AN: Here's a new one for you all! Sorry for the wait, but I've been out of town for awhile and forgot my computer. That was awful lol. Anyway, enjoy!

New Orleans, 2007

"Are you fucking high?" I knew from the look on Remy's face that he thought I was being completely irrational, but I only continued to glare at him from across the counter. "I told you no!"

"Mon amour –" I threw my hands up and shook my head.

"No! Don't pull that French shit on me – not right now!" I knew I probably sounded insane, but at that moment, my anger was the only thing keeping me from completely losing it with Remy. I glanced down at the photographs before me and scoffed.

"I told you I didn't want this," I seethed, pushing the pictures away and onto the floor. He sighed as he picked them up and set them back down onto the countertop.

"You said no contact with him…there was nothing said about not keeping an eye on him," Remy replied calmly. How was it that he was always able to be so relaxed? It didn't help that his Southern accent made him sound all the more calm. Even when I was yelling and swearing and being completely obnoxious, he seemed to take everything in stride, waiting for me to lose steam. My mind briefly turned to Logan and how this was the same approach I always took with him when he was pissed. I pushed the memories from my thoughts and focused on Remy.

"It was implied!" I snapped. I stared him down as he ran one hand through his dark hair, and I tried to remember a time when I had been this mad at him, but nothing came to mind.
During the past seven years, Remy and I had had our share of disagreements, from jobs we took to hotels we stayed in; from guys flirting with me to girls flirting with him. But never before had I felt so incredibly betrayed. One of the reasons we worked so well together was our openness. Now, it was as if all of that was gone.

"Why are you acting like this?" he asked, reaching out to take my hand. I pulled away and rolled my eyes. "Are you mad at me because I was keeping tabs on Logan or because I haven't told you until now?"

"Because you – because…both! Why does it matter?" I was furious that he was able to read me so well. We sat in silence for several minutes, and I knew Remy was hoping I would calm down. I closed my eyes and took a breath. I didn't like being angry. I was always angry when I was younger and had no desire to be that same pissed off kid again…least of all with Remy.

Opening my eyes, I shifted my focus to the pictures in front of me. Logan looked exactly the same and just as I knew he would. Despite the shitty resolution, I could see the hard look in his eyes and the frown on his lips as he stood frozen in front of an old pickup outside of some shithole bar. I didn't recognize anything else in the picture and against my will, I started wondering where the photo had been taken.

My eyes flickered to the time stamp, and I realized why it was such low quality. It wasn't a photograph at all, but a single frame from a security camera feed. I clenched my teeth and turned back to Remy who was watching me closely.

"How did you get this?" I asked, trying to keep my voice calm.

"It was taken in –" I shook my head to cut him off.

"No. I don't want to know where, Remy. How did you get it?" I may have been curious about the picture's origin, but I didn't want to be sucked into whatever whirlwind Remy was shooting toward.

He raised his eyebrows and gave me an expectant look.

"Of course," I muttered. "You know a guy?" Remy merely shrugged as if it were obvious. I suppose it should have been considering Remy seemed to "have a guy" for every occasion. Stalking just so happened to be one more of those occasions.

"He owed me for a favor for something a few years before I met you," he explained.

I shook my head and wondered what Remy had done for this mysterious stalker. "Fine…okay. How long have you been watching him?" I asked. The moment Remy had shown me the pictures of Logan, I saw red. Only now was my head finally clearing enough for me to try to figure out what the hell was actually going on and why Remy was suddenly sharing his secret hobby with me.

"A few years now…since the news story when Stryker was made Colonel." I bit my lip and remembered seeing my old boss for the first time since the Island. The idea of his promotion made me ill. I crossed my arms tightly over my chest and shivered as Remy held out his hand once more. After ignoring it for a few moments, I sighed and reached out.

"I get you're pissed, mon amour, but I won't apologize…you want to know why I've been doing this?" I narrowed my eyes at his refusal to apologize.

"Enlighten me."

"Because one day, you're going to realize you miss him and what you had with him. I love you, Nell –"

"We're talking about shit that I don't want screwing up Nell's life. So right now, call me Nadya…she's already fucked up."

"Fine," he sighed. It felt like a ridiculous request, to suddenly ask to be called my first name after five years, but Remy seemed to understand where I was coming from.

"I love you, Nadya, but Logan…Logan is your family. I know you still care about him." I pulled my hand from his and turned my back.

"You think I'm denying any of that?" I muttered. I could feel the pressure in my chest building and trying to push up through my throat, but I refused to cry. "You think I don't think about him – about any of them?" I heard Remy come up behind me, but I pushed him away.

"I don't know what to think," he replied softly. "All I know is that you don't talk about any of it, and you should. You can't just make thirteen years of your life disappear."

"Why the fuck not?" I cried, whirling around to face Remy. "Why can't I? He did! He got to start over, so why can't I? I never wanted any of it…did you know Logan actually volunteered to join Stryker at first?" I could feel myself losing what control I had over myself, but I couldn't stop.

"He and Viktor chose that life; not me! I was a kid who just wanted to go home…but no! And you know what? Despite everything, despite the killing and the crying and the abuse, I made it…me! I shouldn't have, but I did. I survived, and now I'm alone! Why am I alone Remy? Why am I alone?"

