A/N: I know that it's been a LONG while. I've had a lot of personal stuff going on that precluded any sort writing. Hopefully, there are still a few people out there interested in this story.

This will be the last mini arc of this series. These last few chapters are already written and just need some fine tuning, so, I promise it won't be a year+ for this to be finished.

Chapter 21

"Stop growling. You're scaring the kids."

His erstwhile brother was far too calm about all this. They let the damned dog stay and kicked him and the Runt out. The dog!

"Fuck you, Jimmy," Victor growled.

It was a slip into old, old habits, and Victor half hoped the other feral didn't notice. He'd resolved to treat this version of his brother as a different person than the one he'd known. It was a good plan in theory, but it would have been a hell of a lot easier if the younger feral were not, essentially, himself as he had been before everything first went to shit. There was a reason Victor didn't philosophize often: it gave him a damned headache, which he sure as hell didn't need with the Kid in the infirmary.

He and Not-Jimmy-but-Logan had been exiled from the lab where Beast and Grey were trying to figure out what was wrong with Laura. Victor had refused to go far, so, the pair ended up testing the structural integrity of a bench in the foyer of the mansion. Every so often a bell would ring and brats would spill out into the hallway.

They'd quickly learned to give the pair on the bench a wide berth.

The last of the kids had scurried away when Logan spoke up again.

"Thank you."

"I'll be sure to tell you to fuck off more often." Victor snarked, letting his head thunk back against the wall.

"I mean it," the younger feral persisted.

Victor groaned internally. His brother wouldn't be dissuaded from saying his piece, so he might as well get it over with; another tick in the 'things that hadn't changed' column.

"I don't know what went down back then, and it doesn't matter anymore. But thank you for finding Laura. And taking care of her. And being less of a fucking asshole than you could be."

Logan swiped a frustrated hand through his hair before taking several deep breaths and lapsing into silence once again.

"Doin' that zen shit again?"

"Went to Japan a few years back. Something must have stuck."

Victor focused on an imperfection in the molding.

"Nah," Victor contradicted. "You bought into all that in the thirties when we first ended up in China. Annoying as hell then, too... Japan was later. After the war."

Logan seemed to consider this before beginning his deep breathing again.

"The kid's family," Victor continued. Damn, now he was being the chatty one. Runt must be infected, and it was catching. "Ain't like she asked for any of this."

"Jean and Beast know what they're doing. I'm sure she's fine," Logan assured.

She sure as hell wasn't fine, or Victor wouldn't have chartered a jet to fly her back to the X-men with five feet of snow on the ground in the dead of winter, especially not over a week before she was supposed to go back.

"You saw her, moron. Her mutation is fully active. If she's hurt, she should have healed instantly," Victor growled, "How long does it take to read a damned x-ray? Something's wrong."

Laura had been trying to hide it all week, and, at first, Victor had thought she'd caught the wrong end of one of the cow's horns and just didn't want him to know. But that would have been healed quickly.

When he'd finally figured out it was her arms and legs that were hurting her...

"I think he's right, Logan," a bright voice piped up to the Runt's left. Victor glanced in the speaker's direction, only for his eyes to be assaulted by the girl's horrifically yellow attire.

He vaguely remembered the Asian girl from the first time he'd tried to dump Laura on the X-Men.

"Shouldn't you be in class, firecracker?" Logan asked.

"Baby-rine's my side kick! Besides, Rogue said it was fine. She wanted me to get an update and report back. It's a mission, really. Official business."

After giving the Runt a thumbs up and loudly popping her gum, the girl hopped out from beside the other feral, pointing at Victor in accusation.

"What'd you do to my kid, Sabretooth?"

The hell?

He let loose a growl but Logan's hand on his shoulder held him back.

"Hey, easy. Jubilee didn't mean it like that."

"Um. Yeah. Actually, I did," Jubilee interrupted.

Victor made to actually lunge at the brat to teach her a lesson and was met with a flash of light and stinging bursts.

'Firecracker' suddenly made sense.

"Jubilee, scram. You're gonna end up on his shit list, and I'm not gonna save you if you're intentionally being a dumbass."

In the end, he didn't get a chance to snap at the brat because his attention was pulled to the opening elevator door and the blue, furry mutant emerging from it.

Laura wasn't anywhere in sight.

"Logan, Victor, -Jubilee? Shouldn't you be in- Ah, I see. No matter. Please join me in the Professor's office, everyone," the Beast greeted, sweeping past them.