Memories

Accident

Disclaimer: I don't own the X-Men or any of their characters. Tora and Weapon X-ii are my own though. If you want to use her, can you PM me about how you plan to write her.

Logan tracked her to a clearing in the woods. He moved towards her, until he was close enough to see her shoulders shaking. It was only when he got closer that he heard the large gulping breaths she was taking.

"Tora?"

She turned and he saw her face was soaked with tears. She voiced the question he couldn't answer.

"How? How can they be here? After all the searching, they just drop out of the sky and ruin everything."

"You're crying."

"Stupid isn't it. Haven't cried in years. And then they turn up and I can't stop."

He reached out and tried to comfort her. She was scared and alone and afraid of what was being offered to her. He looked into the golden eyes, the eyes that were the only ones that could meet his and see the animal and not look away, and saw the last of the barriers drop away and he could fully understand why she put them up in the first place. They were an ocean of emotion. She felt so deeply, so completely she was forced to shield those she loved from the storms within. Every single piece of pain and hurt and betrayal was swept up in those eyes and squeezed out in the form of salty tears.

And then he felt the emotion in those eyes pull him in and he was kissing her, inhaling her unique scent of mint and coffee. At first she stiffened and he thought he was about to die with a bunch of spilled guts. Then, slowly, tentatively, she began to respond, like a nervous teenager. And that was what caused him to break contact.

"Logan?"

"I shouldn't have done that."

"Logan? Why not?"

"Because you're twenty and I'm who knows how old. Because you don't know what you're doing and I should know better. Because we're supposed to be friends."

"It didn't stop you loving Jean, did it?"

He started at that.

"Who told you about that?"

"It's obvious. Anyone mentions her name and your heartbeat goes through the roof. I'm not blind, no matter how much you want me to be. I'm not a child, even if that's how you see me. But you're right. I don't know what I'm doing. Why can't I control my heartbeat near you? Why do my hormone levels change? Why does my stomach feel like I'm about to throw up? What's wrong with me that means the animal tries to take control every time you walk past? What's so wrong with me that you feel like that one kiss was so terrible?"

He looked at the woman who was now crying even harder. But she was angry as well. Angry at him and the Circens and the world in general that had hurt her so much.

"It wasn't terrible. That's the point. You're closer in age to Kurt or Piotr-"

"Kurt and Piotr are like brothers. And I can't relate to them properly. You're the only one who understands. The only one who understands this."

She pulled her trouser leg up to reveal the brand again.

"The others can't talk properly to me. There's always the fear of what was done to me, the pain that is me. But you understand. At least, I thought you did. But then you have to go and kiss me and confuse me and then back off."

"Tora, please-"

"You have to make a choice now. Pretend this never happened or-"

"I'll take the 'or'. And you know it."

And then he kissed her again, brushing her lips and then wiped away her tears with his sleeve.

"Come on sweetheart. Better get back up to the mansion. And if the other ask, that never happened."

"Why?"

"Cos Kurt'll make our lives misery."

"Oh. And don't call me sweetheart."

"Oh, how romantic."

"Don't you have other things to do, the sarcasm is dripping from your voice."

"Actually I should get back. I trust Reave but enough to leave him in charge? See you darling."

"Tell Phoenix to come round when she has time."

The dark woman faded away, leaving the other to her musings. Finally. Tora learnt to cry. She learnt to love and to cry and now, finally she was fully human. With all their failings and pitfalls.

When she walked back up to the mansion she'd managed to stop doing her water fountain impression but was still looking rather red eyed. Inside her heart was singing, every nerve on fire. But none of this was conveyed to those watching. The barriers were back up, but not as strongly as before. She looked up and saw the Professor and the other X-Men with the Circens.

"Tora, would you mind coming into my study?"

Her golden eyes met his blue and she nodded once. Then she looked at the others. Her friends.

"Can the others come as well? I don't want to do this alone."

"Tora?"

