A/N: Attempted rape in this chapter! Don't say I didn't warn ya.


Disclaimer: I do not own Sabertooth or any of the X-Men characters in any universe that I'm aware of.

I'm not making one red cent from this story. I'm just havin' some fun.


Tessa woke with a start, still dressed in her clothes from the night before. The snowstorm continued to howl outside and what little light made it through the windows looked watery gray. Nevertheless, it was morning. Tessa was surprised to have slept the night through. The dresser remained unmoved from its position blocking her bedroom door.

She rose from the bed, went to the table where a pitcher and basin waited. They were gifts from her mother, over two centuries old. Tessa lifted the full pitcher and carefully poured its contents into the basin, then proceeded to wash her face and hands. The water was, unsurprisingly, quite cold. Drops fell from her chin into the basin, water trailed down her neck and dampened the collar of her shirt. Finished, she carried the basin into the cramped water closet and dumped the water down the sink.

Dan used to tease her about her morning ritual. "Why don't you use the sink? Isn't that what we've got plumbing for?"

"This way's better," was her prim reply.

"It's archaic," he would state without malice, a twinkle in his hazel eyes.

To which Tessa would flash a coy smile and retort, "So am I."

She stared at her blocked door. Can't hide in here forever. She moved the dresser; its blunt feet moaned against the hardwood floor. She stood before the now unimpeded door, wiped a sweaty palm against her jeans, and reached out to turn the knob. No wickedly grinning mutant lurked in the hall. Tessa crept out of her bedroom, headed for the den. Her bare feet made almost no sound against the floorboards.

Victor had rolled onto his side sometime in the night. Otherwise, the scene remained unchanged. The feral man continued to sleep.

She was reluctant to go near him, but the woodstove needed tending. She tiptoed around the motionless form and knelt to stir the coals back to life and add more wood. The flames crackled merrily. Tessa shut the door on the stove and turned to regard her slumbering guest. The last of the scarring had completely healed. Dark stubble covered his head and the sides of his face. He looked thin. Healing to such an extent ate up a ton of calories, as Tessa knew from experience. He looked almost vulnerable.

She didn't realize how close she got until his arm lashed out with lightning speed and a massive hand had her by the neck. Victor's eyes opened and his fangs bared in a triumphant snarl. He didn't look so vulnerable now.


There was warmth and the smell of woodsmoke, the feel of a blanket over him. There was also the smell of her, a scent that brought memories of the short time when he and his brother felt safe, accepted. Then other memories came and that brief moment of peace melted away. Victor opened his eyes. He lay on his side atop a tattered old sleeping bag spread out on the floor. His clothes were long gone; he could still smell the traces of ash and burnt flesh that clung to his skin. This drastic change in his situation left him confused, which quickly turned to frustration, which inevitably became rage. His claws extended, longing to rend and tear.

His sensitive ears picked up the faint sounds of movement in another room. A door opened. Victor shut his eyes, forced the muscles in his body to relax. He felt more than heard the silent approach of the woman whose scent he recognized all too easily (and just as hastily suppressed all but the most recent memories); the mutant frail. She must have found him after those rednecks left him for dead, brought him back to her house. Her reasons for this eluded him. Misguided compassion or plain stupidity, Victor didn't care. He had something to take his anger out on now.

The woman built up the fire in the iron stove. Victor heard the scuff of her knees on the floor and knew she was moving closer to him, probably staring at his (apparently) slumbering form. It took an effort of will not to tense up. He waited until he could hear the sound of her breathing. Now. He grabbed her by the throat, heard a startled gasp. He opened his eyes and grinned up at his prey. "Good morning, honey."

In one swift move he yanked her up, swung her over him, and slammed her back against the floor on his other side. Victor quickly rose up on his knees and leaned over her, bearing down on her slender neck. The woman's hands wrapped around his wrist, her brilliant green eyes wide with panic. Rivulets of blood ran down the sides of her neck from the wounds inflicted by Victor's claws. The heady mix of fear-scent and blood permeated the air, arousing the bigger mutant. Victor raised his other hand and with one long claw slit the front of her flannel shirt open, revealing pale skin and freckles across her chest. He saw the realization in her eyes and the terror that quickly followed. Victor uttered a low, sinister chuckle. His weight pressed against her. She must have felt his erection against her thigh.

"Aren't you gonna call your tree buddies to help you?" he asked with a sneer, running a claw tip down the valley between her small breasts. "Know what I think? I think it's too cold for 'em. They're all asleep. That means you're all mine now."

"V-Victor."

He froze. The sense of familiarity arose full force. "How the fuck do you know my name?" The low tone warned of impending rage.

"I-"

He leaned in until their noses almost touched. "Who the fuck are you?"

Tears beaded the corners of her eyes. Her lip trembled. "Tessa."

Hearing that name, all the little details that nagged at him fell into place. It only made the anger rise in him, burning behind his eyes. His lips drew back in a ferocious snarl. "Bullshit. You ain't her."

