Broken Memories and Forgotten Family

Disclaimer I do not own x-men or any of the movies/plots/dialog/comics just my own twists on them.

'Animal speak'

"Human speak"

"Other languages"

/memories/

'Telepathic speech'

A/N: In dialogue the way things are written is the way they're meant to be written, it's not my bad grammar skills, that's the way the character speaks. Victor, Cora and Remy all look relatively the same, meaning Victor doesn't look like a crazed Wildman… lol

Chapter 2: Fights and family?

Victor looked up at the heavy wrought iron gates and the thick stone walls surrounding the institute and growled to himself, before driving a little ways off and parking in the wooded area just off the road. He shook Cora awake and she elbowed the Cajun in the ribs in response. Remy gasped half in pain and half in surprise, blinking open scarlet /black eyes and glaring over Cora's head at Victor, the Alpha smirked.

Cora rubbed a hand over her face and muttered an apology to Remy, "We're here, get the animals." Cora nodded and climbed over Remy's lap to get out the door.

Remy eyed the semi visible gates through the windshield, "They're gonna have alarms." Victor nodded in agreement and shrugged. Gambit sighed at the non verbal response, "I know we promised Cora we'd get James back, but if we get imprisoned in the process…"

"We Won't."

Gambit nodded and climbed out of the truck cab and grabbed his staff from the bed. They crept through the forest to the wall just to the left of the gate and Cora looked down at Pan and Rasta, "Go through the gate check ahead."

The felines dipped their heads and slunk through the metal bars. They were gone for about ten minutes before Pan retuned, 'it appears as if the young ones are in classes.'

Cora nodded and easily scaled the rough stone wall vaulting over it at the top and landing in a crouch on the inside. Victor came next Apollo held under one arm as if he weighed no more than a rag doll. Then Remy as he simply vaulted over the wall entirely. They hadn't taken more than ten steps into the grounds when a siren like wail sounded around the campus, Cora tipped her head at Victor. "That went well…"

No more than a few minutes later they were surrounded by a group of men and women in leather uniforms. Cora, Victor, and the animals dropped into defensive crouches/positions, and Remy readied his staff. The Professor Up behind the Man with the visor and spoke into their minds, 'What do you want, why are you here?'

Victor moved into a nonthreatening position ready to talk things out but Cora snarled, her mismatched eyes wide with panic as she dropped to her knees clutching at her head, "NO NO NO GET OUT!" She wailed loudly, pulling at her hair. Victor hissed loudly at her and reached out to calm her down only to jerk back when his hand was violently shocked. She snarled at the handy capped man like a crazed Wild animal. "Out! GET OUT!" And she launched herself at him, But Victor managed to catch her by her shirt and jerk her back into his arms; he squeezed the back of her neck with one hand and growled when static sparked along her skin in a weak play at self defense.

He growled in her ear and she went limp in his arms, he turned furious eye at the telepath. "Don't speak into her mind again, if you want to talk do it verbally. I don't take kindly to being electrocuted by my pack mates or having my mind violated without my consent."

The professor nodded "I apologize; I hadn't thought anyone would have such a strong reaction to my telepathy."

Victor grunted, "Yeah severe unresolved mental trauma can do that to a person."

The bald man glanced curiously at the limp girl who looked as if she was trying to curl as far into the man's arms as physically possible and nodded again, "Come I'm sure whatever needs to be discussed can be discussed civilly indoors."

"Professor that's the man who was attacking Rouge and Wolverine! He works for Magneto!" the visored man said angrily.

Victor growled menacingly, "The girl was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, Jimmy is not your concern. He is my Brother weather he remembers it or not and we will handle our problems as we see fit."

The other mutants raised eyebrows at this and the professor nodded again, "I do believe that this would be best discussed inside." The others all reluctantly nodded and followed the professor inside.

