Chapter 14

(Logan)

The FOH incident in Atlanta made the national news, although none of the X-Men or our jets were ever shown. But the world knew that if there were mutants involved in any way, we were there, so Xavier wound up fielding a number of calls from various press agencies. He finally released a statement to the networks that basically said we were there to pull out a mutant family that had been under siege, that there were injuries on both sides and that all the involved parties were expected to make complete recoveries. A few days later, a couple of the FOH idiots attempted to sue the Professor, the X-Men and me for damages, pain and suffering, the whole nine yards, but once it was pointed out that they'd shot us first and we were merely defending ourselves and the Sheridan family from harm, the suits magically disappeared. I don't know if he had any direct influence over that decision, but I wasn't about to complain. I didn't technically have two pennies to rub together, so suing me was a useless thing to do, but I had a feeling that Angela would have drained her many bank accounts to get me out of it if she had to.

The thing that had me the most worried was the part where Evie was starting to see more things that the Weapon X people were doing before they happened. She told us that they weren't dreams, they were things she saw while she was awake, but Xavier kept insisting that her effective "range" was no more than ten or fifteen minutes. If that was true, then even if she told us about another mutant in danger from Weapon X, there wouldn't be enough time to get to them to prevent it from happening. That pissed me off beyond all reason, knowing they were snatching up people left and right and there was nothing I could do about it. We'd been hitting bases for seven years now, had taken out upwards of thirty of them and still they were active, torturing and mutilating God only knows how many people. We had no idea how many people they'd taken since we escaped, but even if it was only one a month since we'd left, that was over two hundred people in the past twenty-three years, more than enough to consider them a virtual army. If only a quarter of them were feral like me, that made them an unstoppable army. That thought was enough to give me chills and I don't scare easily.

But life still had to go on, even if there were things I couldn't control. Piotr and Kitty came back from college, both of them with degrees they could have used for anything in the real world, but they chose to come back to us to teach and rejoin the team. Everyone was thrilled to have them back, especially Rogue and Jubilee who had missed Kitty terribly. Now that the three of them were back together, Storm had all the women she would need for her wedding. It didn't surprise anyone that Sam asked Scott to be his best man, but it came as a huge shock to me that he asked me to be one of the groomsmen. I really wanted to say no, because it meant that I would have to do something I had never done in all of my long life. I would have to wear a tuxedo.

Angela was tickled pink by the idea, not to mention Rogue, Storm and the other women. I had tried very hard over the years to avoid anything that would require me to wear something that wasn't a t-shirt and jeans. I still hated the X-Men uniforms, even if I understood the reasons behind them. But the thought of putting on a suit or anything fancier made me want to run and hide in a cave very far away for the next century or so. But the women had other ideas. I had told Sam I would think about it and get back to him in a day or two, which was their cue to harass me until I agreed. What they all forgot was that the Wolverine has an unbreakable will when his mind is made up. Somehow, I forgot that the Hellcat was almost more stubborn that I was.

"Logan, you have to do it." She stated plainly after dinner that night.

"Darlin', I don't have to do anythin' 'cept die an' pay taxes an' so far, I've managed to avoid both for a really long time."

"Look, if I have to walk down the aisle wearing a fluffy pink dress, the very least you can do is suffer with me."

"No, the very least I could do is come up with some reason why we both can't do it an' make sure we're not there at all."

"I can't do that, Logan. I promised Storm and there is no way you are going to make me break my word." She crossed her arms and started tapping her foot. "Come on, I know you respect Sam and it's an honor to stand up for him."

"I am not wearin' a tux and that's all there is to it."

She glared at me and her lips thinned to a pale line. "Fine, you don't want to wear a tux, I don't want to wear a fluffy pink dress. But these people are our friends and they want us to share in this with them. So you go over there right now and tell Sam you'll stand up for him."

"Angela, I don't think you've been listenin'." I finished off the last of my brandy. "I. Am. Not. Wearin'. A. Fuckin'. Tuxedo. Period."