"I am."

"Bullshit!" His claws dug into her flesh. Tessa squirmed beneath him, bare heels skidding against the floorboards.

"It's me!" she half gasped, half sobbed, "Victor, it's me. It's Tessa. I'm Tessa!"

"Fucking lie to me—"

"Josiah …"

Victor froze. Uncertainty began to cloud his expression. Encouraged by this, Tessa pushed on, "He was out checking his traps. He heard fighting. Found you and your brother … J-James? You were being attacked by wolves. Josiah chased them off with his gun and he brought the two of you home. You and James stayed with us through the winter. I'm telling you the truth, Victor. Please!"

Victor's expression showed nothing at all. She could still see the rage in him, though, smoldering behind his eyes. This stillness frightened her more, but she didn't look away.

Victor abruptly released her. Tessa gasped and touched her bloodied throat with trembling hands. The wounds inflicted by his claws were already closed. She rolled over and slowly rose up on her knees, got shakily to her feet. Victor already stood, careless of his nakedness. She could see the turmoil in his eyes.

Tessa pulled her hands from her throat, stared at the blood on them. She looked down at her torn shirt, then at Victor. "You keep ruining my clothes."

"When did you figure out who I was?" he asked in that low, dangerous voice.

Tessa closed the tattered front of her shirt and crossed her arms. "Couple days before I turned you loose." She hadn't truly been positive, though, until the moment he reacted to his name.

"Why the fuck didn't you say anything then?"

She stared at him. For a moment the fear gave way to anger. "You attacked me."

He found it difficult to look at her then. Victor was not accustomed to guilt. It was a weak emotion, one he thought he'd purged from himself long ago. He hated her for making him experience it. "Yeah, and you wanna know why? 'Cause I could. Because you were there. I've raped and butchered thousands of women and I loved every second of it." He bared his teeth in a rictus of hateful glee.

Tessa shook her head, her expression sorrowful. "What happened to you?"

Victor held his arms out. "I embraced my nature."

Her gaze turned cold. To throw those words back at her …

She turned away from him (rarely a wise move) and returned to her room, shutting the door firmly behind her. She went to the water closet to rinse off the blood, then changed into a different shirt. In the closet was a cardboard box with some of Dan's clothes. She'd planned to take them into town and donate them to a charity, but kept forgetting. Or maybe she just wasn't ready to let him go. She retrieved the box, opened the lid, and dug out a pair of jeans, socks, and a long-sleeved shirt. Dan, like most of the men she married, had been a tall, broad man in life. Tessa carried the clothes out into the den and flung them at Victor, who caught them easily.

"Bathroom's over there," she pointed at the door, "Might want to clean yourself up."

The mutant smirked. Tessa abruptly turned and headed for the kitchen. She could feel his stare, an itch in her shoulder blades, but did not look back.


The tub was larger than he expected, with enough room to accommodate his bulk. He ran the hottest bath he could stand and scrubbed the burnt stench from his skin. The water turned cloudy with ash. Victor watched it all run down the drain and wished the memory of the mob's attack was so easy to get rid of. Hardened though he was, not even Victor was immune to trauma. As he reached for the stack of clothing Tessa gave him he noticed a faint tremor in his hand. He growled and made a fist until it finally stopped, then he got dressed. He was pleasantly surprised at how well the clothes fit. Whoever used to wear them was only a little shorter and heftier than Victor. He could detect the ghost of the man's scent on them. Whoever it was, he obviously hadn't worn these in a long time.

He stepped out of the bathroom and his nose was assaulted with the smells of cooking eggs. Victor was suddenly aware of how painfully hungry he was. The extensive healing had taken a lot out of him. His stomach groaned. He followed the enticing odor to the kitchen where he found Tessa laboring over a gas range. On the counter beside her were an empty egg carton, an open jar of jalapenos, the discarded skin from an onion, a cutting board, a metal mixing bowl, a block of cheese next to a grater. Tessa lifted the frying pan from the burner and transferred its contents to a plate. A second plate beside it already held an omelet.

Victor knew she became aware of him when her body tensed, then she continued, her movements slower than before. She picked up both plates and a couple of forks, turned to see him lounging against the doorway leading to the den. Victor smirked, moved aside only enough for her to squeeze through. Her expression stayed neutral. She didn't even look at him as she inched passed, even though she couldn't avoid their bodies touching. Victor sauntered after her as she set the plates down at opposite sides of a table made of finished wood. She took a seat and started eating without waiting for him. Victor took the other seat. He was a little surprised at this, but supposed she preferred to keep him in her sight. He looked down at his plate, saw that she'd given him the lion's share of the eggs. This irritated him for some reason, but not enough to keep him from picking up a fork and digging in. The woman hadn't skimped on the jalapenos. Hunger made the food disappear quickly. Victor let his fork drop onto the plate with a loud clatter. He straightened, stared at the woman across from him who pointedly kept her attention on her own breakfast. The longer he looked at her, the more memories came flooding back.