"There was an incident about six years ago, with a man named Stryker. He was doing experiments on mutants. He wanted to create the ultimate Mutant killer. Jimmy and I were both previously on his payroll, but we left." He shifted Cora who was still cuddled in his arms, "Some things are just more important, Unfortunately James figured that out before I did and left. A few days later Cora came looking for us and found me, She was furious when she heard that James had left, and even more so when she heard that I did nothing to stop him. So we left to find him. But my brother is a hard man to track down especially if he doesn't want to be found. It took us nearly five years to find him but Stryker had found him first and lied to him about my loyalties. There was a huge misunderstanding that ended with him going through with a procedure that bonded Adamantium to his entire skeleton. We followed him to new Orleans where we all met Remy," He motioned to the lunging Cajun with Rasta in his lap. "James and I fought again but Cora broke it up and we all went to confront Stryker on the Island. We freed all the mutants he had there and made our escape but in a last ditch effort he decided to release the barely completed Deadpool on us. Deadpool being the mutant killer. He almost won but we managed and we all left, but I had to go find Remy and make sure the kids got off the Island while Cora and James went to prep the plane. By the time I got back James was gone and Remy had the plane ready with Cora unconscious in the back. When Cora woke up she told us that Stryker had shot her knocking her out from blood loss and then proceeded to shoot Jimmy in the head. Adamantium Bullets. The Cajun was the one to find them and apparently James didn't remember anything, He ran off and we've been trying to track him down ever since."

The professor nodded slowly absorbing this information, "Your brother says his name is Logan, but you say his name is James?"

Victor nodded, "We had different mothers but the same father, James didn't know that the man that was married to his mother wasn't his father. It all came out one night and well people died, Jimmy and I were still kids back then and we ran… Logan was my father's last name, but we both went by Howlett for a long time, it was safer and it just kinda stuck, it was only in the last fifteen years or so that we started going by Logan again so I imagine that's what was on his dog tags… We didn't meet Cora till the late twenties/early thirties and I think she was around sixteen or seventeen at the time…"

Every one nodded and Cora's head shot up from its place on her alphas shoulder and she launched out of Vic's lap and to the door jerking it open and flinging herself at the person on the other side. Arms wrapped around his waist and a face pressed into his stomach making a soft whining noise in the back of her throat. Logan Stared down at the girl with shock not at all prepared for her assault, When she whined his hand reflexively went to comb through her messy black hair and He froze a second later when she turned her face up to look at him, one bright green eye and one violet Both staring intensely at his face tears brimming in them. Those eyes, He KNEW those eyes! His head practically split open with pain a moment later, his hand grabbing at his hair much like Cora had earlier.

/ 'Jimmy Hurry your lazy ass up! I'm hungry!' Mis-matched eyes glared at him and the petit girl had her hands on her hips.
He rolled his eyes 'Yeah, yeah I'm comin' kid.' Her glare intensified and she threw a plate from the table at his head when he finally walked into the room, He ducked and it smashed into the door frame. Causing a pair of large cats to duck under the kitchen table to watch.
'I told you to stop calling me Kid! I'm Thirty-three asshole!' He just smirked at her. /

/An older man leveled a revolver at her and pulled the trigger, the bullet striking her in the chest, her mis-matched eyes never leaving his. She mouthed His name, but no sound came out as she gasped in pain. He howled in fury and charged the man feeling a sharp pain in his shoulder then in his Head before everything went dark./

Logan's eyes shot open and he looked at the girl, "I- I know you… But H-he shot you. Y-you- You should be dead…" shaken from the abrupt retrieval of memory even if it wasn't much…

Cora's bottom lip trembled and she crawled to him, whining again. He opened his arms reflexively again and she crawled onto him as close as physically possible, He didn't know why he let her do it but it felt familiar, it felt right. His arms moved on their own to wrap around her shoulders. He looked up at the people in the room with a painfully confused expression plastered on his face. "What's going on?"

"What did you remember?" the professor asked kindly.

The pair of cats from his vision came out of the room and over to them, the tan spotted one rubbing against his side and the fluffy grey one rubbing his head against the girls back. "I- I saw these cats, and her," he motioned the felines and the girl in his arms, "She called me Jimmy and was throwing things at me… then I saw her get shot and I attacked the person who did it… I- I think he shot me in the head…" he rubbed his forehead. The professor nodded and motioned them into the room, where the man who had attacked him earlier and another man who looked remarkably familiar were sitting. He paused and looked at Gambit for a long moment, "I know you… you were on that island just after I woke up You said I already knew you…"

Remy nodded and gave him a weak grin, Logan turned his eyes to the man from earlier and felt irritation and something close to exasperation build up inside him, he growled and Cora squeezed his shirt in response with a whimper. He looked down at her and flopped himself into an empty chair adjusting her on his lap and trying to ignore the bubbling irritation. He looked down at her again when she cuddled closer, and looked up at the room confused. "What's wrong with her… I didn't get a lot from my flashes but I got the distinct impression that she's not exactly the quiet type…"

Victor grunted in agreement, "The professor startled her by speaking into her mind when she was too in touch with her animal side, she doesn't have the best mental stability to begin with and she lashed out mentally and physically, she's trying to recover herself in her head and is running on pure instinct right now that's how she knew you were at the door before you knocked, Cora was more emotionally close with you than she was with me, so it makes sense that she would want to be close to you when she's not fully in control of her mind."

