Notice: the uneditied version of 'Plague Dogs' will be posted on .

Logan belongs to Marvel

The doctors, the nurses, the guards, Amelie, and Calypso belong to me. Any other characters will belong their own creators. Thank you.


Snow was on the horizon. Logan could smell it.

Without a doubt, winter was coming faster and faster, on the feet of quick-soled deer. He could see it through the tiny window, the big, dark clouds rolling in, slowly but surely. They looked almost like grapes, each mound rolling over one another, all hurrying to be first.

The window was a great improvement, Logan noted happily (or, as happily as one in his situation could be). For days afterward, he just sat at the window and stared out into the sky (for, strangely, that was the only thing they could see) watching the clouds pass and the sun and moon rise and fall. He hadn't seen the sky in…well, years. Logan felt like a young child in an art exhibit: every different scene was a strange, new, and exciting thing. He'd wanted to reach out and touch the fluffy clouds…but the dirty glass halted his pursuit, and so, he stroked the glass lovingly. It wasn't the same as the clouds, but it was just as fulfilling.

But now, there was only the impeding doom of winter. Every year was a horror story for the subjects, blackened fingers, toes, and noses, dismembered and mutilated joints suffering from extreme frostbite, awful illness that spread like wildfire…and of course, every year had it's different share of troubles, and this year was just as bad. The blankets that had been passed out one evening all had to be returned, half the cages were (and painstakingly) thoroughly cleaned, and most of the children in the cages were gassed and taken to the crematorium.

The culprit?

Lice

Typhus ran ragged in the labs, mad like dogs. Walking down the hall, one could hear the coughs, and the hacking, and the moans, and groans. The skeletons of people stumbled and tripped throughout the halls.

But, something was different…worse. This typhus was stronger, quicker...

Deadlier.

The advanced strain caused seizures, bright red star-like spots to appear on the skin that felt like open sores, a sensitivity to light that became bad enough to knock a full grown man unconscious, catalepsy, and hematemesis…possibly the worst symptom of them all.

"Quit pacin' like that, yer makin' me nervous." Logan growled, chewing on his inner lip. Amelie mumbled something that sounded like "Bite me" and continued to pace the floor, as she wrung her hands together.

"M-M-Maybe it's not even a real experiment!" She whimpered, her wrists starting to make a sharp click noise every time she twisted them in her hands. "I mean, she's been gone all day, what could they-" She let out an exasperated cry, and threw her hands over her head. She swerved to the door and screamed:

"Where's my daughter, you bastards!?"

Logan rose quickly, and pulled her into the back of the cage.

"Yeah, Amelie, that's eh GREAT idea!" He snipped, pulling her to sit next to him. The look she shot at him could freeze fire in it's place. "Look, I know yer worried, I am too. But, yer gonna have to trust that every things gonna be all right."

His words rang true, but Amelie still brought her hands to her face and began to sob, her body shaking with ever breath.

"She's all I've got!" She wheezed between sobs. "If I loose her, I…" the thought was too painful to continue.

Logan could sympathize. At the beginning of the great purge, many people, good, great, amazing, people had ended up in places like these, tiny cages, freezing cold, with nothing to eat other then molding meat that curdled in the belly.

He sighed into her hair.

"Babe, yer going to have to stop fightin' the current. Yer just hurtin' yerself."

She laughed wearily.

"My dear, I've been fighting the current since I was 14 years old. It's going to be hard to stop now."

He looked down at her curiously. And she looked back up at him, bleary eyed and red nosed.

"Don't tell me you don't remember me?" She whispered. "1944, Poland-"

"Sobibor." He finished. He sighed deeply, and held her closer to his chest. "All these years…I wondered what happen'd to yeh…Lot's changed, hasn't it?"

She looked away, back to the steal door. Three separate bars of light fell through the small window bars on the door. Dust particles floated about, curling around flying about, free and wild.

"Yes. It has."