"You know he'd do it for you if we had a wedding."

I narrowed my eyes. "What are you sayin'?"

"I'm saying that I've never asked you to marry me because I don't need to be married to know that you're mine forever. I know you've never asked me for the same reason. But if the only reason you've held back is an irrational fear of formal wear, then I might suddenly feel a strong need to have a wedding."

"You wouldn't."

She leaned forward and gave me a hard look. "Try me. And believe me, I'll pull out all the stops. Money is no object. We're talking white tux, top hat and tails all the way." She sauntered over and smiled, but it was more vicious than amused. "I might even insist on gloves and a cane."

I glared at her but she was naturally not fazed in the least. "I'm gonna look like an asshole."

"And I'm going to look like a birthday cake. But these are people we love and they want us to be a part of it. Besides, I already know that Storm's planning on putting you in a very tasteful tuxedo. You'll like it. Hell, it's even black."

"You don't play fair, you know that right?"

"I know. Now go before I announce our engagement."

I sighed, knowing when I was beat. "You know that Rogue's gonna be disappointed that she didn't get to pick on me longer."

"She'll live. Now go tell him yes."

I shook my head, but went over and told Sam I'd be in his wedding. But there was one thing Angela was wrong about. It wasn't fear of formal wear that kept me from proposing to her. It was that I knew she didn't want or need to marry me, something we'd talked about dozens of times over the past nine years. She didn't know that if I had my way, I'd have taken her down the aisle in a heartbeat. It didn't bother me that we weren't married and I wasn't going to force it on her as long as she didn't ask for it. But if she ever changed her mind, I'd do it with a smile.

But there's no way I'm wearing a fucking top hat.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

A few days later, Carol Danvers gave up her battle and finally died. Hank had told us that she was showing signs of organ failure, which was a shame. I don't know what happened to her while she was working for Weapon X and I never asked Rogue, but by the time we found her, she was firmly in the grip of the project and believed in what they were doing. Xavier had been trying since we brought her back to find any relatives, but none of the Danvers that he contacted would admit to being related to her. So, being the nice guy that he is, he paid for all of her burial arrangements and had her taken to a cemetery in Westchester. I have no idea if anyone from Weapon X ever tried to find her, but they had to know by now that her body had never been found in Death Valley. Either way, we had lost a very important bargaining chip and we were back to square one in getting close to the Director.

Rogue on the other hand was still enjoying the powers she'd gotten from Danvers. Not only could she fly now, but she was almost invulnerable to injury (adamantium still got through just fine) and was now almost as strong as Sam and Colossus. When told that Danvers had finally slipped away, she didn't waste any time feeling bad about it. In fact, her only comment was "couldn't have happened to a better person" before she continued on her way to teach her history class. I just shrugged and went on to strategy. I happened to agree with her, but that's not the kind of thing I could talk about to anyone besides her, Angela, Kyro and Remy. The others simply wouldn't understand.

The whole thing reminded me of something that Magneto had said years before, that mutants who stood against other mutants were betraying their own kind. Now, I don't happen to agree with him, since I don't think that anyone has the right terrorize other people, mutant or otherwise, for their own personal gain. But what Danvers had been doing, along with the telepaths that still worked with Weapon X was above and beyond terrorism. Those people were taking part in the wholesale torture of who knows how many mutants over the years, not to mention how many had died at their hands. I may never agree with Magneto's methods or his wish to dominate normal humans, but I can and do understand his position. I don't want to rule the world, I just want to eliminate the people who mutilated me, my woman and my friend Kyro.