Was this what it was like for humans? Victor recalled all the times he'd run into people he hadn't seen in years, sometimes decades. Their reactions were all so formulaic: the bugged eyes, the gasps, the tired exclamation—"My god, you haven't aged a day!"—as if he didn't know it. He always took it for granted that he and Jimmy never got any older while everyone else withered away. Seeing someone else unchanged after more than a century was strangely disorienting.

"How old are you?"

Tessa looked up, startled by the question. She took a while to answer. "I was born in 1704."

Victor gaped at her, for once too stunned to speak. Twice as old as him? Shit!

"I was fourteen when I Changed," she continued calmly, "I'd been promised to a man who owned a neighboring farm. His name was Nathaniel." She smiled wistfully. "I knew him since I was little. He was a good man. We were married just after winter, and during our wedding night I began to hear the music. I didn't know any better; I thought it was normal." She chuckled. "The next morning we found all the wildflowers around the homestead had spontaneously bloomed overnight."

There was a tightness in his chest Victor couldn't name. Of all the other mutants he'd encountered in his long life, he could count on one hand the number of them whose powers surfaced during a happy experience. Far more common for their mutations—their Change, as she put it—to surface in the midst of tragedy. Maybe that was why Tessa seemed more well-adjusted.

"Why didn't you tell us?" Us. Him and Jimmy. His brother's recent abandonment was still an open wound. No "us" anymore. Just Victor.

He saw regret in her eyes. "It was a whim on my part. I wanted to surprise you, show you what I could do once spring arrived. But you both left right after the first thaw."

Victor abruptly stood, almost knocking the chair over, and stomped over to the far side of the room. He stood before a window and saw only white. Not the white of a snowfield, but an actual drift pressed up against the window. He could imagine the house half buried by now.

Tessa stared at the feral's stiff back for a long moment, wondering if she should say something more. Instead, she stood and gathered up the dishes, carried them into the kitchen to wash them.


The walls were covered with pictures. Photographs: some obviously recent, their colors vibrant; some faded or yellowed with age; some black and white with decorative edges; some sepia toned with their subjects stiffly posed. The very oldest was burned onto a pane of glass rather than paper, from one of the earliest cameras. Older and fewer still were the portraits, one or two so ancient the oil paints were dried out and cracked. Tessa was in every one of these images, standing next to various men and the occasional child. Rarely was she depicted alone. Victor scrutinized a photo with her in the type of dresses he remembered from his youth. Her hair was much longer then, tied back in a modest bun. She wore a floral patterned calico dress and her face bore a hint of a smile, even though back then most saw such a display in a picture as undignified. Her hand rested on the back of a chair in which sat a burly man with a thick beard who looked as if his Sunday suit's collar was trying to strangle him. It took Victor a moment to realize the man had to be Josiah. He looked so dour in this image; Victor's memories of the man were of broad smiles and a booming laugh.

Victor turned away from the picture and the memories it provoked. A low growl issued from his throat. He paced the confines of the den like a caged panther. Tessa emerged from the kitchen, sleeves rolled up and hands damp from washing the dishes. She hovered in the doorway, wary of his restlessness.

"I'm leavin' soon as this blizzard's over," he told her gruffly. The sooner he got the hell away from her the better.

"That could be a few days," she said.

"Christ. How much snow does this place get?"

"It's not just the snow," she answered calmly, "It's the wind blowing it into drifts. You won't be able to see two inches in front of you. When it finally does die down, this whole clearing's completely isolated. The only road leading up here will be impassable. Try to go cross-country and you'll collapse from exposure before you get even a third of the way through the woods, if the wolves don't get to you first."

Victor gritted his teeth. "I'm not some helpless brat. I can take it."

"I'm not saying you can't, but—"

"Why the fuck d'you care anyway?" he snapped, rounding on her. Tessa jumped back half a step before she caught herself. She stood her ground as the larger mutant stalked towards her, despite her growing fear.

"You think you mean somethin' just because you took me and my brother in?" he hissed, looming over her, "History don't mean shit to me, and neither do you. You're just another frail."

Tessa didn't say anything. She didn't dare. Victor turned away and stomped towards the door. A wild howl and flurry of snow blew in as he yanked it open and stormed out of the cabin. Tessa rushed over and peered out into the storm. All she could see was a vague dark blur against the white, and then it vanished. She didn't call out to him. He would not have heard, wouldn't have listened even if he did. Tessa stood in the open doorway until her face, hands, and bare feet went numb. Part of her wanted to throw on her coat and boots and rush out after him, even though she knew it was futile. Part of her was relieved to see him go. She wasn't sure which made her feel worse.

You can't save him a second time, a treacherous voice whispered in her mind, He's not the boy you knew. He's become a monster. Let him go. You're better off.

The cold made her eyes water. That's what she told herself, anyway, as she finally shut the door.