She was thin, emaciated. Her hair was long, tangled, dark like the wet bark of a tree. She had fur, instead of skin, a result of her ability to disguise herself, he'd assumed. Her eyes were bleary, clouded almost. But they still glowed that hue that had attracted him the first place. It was that girl, the one that had walked around the camp with gauze wrapped around her feet, her dress speckled with blood and dirt, and other unmentionable things. The one that had cared for the prisoners like they were all worth something, be they Jew or pole or gypsy or whatever. The one that gave body and soul, for those who she hadn't even known.

She had whispered to him in the dark of the night she wasn't one of this world: She wasn't a "human", she was different. "Not new, but Old, or in laymen's terms, old AND new." Her voice traveled through thin lips, cracked and dry, but still quite hypnotizing. She was an agent of another country, sent to collect data of another kind. He'd thought her crazy: a result of constant work and little food. It was like a story out of a science fiction book: an alien race sent out amongst the "normal folk" Years later, when he really thought about the matter, it made perfect sense. He wasn't exactly considered "normal" himself.

The girl that lay against is chest was older. She was wiser. She was matured. But he could smell the youth that emitted from her breath. In the dark confides of the medical barracks he had kissed her, despite the taste of death that had seeped into his mouth, despite that fact that she was still young. They clung to each other in the face of death itself, whose chilly breath ran down their backs and chilled them to the bone and froze the blood.

That hadn't mattered. There hadn't been any time to matter.

And as the internment camp fell down around them, she kissed his cheek, and promise that she'd find him someday.

"In the future." She'd whispered, before taking off the others.

He'd assumed that she had been killed when the group reached the landmines that had been scattered around the camp.

So he'd forgotten about her: she was dead and gone and nothing would bring her back. And he forgot about her, placing her in the mental files of women he had loved and had died as a result.


Much like the others in her family, Amelie had the ability to mimic "human skin", a disguise that enabled her ability to live around the humans for so long. It was an easy process, not created by magic, but by illusion, an illusion that only animals knew of. Rarely, very rarely, a human could understand the transformation, thus resulting in the small population of half animal half human children that so vastly roamed her island home of Philoctetes.

Ah, Philoctetes…how she longed to be on the crystalline beaches once more, or in the lush jungles and vast planes. Or, maybe even in the crystalline city far up in the mountains, where the sun made the crisp white snow bleed colors: red and blue and green and violet. As an intellectual, she knew that this was just a result of wavelengths reflecting off the white (or something like that. She wasn't a scientist) but the child in her didn't care for wavelengths and frequency and things of that nature. All she cared about was the rainbows that reflected against her face and made her feel like a goddess.

Her daughter hadn't been born on the shores of Philoctetes. She had been born in a tiny, dirty medic barrack, her sobbing cries and pained screams soaking into the waning wood. And the next day, when she was forced back into the salt mines, she clutched said daughter to her breast, covering her sensitive eyes and nose from the flying salt and rock. And when she was pushed onto a truck heading for Crimson Falls Libratory on a small island off the coast of Florida, she promised the little girl that she would never let her be subject to the same torture that she'd been subject to for years.

And now as they lay together, huddled together, head to breast, hearts beating as one, breath flooding and receding collectively, she had to force herself to believe that her connections with the German would save the child for the true horrors that the Libratory had to offer.


Sobbing, shaken, and bleeding from a nasty gash on the arm, Calypso was returned to the cell later that night, leaping right into her mother's arms. She babbled in a quick-tongued language Logan couldn't understand, and buried her head into Amelie's chest, her dress soaked in tears. She soothed the child, holding her close, responding in the language that greatly confused Logan. The German spoke quickly and quietly, his German almost sounding like gibberish. Amelia spoke back, angered, upset, confused. Her voice changed dialect quickly, going from her daughter's soft-tongued language, to the rough tongue of German.

