take her home to her mother."

Scott seemed just as rattled as Logan was, but he was able to focus, "Why can't we take her home?"

Jean scowled at him and waved her arms at Maia, "Look at her!" Both Logan and Scott looked at Maia. It didn't sink in for either of them. Typical men. Jean rummaged through the bag she'd brought, pulling out a copy of the original photograph of Maia, "Look at her!"

Logan felt like he'd been punched, "She looks the same."

Jean nodded, "Exactly. She can't go back to Valleyview looking like a teenager when she's supposed to be almost thirty."

"How?" Logan asked, staring at the female. How had he not noticed that, besides her cataracted eyes, she looked the same as she did from his memories?

Charles wheeled a little closer, peering at her, "Hank would have to run some tests, but it's possible that your child passed some of your DNA to her in-utero and it has caused her to heal like you." He frowned, "I wonder how they managed to blind her if that's the case."

"Don't care." Logan growled, putting himself between Charles and Maia. He had done this to her. Her behavior seemed so similar to his own feral behavior, and he was overwhelmed by guilt.

Charles frowned, "Logan, it will be important to know these things."

Logan couldn't resist the instinct to pick her up and take her into the adjoining room that he and Charles were sharing. He finally took a minute to look at her, to really look at the woman he'd been so sure he'd killed. Her hair wasn't as bright as he remembered it being. That was the first thing he noticed. His eyes traveled over her inhumanly pale flesh, remembering the freckles that dusted over her nose. There were freckles on her back, he remembered. Shit, she still looked like a teenager, a frail teenager. Her lips were tinged blue like she wasn't getting enough oxygen even though her breaths were steady and even.

Now that they were alone and she was asleep, her scent had turned even more familiar. The animal in his head raged with absolute triumph, demanding he make her his again so that their mingled scents would return. She needed to smell like him. She'd smelled enough like the lock of brown hair had that he'd found her, but his brain was finally discerning the differences between the two female scents. He laid his jacket over her and pulled himself away from her.

Maia moaned softly, and he looked back at her. Her fingers were reaching out towards him. Before he knew what he was doing he reached out to her, brushing his hand over her head, ruffling her red hair gently, "Get some sleep, kid. I won't be far." Logan waited a second for her to relax back into sleep before he went back to the others and growled, "How did we not know she was alive?"

Charles shook his head, "There's no real paper trial, Logan. We couldn't have known."

"They've had her alone for ten years. She sure as hell wasn't blind before." Logan told them, running his hands through his hair in frustration, "If she's alive, where the hell is our kid?"

"Your daughter." Charles corrected. "We'll have to ask Miss Kinney what she knows when she wakes up. She needed to rest though. Hearing your voice overstimulated her brain, she literally could not process the idea that you and 'L' are the same person. She thought it was a trick."

Jean responded to Logan's questioning stare, "She thought you were there to torture her." She put her face in her hands, "She was certain you were there to rape her."

He felt his blood boil, "Did they do that to her?"

Jean shrugged gracelessly, "I don't think so, she seemed pretty determined for it not to happen."

Logan pushed the rest of their discussions out of his head. She'd tried to kill him to protect herself from being violated. His mind supplied a whole host of things they could have done to her in ten years, particularly when she'd had enough of his DNA in her bloodstream to bring her back from near death.

He registered-after pushing away his dark thoughts- sounds of discomfort coming from the room to his right: Maia. The other three X-Men had gone to sleep, Charles on one bed with Jean and Scott on the other, and he considered waking them. He chose against it though, not everyone needed to be tormented. So much for Charles saying she would sleep for a while.

She was sleeping, she just wasn't sleeping peacefully. That same strange impulse that he'd felt earlier compelled him to stand up from the chair he'd been sitting in. He moved silently, like he was on a mission, opening the door. What he saw inside twisted his chest mercilessly: she looked lost and afraid, trying to escape from a reality that no longer existed. Logan walked closer to the bed, deliberately slow, measuring every step, the soldier in the back of his mind determining the best way to wake her up. In the end, she started getting more and more distressed, and he leaned in and shook her shoulder gently, whispering her name. It took a few gentle shakes for her to finally wake up, and she stared at him with an unnatural darkness in her sightless eyes.

In the blink of an eye she backed away from him as much as the bed would allow, a look of fear on her face, "Leave me alone!" She held her hands out in front of her, "Don't touch me! I'll be good! I'm sorry!"

He had to do something to abate that fear, he couldn't stand her fearing him, even if he relished in others dong so. Logan got onto the bed, "Hey there, I'm not going to hurt you." She was a teary mess, but he took her hands in his and brought them to his face, "See, it's me. No one here is hurting you."

Her fingers were cold on his cheeks, but he let her move them across his face to the bridge of his nose and the scruff on his face. Her whisper was hardly a sound, but one of complete awe. "L? Really?"

He felt the corners of his mouth turn up in spite of himself, "Yeah, it's L. You're safe, Maia."

In one breath she surged forward, and threw her arms around his neck, sobbing hysterically. She slid down into his lap as sleep began to drag her back, looking up at his face. "You came back for me."

"I did." He told her, unsure of whatever promise he must have made her, or whatever her mind had concocted. He just held her, wondering why she felt more like home than anything he'd ever known.

Jean was standing in the doorway, a small smile on her face. She said softly, once Maia had fallen back to sleep, "She finally believes you." Logan held Maia in his arms, not understanding why she'd somehow survived his claws just to be curled up in his lap ten years later. He remembered what they were missing though. A little girl with brown hair who'd been through only God knows what in her short life. Jean nodded at his thoughts, "We'll find her, Logan. I'm sure of that."

Logan shifted Maia in his grip as she fell asleep again, "We'd better." If Maia was fractured like Jean said, he didn't think she could handle a negative outcome. He didn't think he could either.

The first thing Maia asked when she woke up and stopped fighting him, of course, was where their daughter was. He wished like hell he had an answer for her.

Hope you guys are still here! Liking the slightly longer chapters? Let me know what you think!
-Jenn