So it was with this in mind that we started planning our next assault. Danvers had given us a wealth of information, more than just the fact that the archives were a trap and that getting in there was not going to be easy. In fact, she was one of the only people who had actually met the Director in person. She didn't know the location of his personal bunker, only that it had taken about seven hours to get there by helicopter, which conveniently had no windows. They had landed at night on top of a building and nothing about the surrounding terrain stood out. The weather had been cool but not cold, but on the other hand they had met in late spring so she could have been anywhere in the northern half of the United States or the southern part of Canada. At least we knew he had to be in North America, since there was no way she could have gotten anywhere else in the world from Death Valley in seven hours by chopper. There was also the possibility that they'd simply flown back and forth for a while and set down again within minutes of the Death Valley base. But since she wasn't familiar with military equipment, she hadn't known what kind of helicopter she was on, how fast it had traveled or how far. So we had no choice but to have Sage run the numbers on every possible chopper, which only narrowed it down to about ten places they could have gone and there was no guarantee that any of them were the current location of the Director. Still, we had to try.

So we decided to take them all out one by one over the next ten weeks. Angela had been right about that; we'd been giving them too much time in between attacks to prepare for us, letting them move things out to other locations or setting up some kind of defense. It was our hope that by hitting one a week for the next couple of months would give us the upper hand for a change, hit them so fast that they wouldn't have time to put anything into place to try and stop us.

Which is how we found ourselves surrounded by pine forest and snow in the wilds of North Dakota in the middle of January. This base followed the lead of the NORAD facility in Colorado, in that it was located inside a hollowed-out mountain. We found a way in through the ventilation system, which isn't our favorite way to get inside a place but when the entire base is inside a mass of rock, the choices are a bit limited. But at least we came out inside an air recycling facility instead of dropping down in the middle of a lab, which still allowed us to use stealth to infiltrate the base proper. It was a tactic that was unlike our other missions, where we'd used stealth to get within striking distance, but more or less went for a frontal assault once we'd gotten there. This time, we used stealth to get in and they had no idea what hit them when we popped out of that air recycler and started killing people.

The base was massive, at least six levels, only two of which were used for barracks. The rest were laboratories, testing facilities and cells that had every sign of being used to house mutants. Many of the cells had everything from burn marks to dents in the steel walls, some even had names scratched into the walls with hash marks to indicate how long they'd been there. At least four dozen cells had had occupants as recently as six months ago, the rest had been empty for over a year. All told, there were about ninety cells and each of them had been occupied at least once. However, once we got there they were all empty.

The only thing that meant to us was there was no one we had to worry about saving. Every person we met in there would be fair game, no one needed to be spared. Everyone from maintenance personnel to the Colonel in charge of the facility fell to us, less than a quarter of them even aware of who we were. This told us two very important things. One, that the higher ups were keeping our vendetta to themselves, telling only those people they felt needed to know. Two, that our existence as Weapon X operatives was no longer open knowledge. At least ten of the people we killed said variations of "we thought you were dead" before they died. Finally, after four bloody and fun-filled hours, we left our calling card on the front doors to the base and started back towards the jet.

It wouldn't be until later that I remembered the nightmare Evie'd had so long ago. Not until after we were away from the base on our way back to the jet. We were crossing through a clearing where we'd taken out a couple of sentries, the snow stained crimson and frozen glassy in some places. The wind was blowing, howling through the trees, so none of us heard anything to warn us except for the snapping of a twig followed by a single shot. The bullet hit Angela in her back, the exit wound exploding out the front of the left side of her chest. Her eyes went wide with shock and she pitched forward into my arms. In the meantime, Kyro went after the shooter and from the screams I heard, he found him. I smoothed Angela's hair away from her forehead and she smiled up at me. Even though I know for a fact that my woman will come back the next day, watching her die is never an easy thing. Deep down, I'm always afraid that this time is the time her mutation fails her and she won't come back. I leaned over and kissed her softly and with a sigh, she died.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Hank, we can't let Evie see her like this." I said, looking down at where my woman lay, waiting to come back. "She'll flip out."

"Logan, she has a right to know about her mother's mutations." Hank replied mildly. "I know you've tried to keep it from her to avoid frightening her, but perhaps she's old enough now to know how it works."

