The Calming Storm (Part Three)
Ororo waited for Hank to return with the X-Men. He’d only been gone a few minutes but those few minutes seemed like an hour. She couldn’t stand the thought of them going in there and manhandling Wolverine to get him out of that ‘cell’. They needed to gain his trust, and wrestling him into submission was not going to accomplish that.
Storm crossed her legs and let her foot bounce in irritation. She needed to think this thing out. Why – after seven weeks home – did this come about now? What happened to make him suddenly believe that he wasn’t home?
Ororo thought back through the past seven weeks. He hadn’t behaved like himself since the day they brought him home. He was paranoid – more than usual. He stared at Jean like she was some monster out of one of his nightmares. He looked at the rest of them as if they were total strangers. He wouldn’t eat, at least with the rest of them. He didn’t sleep in his own room. He wouldn’t participate in any activities… he didn’t talk to anyone… he… he…. He NEVER believed that he was home. He hasn’t believed it since day one. ‘Oh, Goddess.’
Ororo sat up straight in her chair, planting both feet back on the floor. She had to talk to Logan… now. But, she had promised Hank that she wouldn’t go back in there while he was gone. Ororo twisted around in her seat, looking at the open doorway where Logan had hidden himself. She couldn’t hear him anymore, apparently he had calmed down in their absence.
‘I don’t have to go in there to talk to him,’ she told herself. ‘I could stay outside the door. That way I can talk to him and keep my promise to Henry.’
~Yep. That sounded like a plan~
She nodded to herself and stood up, running her hands across her dress to smooth it down. It was more a nervous gesture than one of preening. Ororo walked slowly toward the small room, moving in an arc so when she came to the front of the door she was standing about ten feet in front of it. She could see Logan in the dark space, crouched on his haunches, arms spread wide in front of him. His eyes were closed and his head hung forward. She wondered if he had fallen asleep.
She took a step toward the open doorway and stopped. Logan didn’t move. Ororo took another step. He still didn’t move, but she heard him take in a deep, slow breath. He knew she was there.
"Logan?" she said quietly.
"You again?" he asked just as quietly. He wasn’t behaving defensively nor was he angry. He seemed… tired, resigned to the fact that she just wasn’t going to leave him alone.
"Yes. It’s me again. I’m alone this time," she informed him.
"I know," he replied. His acute senses not detecting any other sounds or scents in the area.
"Can I talk to you?" she inquired softly, asking for his permission.
"What about?" he asked.
"About us," Ororo replied.
"Us?"
"Yes. About our relationship," she told him specifically.
"We don’t have a relationship," Logan told her, his voice still quiet.
"Yes… we do. You and I… we are friends. The best of friends."
"I don’t have any friends. I don’t have anyone," he told her. "I’m just a lab animal."
"No, you’re not. You are my best friend. And I thought I was yours."
"I thought so, too... but I know the truth now. You don’t exist. Only in my head."
"And in your heart," she told him.
"My heart," he repeated in a whisper. "My heart is cold and empty."
"That’s not true. I know that’s not true," Ororo countered. "You have a warm… gentle heart. They use it to hurt you."
"They can’t hurt me anymore. I know their secrets. I know what they do," he droned in a voice dull and emotionless.
"What do they do, Logan?" she asked, kneeling down in front of the door.
"They make me believe things that aren’t real. An’ then they make me feel things that are too real," he told her.
"What kinds of things do they make you feel?" Ororo asked, her voice gentle and loving and wanting to understand.
"You know."
"Pretend I don’t," she told him. Logan let out a deep sigh and thought about it for a moment. Then he shook his head.
"No… I feel stupid talkin’ to someone who doesn’t exist. They’re probably laughin’ at me right now."
"And you don’t like being laughed at, do you?" she asked, already knowing the answer to that.
"No."
"I understand," she told him sincerely. "But, if I never did exist… and you’ve been talking to me for years, wouldn’t they be used to hearing you talk to me?" Logan was quiet for a while, obviously thinking about what she had said and Ororo waited for him to answer.