Finally, she sighed, shook her head, and placed a heavy hand on the German's shoulder, thanking him quietly. He nodded, and gently grasped her hand. The German looked up at Logan, nodded, and bid his farewell.

"What happin'd?" Logan promptly demanded as the German locked the door.

"He says they inserted something into her-not like that." She snapped at Logan's horrified look. "A medication, insemination, he really didn't know."

He ran a hand through his hair, matted and wild. Calypso sniffed gently, and then turned and made the "gimmie" hands that she so often did. He smiled gently, an odd, half smile that made him look less disgruntled. Amelie handed the child to him, the weariness in her eyes fading almost. Almost immediately, the child fell asleep, snoring slightly, her hair tangled against his blood-stained wife-beater.

Logan looked up at Amelie, and Amelie looked back. And, saying nothing, they moved to the back of the cage, curled against one another and promptly went to sleep.


whomp.

Whomp

Augh!! Stop it!

Shut up. Shut up!

Please, stop it! I'm sorry, I won't-

Your damn right you won't. Shut UP!

WHAMP.

AUGH! **Sobbing**

They watched the wall quietly, just staring, staring, as if the fight was going to break through the steel and tumble into their tiny cell. Logan felt her grip his shirt tightly and he looped his arm around her arm, pressing Calypso closer to her breast.

Please…please…I'm, I'm-

I. Said. SHUT. UP.

And, then it sounded like the breaking of glass. And then a sickening splat. A few seconds passed, and then-

AAAAUUUGGGGHHHH!!!!

The scream echoed through the hall. The guard was beating her furiously, each punch, each kick, resounding deftly. The woman on the other side of the wall screamed over and over again, pitched running up and down a ladder of sheer pain. She was sobbing, and screaming, and crying, and begging "please, please" over again, begging the guard not to kill her, not to kill her, to spare her, please, to spare her. And soon, it had changed, going from "Please don't kill me," but to "Please, I'm pregnant."

Amelie found Logan's hand, and clutched at it, fearfully staring at the wall.

The punches stopped. He was panting, and she was sobbing, seemingly doubled over.

He was muttering something to himself: this can't be real…she's lying…she'….lying…lying-

YOUR FUCKING LYING, YOU BITCH!

Her hysterics had begun again, pleading, beginning him to spare her. NonoI'mnotI'mnotlyingpleasedon'tkillmepleasedon'tkillme

SHUT UP! JUST SHUT UP!!

She screamed even louder now, and suddenly.

Blam.

There was a splatter. Amelie gasped, and covered her mouth with a stray hand. She shook her head in disbelief, in shock.

"Why…didn't anyone stop him?" She asked to no one in particular, still staring at the wall. She turned her head into his chest, tears leaking down her shallow cheeks.

Logan said nothing. Just buried his head in her neck, and squeezed his eyes shut. This wasn't happening, he repeated to himself. This was just a dream, just a fucking dream, just a fucking nightmare, one fucking mother of a nightmare, and he was just going to wake up, he was going to wake up, and everything was going to be okay.

There was talking in the hall. And soon, the guard was sobbing loudly, and another gunshot resounded. They shook together as the bullet hit, embedding itself into the ceiling.

There was shouting now. The German was shouting orders, telling the other guards to calm down, to stop shouting; they were going to scare the prisoners.

"Screw the prisoners, Jenkin's just punched his own ticket, man!!" One of them screamed at the top of his lungs.

Calypso stirred against her mother's breast, and whimpered slightly.

"My god…" Amelie leaned back, her head settling against Logan's chest. He shook his head, and then turned her against the back wall, away from the noise, away from the chaos. Just the three of them, together, huddled in a corner, away from the madness of man.


The German awoke them the next morning, holding a small bundle of crusted bread, his own personal apology. Amelie, who had stayed awake the night through, her nerves too frayed to conceder sleep, greeted him kindly. He looked sickly, his silver hair ruffled.

"Guten morgen, mine frau." He said quietly, handing her the bundle. It settled in her hand, a few crumbs falling to the ground.