"Doc, she's only eight years old. There's no way in hell I would have understood somethin' like that when I was eight."

"Your daughter has already shown us that she's wise beyond her years, probably due at least in part to her mutation. I cannot begin to imagine what it's like to see things before they happen, even only by a few minutes. But it gives her a unique perspective on the world and it's altogether possible that she's already seen this."

His words echoed in through my head and I sat down heavily in the chair next to Angela's bed. "Holy shit, Blue, you're right. She has seen this before, just before school started this year." I held my head in my hands. "I am such a fuckin' idiot!"

"Logan, don't be so hard on yourself. You can't be expected to remember everything that everyone says to you and that includes your daughter."

"This wasn't just anythin', Hank. She dreamed what happened to Angela, right down to the blood on the snow! I shoulda remembered an' none o' this woulda happened!"

"You don't know that for certain, Logan. We don't know how much we can change what she sees. It may be that some things are just meant to happen."

"Sorry Doc, I don't believe in fate or destiny or any o' that other bullshit."

"And yet you are hopelessly in love with a woman who believes in all of that and more." He shook his head. "A woman who also believes she can change the future her daughter sees. Perhaps tomorrow when she is back among the living, you can talk to her about these things. In the meantime, I suggest you explain to your daughter that her mother will be coming back."

I scowled at him, but left the infirmary to retrieve my little angel from her Aunt Marie and Uncle Remy. She was awake and waiting for me, having heard the jet as it came in to land. She ran across the room and threw herself into my arms, covering my face with kisses. I couldn't help but smile and I kissed her back before putting her down. Naturally, her first question was "Where's Mommy?"

"Uh, Mommy got hurt on the mission an' she's downstairs with Uncle Hank gettin' better." I replied. "Why don't you go put your stuff in your room an' we'll go see her, ok?"

"Sure Daddy, be right back!"

I watched as she dashed down the hall and I turned to Marie. She looked into my eyes and didn't hesitate a moment. "Logan, what happened?"

"It's Angela. She got shot real bad. She's dead, for now." I sighed and sat down. "I know she'll be back tomorrow, but Evie doesn't. We never told her about that, hoped we'd never have to til she was older."

"Oh Logan, I'm so sorry." She said and gave me a quick hug. "Do ya want me to come with you when you take her down?"

"Yeah, I do. You've got Angela in your head, it might be easier for you to explain it to her."

Marie nodded and a few minutes later, Evie came bounding back down the hall, Bosko the Monkey clutched in her arms. "He always makes me feel better, so maybe Mommy'll like him." I swallowed hard and nodded in agreement, then took her hand and led her to the elevator with Marie close behind. I still didn't want to do this, I didn't know how she'd react, but it couldn't be good. I'd seen it happen about half a dozen times now and I still didn't like it, and I knew full well it wasn't permanent. I couldn't imagine what it would be like for my little girl.

The elevator door slid open and we made our way slowly to the infirmary. Before opening the door, I got down on my knee and pulled Evie close. "Princess, you need to know that Mommy was hurt kinda bad tonight, ok? So don't be upset if she don't talk to you."

"Ok Daddy." She replied and hugged her monkey tighter. "I just wanna see her." I gave her quick kiss on the forehead and stood up. Taking a deep breath, I opened the door and led her into the infirmary. We took two steps and Evie stopped short, her grip tightening on my hand. Marie slid her hand into mine on the other side and gave it a gentle squeeze of support, which I hadn't realized I needed until that moment. A heartbeat later, Evie took another step forward. "Daddy, Mommy isn't breathing." She whispered.

"Yeah, I know." I replied quietly. I knelt down next to her and tried to pull her close, but she shrugged me off and my heart clenched in my chest. "Sweetheart, it's ok. See, Mommy's got another mutation we didn't tell you 'bout before."

"Is Mommy dead?" She was shaking and I could smell her anxiety rising, but it was too late to try and fib my way outta this one.

