A.N Hey people, sorry i haven't updated this fic in a really long time. I've been busy and really haven't had that much inspiration to write. I seem to have a habit of writing more when I'm depressed because I'm writing this at school right now and I'm so bored and everything is completely dreary and all i wanted to do was come here and update this story.... weird right??

Anyway... crazy random ramble over, here's the next chapter for anyone who is even still reading.... hope you all like it and its better than the last one which i just re-read and realised is a piece of junk, but in my own defence of myself from me i was sick at the time and slightly delirious.

Logan/wolverine- Xavier school- present day

Logan angrily paced the hard, polished floor of his small room at the mansion, furiously stuffing any and all clothes he could find into the large army style duffel bag that was casually slung across the bottom of his bunk-like bed. Muttering furiously to himself as he rose it took him a moment longer than normal to recognise the other presence that had entered the room and now stood watching him curiously from the open doorway.

"Waddaya want storm? I'm not in the mood for any of the professor's psycho babble right now. Got a "mission" to prepare for remember?" he growlingly asked of the still thoughtful looking woman in the doorway.

"Who was she?" wolverine let out a strangled and frustrated groan/growl and sharply turned away to face the other wall of the room, ripping the shirt gripped tightly in his hands in the process.

"Don't know what you're talking about 'Ro" he muttered while still with his back to the doorway. Turning slightly to toss the torn shirt into the bin beside the bed however Logan risked a glance behind him and was immediately greeted by the compassionate face of the motherly storm. Sighing heavily he turned fully around to look the intruding woman head on and attempted to explain from his limited knowledge just who Anna Valerious had been to him.

"her name was Anna" he growled lowly in the direction of the doorway and Ororo taking this as an invitation cautiously entered the room and sat down on his bed. Logan heaved a deep breath and began to pace slightly while storm waited with a patient expression on her face.

"she was....royalty....i think, a long time ago. I was assigned to protect her.

"by striker?" Ororo couldn't help but ask

"No," Logan replied no seeming to mind the interruption too much but sending storm a look telling her not to do it again anyway "before striker, a long time before. I don't know how long exactly but put it this way, the fastest way to get anywhere was by my horse."

Storm gasped slightly at this, they all knew Logan could be older than he looked but no one had ever really considered just how long he could have been alive for.

"she was amazing, so beautiful but unbelievably stubborn, i was intrigued the moment i met her" the usually gruff Canadian paused here, fearing he had sounded too much like that pansy one eye but storm merely looked at him, urging him silently to continue.

"i don't remember what i was supposed to be protecting her from, only that it was evil, the worst evil i had ever faced but she refused to let me help her, told me she didn't need my help, that she could handle it. There was a fight then, we won i think, my god could she fight...but she was so angry at me...

Some say you are a murderer.....others that you are a holy man, which is it?

... Asked me if i was a holy man or if i was a murderer" Logan's voice was a whisper as more memories began to surface while he talked

"She offered me a drink" he laughed roughly "then tried to go off on her own...i knocked her out i think... the...house...was attacked that night....she made me let the...man...go, i couldn't understand her at all, i had never met anyone like her before." Logan glanced over at storm from his spot pacing the floor and again laughed slightly at a remembered memory

"i will see them again...we always look on the brighter side of death....yes, it's just harder to see"

"She thought there was a brighter side to death. I still don't see it, but she was so unafraid, so willing to face death, she only cared about vengeance"

"Vengeance?" Ororo questioned quietly, unwilling to interrupt the memories Logan seemed to be surrounded by but unable to help herself, she was fascinated by the tale that Logan was weaving in her mind

Logan nodded his head jerkily but did not explain and resumed his pacing, seeming to be watching something within his mind's eye. "there was an ambush, she was captured, i got her out...me and....Carl?.....he had an invention, it helped us escape. I had agreed to help find her brother...he died, i killed him"

Logan's head jerked sharply here, and he growled loudly and sank to the floor "i can't remember...it's too confusing, all these memories, they're swarming inside my head...trying to burst out...i"

"What about the necklace?" storm quickly interrupted, Logan was getting so confused, the wolverine was starting to show through. She had never seen him so emotional or so willing to talk about his past.

"This?" Logan asked fingering the crucifix around his neck, at Ororo's nod "it was hers, Anna's...i found it after..."

Ororo nodded slightly as she stood up and gently squeezed his shoulder while walking towards the doorway, glancing back at the usually stone faced Canadian on the floor storm couldn't help but ask one last question

"Logan?" at his acknowledging grunt she continued "what happened to her?"

"She died" was the pained and haunted answer. Turning away storm swallowed back the tears that had built up in her throat knowing Logan didn't want her sympathy and whispered

"thank you Logan" as she turned to leave ad stepped out into the hallway

"Storm?" Logan called after her

"Yes Logan?"

"Don't tell chuck i went all pansy assed like one eye ok?...just tell him what he wants to know." Ororo nodded and smiled gently back at Logan before she walked silently away leaving the wolverine to wallow in his past memories and prepare for his upcoming mission alone.

Anna Valerious- 1890

Her arrival home had not gone as expected.

They had tried to stake her.

To stake her. The one person whose family had protected them all for decades and they had accused her of being a vampyre. They had refused to believe that she was who she claimed. They declared her one of Draculas brides, come to slaughter them all. She had been forced to flee, to seek refuge in her house but even there was no longer safe.

The beautiful home she had grown up in, that her ancestors had toiled over for years had been ransacked; her possessions burned or stolen, her family chapel desecrated.- all the gold stolen, the crucifix smashed, the alter obliterated- the people she had worked so hard to get back to, to reassure that she was not dead had turned on her.

She could not stay here. She must leave; she would go to Rome, find Van Helsing, clear his name along the way and then put this whole sorry mess behind her. Hopefully with Gabriel by her side.