I felt my legs tremble and before I slid to the ground, Remy was holding me up, tight against his body. "Nadya, you're not –"

"Yes I am," I cried against his chest. "Everyone's gone except for me. They weren't supposed to leave me, but they're gone."

I could see the faces of my team members as clearly as the last time I saw them. My memories even dared include those who tormented me when I was young, but I couldn't be bothered to care. Bradley. Fred. John. Zero. Viktor. Wade. Logan.

Logan…

"I'm here, mon amour." I allowed myself to sink deeper into his embrace before following his lead as we slid to the floor. I could only continue to cry against Remy as my teammates kept racing through my mind, forcing me to remember the things I had done through the years.

I hated myself in that instant. The more I thought about the team, the worse I felt, but not for my actions. I felt anger toward them…toward those who had actually cared about me. They let it all happen. They didn't stop it, and now they were free from it. They were dead and I remained, forced to continue living with myself. Logan was the lucky one, and he didn't even know it.

Not only did he get to continue living unlike our friends, but he got to do so with a clear conscious unlike me. I was jealous, and I hated myself for it. But while I hated myself, I couldn't bring myself to hate Logan. If I couldn't have peace, I needed him to have it for the both of us.

I heard Remy sigh as he continued to stroke my hair. I glanced up at him and wondered what I was supposed to say. I just wanted to go back and never have seen those pictures of Logan. Once more I wondered as to the purpose of Remy showing them to me.

"Why did you do this, Remy?" I mumbled against his arm. He pushed me back, so that was mostly supporting myself with only his hands on my shoulders to steady me.

"I know you want to forget," he stated. I nodded as he wiped the dried tears from my face. "But he wants to remember…that's what these are. All of them." I followed with my eyes as Remy motioned to the pictures that had fallen to the floor next to us. My gaze flickered from Logan in front of the truck to Logan looking exhausted in a bar, from Logan fighting with three other guys to Logan passed out in a motel.

"He's looking for answers, Nadya. I'm telling you…I'm showing you, because we both know you're the only one on this planet that can give him what he's looking for." I continued to stare blankly at the pictures while Remy watched me.

"You want me to find him? Is that what this is then?" I asked, clenching my jaw. "Because I won't do that to him."

"He wants to know though; you can bring him back," he insisted, tucking a stray strand of hair behind my ear.

"No," I replied forcefully. "He'll move on from this…he has to. I can't, but he can, and if it were possible, he would thank me for it."

"Nadya, look at him," he ordered, pushing the picture of Logan fighting into my hands. "This isn't him and you know it. This is killing him; why can't you see that?" I crumpled the picture up and pushed myself from Remy's arms. I forced myself to my feet and sighed.

"He thinks he wants to remember, but the second he does – the second I tell him what he participated in and the things he did to innocent people, he'll hate me. I can see it happening, Remy. He'll hate that I've destroyed his chance at leaving it all behind. He'll have to live with what happened to me, with what Viktor did to him, what happened to Kayla and Wade and everyone else because of choices we made.

"I can live with all of that Remy, but I cannot and I will not live with Logan hating me. Maybe I'm being selfish, but you know what? I think I've earned the right to be a little selfish…especially when in the end it keeps him safe. Because you do know what would happen if Logan did remember, right?"

Remy only shook his head and rose from his position still on the floor.

"Tell me you're not this stupid," I snorted. "You really don't think he would hear what Stryker did to us and not want revenge? Logan would hunt that asshole down and kill him, or worse, get himself killed. And then I would have to live with his blood on my hands as well. Fuck that Remy, fuck that straight to hell."

The room was silent apart from my heavy breathing and pounding heart, and for the first time since the evening started going downhill, I felt the smallest twinge of relief. I don't know if it was me finally admitting out loud why I was so against tracking Logan down or what, but it felt good. It was the same feeling I had felt when admitting who I was to CaraLee, telling my real name to that old man in the museum, and when I first told Remy about my birthday.

I waited for him to say something as I came down from the high of my anger fueled rant. Not for the first time, I wished I was able to read him as well as he seemed to read me.

Finally, he shook his head and met my eyes.

"I don't know what to say now, mon amour," he explained as he stepped forward.

I swallowed and licked my lips. "I'm sorry. I'm not mad at you. At least…I don't want to be. Please realize that I know how incredibly screwed up I must seem right now, but – I just don't know how to make you understand anymore."

"You shouldn't have to," he replied. I stepped into his open arms, grateful Remy wasn't nearly as emotionally unstable as I always seemed to be. I briefly wondered what I had done to find someone like Remy. I released a small snort as I remembered the circumstances of our first meeting.

"You're a roller coaster, cheri, you know that?" He chuckled as he ran his fingers through my tangled, red hair.

"Shut up," I muttered. "Can we just pause all this and go to bed?" I asked. I tried to pull away, but Remy's grip remained tight. One hand held mine, while the other stayed wound in my hair and before I could try to pull away again, Remy's mouth was on mine, his tongue pushing his way forward. The idea to stop him didn't even cross my mind when he picked me up and started carrying me back to our room.

I knew the conversation regarding Logan was probably not over, but I appreciated the fact that Remy wasn't going to push me on it anymore that night. I only hoped there would come a time when I wouldn't have to worry about Remy's stubborn insistence on the Logan matter at all.