"Yeah, princess, she is. But that's her other mutation, ok? She always comes back. It takes a day, but she comes back."

"You told me she was just hurt. Why did you tell me that if she's dead?"

"Evie honey, it's not that easy." Rogue said, kneeling down with us. Evie turned and looked at her, tears brimming in her eyes. "You know how your mama's kinda like a cat?" Evie nodded gravely. "Well, cats have nine lives, you know and so does your mama. She let me borrow her powers before an' I never got that far with them, but I know what it's like for her right now from her memories. Right now, she's kinda waitin' for her body to repair the hurts so she can come back to us. She can't see us or hear us, but she knows we're here an' she'll be back again tomorrow night, I promise."

Evie's eyes got wide and she lost her battle with her tears. "Really and truly?"

"Really and truly." Marie promised. "But if you wanna talk to her right now, I'm sure she'd like that, right Logan?"

"Of course, princess," I said. "She'd like that a lot."

"Daddy, why didn't you tell me before?"

I ran my hand nervously through my hair. "Well, we were hopin' it wouldn't come up til you were older." Much older. Like thirty. "We're real careful when we go out, but sometimes accidents happen an' well…we just didn't wanna scare you. I'm sorry baby, we shoulda told you."

She stared at me for a long moment and I held my breath, knowing this could go very badly. But she sighed, wrapped her arms around my neck and gave me a hard squeeze. "It's ok Daddy." I hugged her back and we stayed like that for a long moment. I absently noted Marie squeezing my shoulder and leaving the two of us alone with Angela. After a few minutes, Evie pulled back to look at me. "Can I go talk to her?"

"Sure princess, if you want to." I kissed her cheek and she walked over to the table where Angela lay waiting to come back. She settled herself into the chair next to her and tucked Bosko under Angela's arm, then took her hand and closed her eyes.

She sat there in silence for a long time, long enough that Hank came out to check on us. "Logan, what is she doing?"

"No idea." I replied. "She said she wanted to talk to her but she's just sittin' there."

We watched her for a few more minutes and as I was about to go over and take her to bed, she started talking in an almost dreamy voice. "She's still in there, you know, just waitin' to come back. It's why she don't believe in heaven, cuz she knows what comes after, at least for her. An' she's hopin' that I'm not mad at Daddy for not keepin' her safe and lettin' me see her like this an' that I'm not mad at her for not tellin' me sooner." She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "She's mad at herself for not knowin' that guy was there, that she didn't hear somethin' or see somethin'. An' when the bullet hit her, it hurt so much but she was hurtin' more cuz she was afraid of hurtin' me. She wanted to tell Daddy not to show me, but it was over too fast an' all she could do was smile."

She took another deep breath and opened her eyes. "Mommy's gonna be ok." She said, then her eyes fluttered closed and she pitched forward in the chair. I made it just in time to catch her before she hit the floor and set her gently on the table next to Angela's. Hank shifted me aside and busied himself checking her pulse, her pupils and whatever else it was he had to do.

After a few minutes, he looked at me and smiled. "It's all right, she's just fainted. She should come around in a few minutes." He pulled me away a bit and lowered his voice. "Now what in hell was she doing?"

"I have no idea, she's never done anythin' like that before that I know of," I replied. "But it's like she saw everythin' that happened." I looked over to my two most precious things. "Could it be part of her mutation?"

"Unknown. I don't know many precogs, they're rare enough as it is, but that wouldn't explain how she knew what happened to Angela or what's happening with her now. Unless…" He trailed off and looked at Evie.

"Unless what?" He didn't answer me, he just stood there and tapped his lip thoughtfully. "Hank, unless what?"

"It never occurred to me until now, but when we were first testing her powers over those few days you and Angela took your mini-vacation, it seemed that the worked better when she was holding or touching something. It's possible that we have them all wrong and she's not really a precog at all, or at least not primarily."