"Thank you, sir. Your very kind." Amelie bowed her head, and turned back to her sleeping companions, placing the bread in Calypso's upturned hand. She turned back to the German, who was watching quietly.

"What happened last night?" Amelie looked beyond him.

The blood still stained the walls, sloppily cleaned, with red streaks still on the floor and paneling. The German seemed to wince suddenly. He raised his hand to stroke the wet splat that had fallen down upon him. He brought it back and grimaced.

She looked at him, frightened, almost.

He smiled gently, and pointed to the top of the doorway. "Brains. They did not do a very thorough job."

Amelie nodded slowly. Her lupine eyes were accented by blackish circles that reminded him a raccoon.

"Who was she?"

The German shrugged sadly. "A young girl, barely into her youth-"

"Sir?"

The German scowled, and turned.

"What?!" he snapped, his body blocking the curious guard's sight into the cage.

"We-We're moving Subject 554 to the crematorium, sir. You told us to let you know when-"

"Fine, fine, just do your job, and don't interrupt me again."

The guard winced, but saluted all the same, and turned his attention to the bundle that lay in the center of the hall.

Amelie silently crept behind the guard and watched under his arms (he was around 6"4, she was barely 5"0).

The guard dragged the large, wrapped up bundle down the hallway. Out of the bundle, a peak of lime green hair was pulled out, painting the hallway with red.

Amelie felt sick to her stomach. The German shook his head, and heaved a sigh. The guard, his face contorted with a look of disgust and mild curiosity, heaved the body into the next hall, the hall with the black stripes. She waited until he was out of earshot to exhale the breath she didn't know she was holding in.

"Was she lying? Was she really-"

"Pregnant?" The German gave a short bark of a laugh. "Yes. A blind man could tell, my dear. Six mon-"

There was a quiet growl in the dark of the cage. Logan stirred in his sleep, still clutching the tiny girl in his arms. They both fell silent catching their breaths in their throats. But, all he did was sigh, and turn over onto his side, his back facing away from the doorway.

"I think that is my que, my dear." He tipped his hat to her, and walked out, shutting the door behind him. The chink of the lock echoed in Amelie's head.

"You gotta real friend there, Babe."

She jumped, crying out in surprise. Logan smiled toothily, propping his head up on his upturned hand.

Her hand still at her chest, she slipped back into his awaiting arms.

"Yes. Loyalty is a commodity here." She said, "I'm very lucky to have met him."

"You still payin' him?" The venom in his voice stung like a slap. She bit the inner of her lip to force the pain back down.

"No. He says he likes having someone here to talk to."

"I'm sure."

With that, Logan pulled her against him, laying her head on his chest, and promptly falling back asleep. As the rays of a new sun gently caressed her face, she listened to his steady heartbeat thud-thud thud-thud thud-thud

And, soon, she was sleeping as well.


Logan watched her breathe. The pungent smell of blood burnt his nose: Late twenties, female, fertile. The night hadn't been new, but it was still hard to comprehend. Cruelty at it's highest, it's most potent.

The saliva in his mouth turned sour (he was making it sour).

So, he concentrated on other things. The walls. The door. The grey skies that now dropped its snowy children onto the earth. Amelie.

She was so strange. But very resourceful, when it came down to survival. His last cellmate hadn't really known what to do, and in the end…it had destroyed her.

Was the love that he had felt for her as a youth still there?

Well, Logan couldn't really give a straight answer. He'd always been quick to fall in love; underneath the steely exterior lay a fragile mind, and an even more delicate heart.

There had been other women. More beautiful women. Women with wild intentions, wild actions. They had been dangerous, deadly, and feral without a word. And they were easily bought. All of his relationships had been (Mystique was a prime example)

Only a rare few had been real, despite ill fated (he still smarted when and…

He couldn't say her name. It hurt too much to pass the words over his lips. But he did anyways.