"Please Professor. Charles…"

He looked slightly annoyed then nodded.

"Thank you."

The office was slightly crowded with one wheelchair, seven X-Men and a family of three. Tora refused a chair when offered it but stood head slightly down, like a child caught in wrongdoing. Then she looked up with a fierce look in her eyes.

"Before we start I'd like to say something. I don't remember being Marie Circen and if I once was then you should know she's dead. I was recreated. I had to do it to survive. If I was Marie then I died and Xii was born. She may still be in here somewhere but if she is then she'll have broken years ago. Xii survived through pure luck and hiding inside shields. No child could live through what I did. I wasn't a child. I never was."

"Xii?"

"Ororo has told me the story she told you. If you are Tora –Marie's parents then you have the right to know the truth. The X-Men brought her here six months ago after they found her starving and half dead in some sort of facility where she has spent the last eighteen years of her life. Until she was fourteen she was trained to be some sort of living weapon-"

"I was trained to be an assassin, a spy and a saboteur."

"-Thank you for that input Tora. At age fourteen she had the metal adamantium bonded with her bones. Would you care to show them?"

Metal claws chikted into position. Slight gasps of pain and realization that what Xavier said was true masked the noise of them being sheathed back into her hands.

"They then attempted to turn her into the perfect weapon by making her kill a man. She refused and was sold to Victor Creed, a man more commonly known as Sabretooth. She spent six years in his keep before being rescued in December."

"Why did they bring her here?"

"Because the Xavier Institute is a school for mutants."

"More to the point, what did they do to her? She doesn't recognize us at all."

"My memory was wiped when I was taken. I assume I was taken."

"What did they do to you?"

"Ya don't wanna know."

"You're…Logan, right?"

"Yep. Seriously, you don't want to know the state she was in when she came here."

"Why are you here? The others I can understand but you don't look like a youngster to me."

"I'm protection."

"Logan, that's cruel. How many times have we saved your life?"

"Three. Compared to twelve times for you, eight for 'Ro, three for Petey, nine for Scott and once for Tora."

"That transfusion doesn't count."

"Yes it does."

"No it doesn't. Because it was your fault in the first place."

"My fault?"

"You didn't stick to the plan."

Their argument with grins on their faces was interrupted by Esme Circen.

"What do you mean, transfusion?"

The X-Men glanced at one another.

"When you have eight knifes in your hands, accidents are bound to happen."

Tora smiled gratefully at Xavier.

"Logan's mutation meant his blood was the only thing to stop her bleeding."

"I normally heal. It's just my claws stop me healing."

"Tu cicatrises?"

Tora glanced around then picked up the Professor's letter opener.

"Tora, what are you doing?"

Before any of them could stop her she brought the sharp edge down her arm in a single fluid motion. Blood spurted and she grimaced in pain.

"Think I severed a major artery."

She held her cut arm close to her body, hoping it would stop quickly. Then she extended it again to reveal a scab that faded to a scar and then disappeared completely.

"Oui. Je cicatrise."

"Tora, you shouldn't do that as you well know."

Golden eyes met Xavier's and she shrugged.

"I never really learnt not to hurt myself. If I damaged myself they wouldn't make me train."

"You hurt yourself?"

"Look, people can't understand. Unless you're the same and have the pain in your heart and bones all the time then you can't understand. If you haven't had your organs removed to see how fast they grow back, then you can't understand. I live with all that and all the pain that's still there but it doesn't rule me. I rule the pain. I am pain. But I live because I have people who care. I chose to survive because if I die, if I give in, then they win."

She turned and walked out. Just before she shut the door she looked back in.

"I was never human, mutant or animal. I was just a weapon. I'm trying to change that. Don't try and stop me. Don't try and help me. I need to do this alone."

Still so many doubts about herself. She was human but now she doubted. But doubts were part of being human. She was desperate to escape her past but she did it in her way. She hated owing debts.