"Whattaya talkin' about? She's had all those dreams that came true, sent them to Angela while she was pregnant for fuck's sake."

"I understand that Logan, but it doesn't change the fact that her powers work better through touch." He crossed his arms and looked at me intently. "Have you ever heard the term 'psychometry'?" I shook my head. "It's a power related to clairvoyance and precognition in that it allows the mutant to gain information through their extra sense. However, psychometry works a bit differently. Whenever they touch something, if they focus, they can tell you things about the past, present OR future that are directly related to the object or person. I'm not saying that Evie doesn't have precognition in addition to other powers, but we may have been wrong all along about how her powers actually work."

"So you're sayin' that she can see the future on its own, but if she touches somethin' she can see everythin'?"

"I don't know about that, but yes I believe with the proper training she'll be able to do just that. And not just objects but people too."

The first thing that came to mind was Rogue, cut off from human contact until Remy came along. Was my little girl going to have to wear gloves to keep her from seeing things she didn't want to see? Or was it something she always had to concentrate on in order to use? I didn't want her to live without touch, it had been hard enough to see it in Rogue and she wasn't actually my daughter. "Doc, can she control it?"

"It's hard to say at this point, but I'll venture a guess and say yes. She seemed to concentrate pretty hard on what she was doing to receive what she did from Angela, so I don't think she'll have to keep herself protected like Marie does."

"Well I wanna know as soon as possible, you got that? I don't want her cut off from the world cuz of this. Bad enough she's seen what she's seen already, I don't want it to be worse."

"I assure you, we'll do everything we can to ensure she gains as much control over this as is humanly possible."

Before I could answer, Evie stirred on the table and opened her eyes. I went to her side and smoothed the hair away from her forehead, smiling. "Hey princess, you scared your Daddy."

"I'm sorry." She said tiredly. "I just saw all this stuff and it made me dizzy. Can we go back to our room now?"

"Sure sweetheart, c'mon."

I gathered her into my arms and carried her back to our suite. I went to tuck her into her own bed, but she tightened her arms around my neck. "No, let me sleep in with you, please? I don't wanna be alone tonight."

"Ok princess, come on." I lay her down on Angela's side of the bed and climbed in carefully next to her. As soon as I was settled, she snuggled into my side and was asleep before I could say goodnight. I lay there for a long time just listening to her breathe and hoped that everything would work out for her. There had been times where I thought that my own powers were a curse, something inside me that I couldn't control and only hurt the people I loved. It had taken me a damned long time to learn how to control that feral side of me and Weapon X had done their best to strip that control away from me once upon a time. But they didn't succeed and everything that had happened since brought me to this very moment.

Now I find out that my daughter might actually have a power that she could someday think of as a curse, something that she might not be able to control no matter how hard she tried. I closed my eyes and sent out a prayer to anyone that would listen that I was wrong. I could bear the burden of my own curse, but I didn't think I could take it if my daughter had a curse of her own.

AN: Well folks, there you have it...the official halfway point! Only 13 more chapters plus an epilogue to go! Think you're up for it:) Special thanks to Zac and Turiel Tincdaniel, my completely awesome beta readers...Extra Special thanks to DBK(tm) for bugging me in such endearing ways to give him more to read...:) Super Special thanks to my readers for sticking with me through this whole thing...and Super Swanky Special thanks to my reviewers, who were levanna, theNightEnchantress, sela103 (who's still a bit behind, but that's ok!) and reeltreble1031...levanna: Glad you liked my twist...:) And there's a few more where that came from...:) theNightEnchantress: thanks for the review! sela: I thought i told you once before that school should come before any fanfic, even if it's mine! Hope you did well on your tests! reeltreble: Thanks for the many reviews! And hey, better late than never on reviews, right?

Speaking of which...for all you readers that haven't reviewed, why not give it a try now? Consider it a gift to me for the holiday of your choice...and for each new reviewer i get, there will be a new chapter in return! So what are you waiting for:)