"Jean."


When he had first been thrown into the Labs, he had a partner with him. She was young, beautiful, with vibrant red hair, and stunning green eyes that pierced the soul, and powers she (nor anyone else) could dream of containing.

And in the end, when she finally met her death, those powers weren't enough to save her from the sheer cruelty of man.


"A vivisection, you troglodyte!" The doctor had laughed, forcing his head against the glass window. There, lying as still as dawn against the steel slab, lay the once powerful Jean Gray. Dead. Subject to an experiment that seemed to cruel to exist. The guard later told him that she had died 30 minutes after they began the experiment.

She must have thrown up during the process. The smell was so intense of innards and blood, and acid, Logan almost felt like vomiting himself.

He looked away from the bloody mess. Her eyes…those piercing green eyes, they must be still there, right? Right?!

They weren't. They were gone, destroyed, just another piece of the bloody masterpiece the scientists had created.

"Whatsa matter, Wolverine? Can't look at a little "scientific experiment"? Isn't this what you've done to so many others?!" The scientist screamed. Logan couldn't concentrate, his mind still thick with the sight of Jean's grizzly demise. It was just too much to handle, to much to take.

The scientist gave a sardonic laugh. "All you mutants are good for is research. That and nothing else."



"Logan, please, you've got to wake up."

He was jolted awake by the whisper against his ear.

The German stood against the doorway, looking around impatiently.

"Please, my dear, you must hurry. The other guards are getting suspicious, and they are trigger happy!" He snapped, before turning to the gather line outside.

"Please, one more minute. He's waking up!" She cried back, yanking him up.

"Where's the pup?" He grumbled, as she dragged him by the arm into the blinding corridor light. He hissed slightly, and placed a hand in front his face.

"She's with the other children, now shut up and move!" She snapped quietly, pushing him ahead of her in the line.

"Wha-"

"We're going to the showers, now shut up!" She accented her demand with a pinch on the arm (it didn't hurt. It actually tickled a bit)


"Yeh got thirit'e minut's te wash yer filthy selves!" The main guard with a bostonian accent had shouted.

The water sprayed out of the nozzles on the ceiling. It was cold. Bloody cold. Witches Teat Cold.

But they only had 30 minutes to wash the caked on dirt and grime that made the skin itch so.

This task was made difficult when the squeezed hundreds of prisoners into separate rooms: women on one room, the men in the second.

This task would have been made easy for Amelie: she'd showered with women before. She'd showered with women many times.

But this was different: in some strange twist of fate, Amelie had been shoved with the men, to bathe with them. Humiliated, shamed, and embarrassed, she stripped naked, and flinched when the icy water sprayed from the ceilings.

Logan kept a close eye on her, dissuading any ill-ventured attempts on her person by a mere flick of icy blue eyes.

She stayed by his side. And, taking up a large greenish bar, began to scrub the filth from her body.

Her hands stopped when it fell jagged scar on her inner thigh that twisted around her hips like a snake. This wasn't a battle scar. This wasn't a war wound…she had plenty of those, and they were much smaller.

No, this was when she thought she had fallen in love.

And when love decided to play with knives.

She let the water cascade in down her hair, and she could almost hear the repeated mantra

She closed her eyes, the water so loud so strong.

"No, no, no, no-" the memory came flooding back in waves.


"Stop it, PLEASE STOP IT!!" She screeched, the belt slapping against her naked hips, welts forming and bleeding.

"Quit cryin', QUIT CRYIN'!! ENOUGH!"

She screamed louder then she thought possible. The lamp overturned and shattered against the wall. He grabbed her by the neck and bashed her head against the wall. The plaster fell apart.

She coughed up blood, and sobbed pitifully. He was screaming her name, demanding her attention, demanding her rise to her feet and face him.

Amelie had thought that he'd loved her. He'd said it so many times. Every time he'd come home and he'd beat her. And then he'd return with flowers, or candies, or cards with puppy dogs with big eyes that said "I lub u, do u stil lub me?", or some shit that he had pulled out of the dog's ass.