Logan half nodded still not completely understanding, The professor decided to try something then, "James, Victor is your brother."

Logan gave the professor an annoyed look before responding, "I know that." He froze eyes narrowing as he tried to sort through his broken memories and thoughts to figure out just how he knew that, because he did. He knew Victor was his brother. He just couldn't put a face to the name yet…

The man the x-men had called Sabertooth growled and Logan looked at him feeling annoyance again as his own responding growl built in his throat, Cora tugged his shirt and growled as well deep in her chest, as mismatched eyes looked up at him so much clearer now, "Stop being a jackass Jimmy and stop challenging your brother. He annoys all of us but he's a good leader and you know it," Cora mumbled in a slightly dazed voice as she started to come back to herself. Almost instantly James growls ceased and he felt his annoyance fade. Both Logan and Cora's bodies visibly relaxing, when Cora shifted in his lap to be in a more upright position with her arms flung lazily around his shoulders and her face pressed against the side of his neck, his right arm automatically moving to circle her waist and his left hand moving to play with the ends of her hip length black hair.

The professor chuckled, "Fascinating isn't it? That his instincts seem to remember her and both of you even when his mind does not?"

Victor turned from watching his brother and cub to look at the man in the behind the desk, "That's good though isn't it, it means part of him does remember… he hasn't forgotten us completely every things just to mixed up and broken for him to piece together on his own?"

The professor nodded and motioned for the X-men to leave the room and return to their classes. James squeezed Cora a little tighter when he felt another pieced together memory bubble up through the cracks…

/Cora was curled up next to him on the couch her head in his lap, his fingers carding through her much shorter hair while he read a book, and Victor wrestled with the large canine on the carpet the two cats sitting on the sofa with amused expressions on their feline faces. He smiled a bit and Cora curled closer to him in her sleep her face pressing in to his stomach./

James blinked out of the daze the memory put him in and was surprised by the warmth he felt in his chest at the memory. He looked at Cora who stared at him with large curious eyes, "What did you remember?

Wolverine blinked again not exactly sure how to respond, how to describe the scene in his head, how it made him feel… so he settled for one of the less difficult questions that came to mind, "Were we mates?"

He didn't exactly understand Cora's reaction or his brother's deep throated groan, Cora's eyes widened and filled with anger and tears and she wrenched herself out of his grip and slapped him hard across the face with a barely stifled sob as she turned on her heel and fled the room angry tears now pouring down her face. James stared after her in shock one hand to his stinging cheek and he turned back to his brother and Gambit. "What was that?"

Victor sighed and ran a hand over his face and into his short cropped hair, "That was probably the stupidest thing you coulda asked her… You two were never mates, But you definitely should have been every one could see it except for the two of you. Hell I don't think Cora even realized it until she got back from china and you were gone. When we found you, you'd shacked up with some pretty Native American girl. Cora just broke down when she found out that's probably when she figured it out…"

James stared at him and he felt that pressure in his head again.

/They were standing in a port near a huge ship and Cora looked terrified "Please, please don't make me go." She pleaded into Victor's shirt; He sighed and pet her hair affectionately.
"We're not doin' this again cub." Cora let out a shuddering breath and hugged him tighter.
"I love you Vic, take care of Jimmy and don't you dare die. I'm gonna come find you both I promise."
She released him and looked up at him with watery eyes before moving on to James. She tugged him down to her level and wrapped her arms around his neck. "Be careful. I love you and if you die I'll never forgive you." She kissed his cheek and let him go./

/A pretty native girl sitting in his lap with a small exasperated smile pulling at her lips, "Keukuatsheu." he laughed and she did smile. "It means 'the Wolverine.'" She brushed her hands against his jaw and smiled lovingly./

He gasped and dropped his throbbing head into his hands, He remembered sending Cora off to china now and vaguely why they had done it, and that girl, Kayla, His mind supplied helpfully for once… She was the dead girl he couldn't remember from when he first woke up on the island… He bit his lip at the combined pain from his head and chest, even if he didn't remember her he remembered that he loved her… and now he knew that because he loved Kayla, he was hurting Cora and that piece of knowledge just made him ache even more.

TBC…