He'd even given her an emerald broach: using money she knew they didn't have.

"Get UP!"
"I CANT!!" she screamed back, blood and snot running down her cheeks and choking her.

This wasn't what he wanted to hear.

So grabbed her by her hair, dragged her to the toilet and proceeded to force her face into the water ("You dirty whore, you wanna be dirty, then I'll clean you with dirty water!!")

He grabbed dish soap from the sink (The only type of soap they could afford) and forced it into her mouth ("drink it, DRINK IT YOU SLUT!")

She choked, begging him to stop, begging him to slow, begging him to do ANYTHING other then what he was doing right now. Her throat throbbed, her stomach clenched, and she vomited.

He was angrier then he was at any other point.

And, then suddenly, she was angry. And she felt this overwhelming power flood her nerves and her body and…

And then, she didn't remember. All she did remember was waking up, his bloodied corpse sprayed everywhere, and she was covered in blood. Her hands burned, the skin crispy.

She stumbled out of the house, half naked and wholly bloodied, after leaving a note of her confession. And she had left the island. And never returned.



She opened her eyes.

Logan was watching her, not in a perverted way, but…she couldn't quite put her finger on it. She leaned against him, and smiled gently.

"I'm not a free ride, wildchild." She joked, winking "oh-so-seductively"

He laughed aloud, and threw a hand around her waist, clutching her tightly.

The guards looked ahead; they'd learned from experience. There was no way to break the two from one another, no way that didn't lead to bloodshed.

There were whistles and catcalls. He snarled and they stopped.

His hands wondered lower. She looked away, nervous almost. But the feeling of rebellion entered the pit of my stomach, and she hummed.

His hands found the scar on her leg. He stopped. The rebellion in her died like a daisy in winter.

He looked down at her, she looked up at him, and smiled wearily. It wasn't a discussion to start now. This was something to talk about when the hour was none, and the child was fast asleep.

Logan understood perfectly. He nodded, and kissed her cheek.


"Doctor, have you seen the progress on Subject 10 and 85?! It's astounding!" The red haired woman exclaimed.

"Yes, it's quite astounding. They seem to be getting along quite nicely." The grey haired doctor smiled, jotting down charts and data.

"What do you make of it? We weren't planning for such a-a connection for months!"

"Yes." He adjusted his glasses.

"Doctor?" The redheaded asked, confused. She'd through he'd be overjoyed. He seemed so…nonchelaunt.

"Dr. Isy…" He turned towards her. "I think it's time to "rattle the cages."


End Chapter


Hooh boy, it's been a while…Hi guys, I'm back, after a painfully long hiatus DX Remember in the beginning, when I said this story would be dark? Yeah, I meant to say: sick, twisted, they-should-have-tossed-me-in-a-institution-years-ago dark. Please forgive my german; I take Latin (and I suck at it) For those of you who are reading this on , yes, you may be a little confused on a few parts. But, I really couldn't place it on , it's just too much, and likely to get me kicked off from here. On the other hand, Adultfanfiction users, I'm sorry if this gives you nightmares Yeah, Jean had to die like that, I know, it sucks, but I couldn't just stuff her in a refrigerator, could I? Hahah…oy. (everyone who got that god-awful joke gets a cookie) Sorry Miss Gray.

Jean: **shrug** I'm getting' used to it

Yeah, I'm sure you are.

Quick note: Please, don't assume that Logan and Amelie have a relationship. First off, nothings planed, and second off, it's not the basis of the story. But keep your eyes open, there are things you MUST pay attention, you may miss something!! Like Christian Bale said in 'The Prestige': Are you watching closely?

So, next chapter: Amelie get's a big surprise. And, we're not talking "snozzberry tasting like snozzberry's"

Quiz of the day: who was the pregnant girl? Hint: she has green hair.