"I suppose."
"So? What’s different?" she asked. He didn’t answer. "Tell me… what do they make you feel?" Ororo asked. She completely expected him to say things about love and friendship, but the answer she got floored her.
"They make me feel them cuttin’ into me. When I wake up, an’ they still have their hands inside my body, movin’ things around… gutted…opened wide…filleted on the fuckin’ table."
Ororo couldn’t speak for a minute or two, she just stared at him in horror. She thought she’d be sick when she remembered how he had looked when they'd found him. Covered in cuts and bruises and… half healed incisions. It took her a few moments to catch her breath, the thoughts of him being cut open and laid out on an operating table… surrounded by faceless people who didn’t care about what they did to him, and he…awakening to the horror…
"You wake up… when they’re operating on you?" she asked, her voice hitching with disgust and sorrow at the very thought. Logan didn’t say anything, he just nodded his head. "And… they don’t knock you back out?" she asked, nearly in tears.
He shook his head no. "Hurts," he whispered.
Ororo’s mind was reeling, she didn’t know what to say. Hurts? How do you respond to something like that? How do you acknowledge that you understand such pain…when you can’t possibly know what it feels like to open your eyes and see someone standing over you, covered in your blood, holding your organs in their hands, and telling you it’s just not worth putting you back out? How could they just ignore his screams?
He must’ve screamed…Right? No one could experience such a thing without screaming, right? How could they be so cold... so inhumane? It seemed to take forever for Ororo to get her thoughts back under control. Her heart was racing and her mouth had gone dry. No wonder he didn’t want anyone to touch him.
"Why… why did they operate on you? Do you know?" she asked, her voice barely audible, but she knew he could still hear her clearly.
"To check fer damage," he told her, grimacing with the memory of it.
"Damage? From what?" Ororo asked.
"Damage caused from their experiments," he whispered matter-of-factly.
"What kind of experiments, Logan?"
"Toxins… and chemicals," he whispered. Ororo blinked, thinking. ‘Of course.’ He was their perfect little super-soldier. His healing factor was what made him so valuable to them. It was why they chose him in the first place.
"They exposed you to chemicals and toxins and then checked for damage to your organs? Is that what they did?" she asked for clarification.
"No," he replied. "They opened me up, then pumped me full o’ the shit and they watched it work against me. And they’d monitor the reaction as my healing factor kicked it out of my system."
Ororo didn’t know where to go from here. She didn’t know what to say, so she decided to change direction. It was too deep, she couldn’t handle this alone.
"When they weren’t hurting you… what were they doing?"
"I don’t know," he told her. "When they were done with me, they just threw me back in the cell and chained me up… and left me alone."
"Did they put the visor on you?"
"Yes. Can I have it back?" he asked. Ororo had been leaning against the doorjamb, and now she turned to look at him.
"Why do you want the visor, Logan? What does it do?"
"It takes me to a better place. Can I have it back?"
"What do you mean ‘a better place’?" Ororo asked him, curious to find the answers they needed.
"A better place… no pain… just pleasure."
"What kind of pleasure?" she asked.
"Ya’ know… pleasure."
"Sexual pleasure? Is that what you mean?" Ororo asked, concerned.
"Sometimes," Logan replied. "Until that bitch betrayed me!"
"Who?" Ororo asked, getting up on her knees and putting one hand on the doorframe to steady herself. "Who betrayed you, Logan?"
"The red-head. The one called Jean," he told her, his lip curling back into a snarl.
"How did she betray you, Logan?" Ororo tried to stay calm, but he was finally talking to her and she rattled off her questions quickly so he wouldn’t have time to think about not answering her.
"She came to me. Like she always did. Made me feel good. Let me escape the pain. But then… she turned on me… she laughed at me. Told me the only reason she was here was to gain my trust. That she didn’t love me, no one did." Suddenly he stopped talking, as if he realized he had said too much.
"Why did she need to gain your trust, Logan?" He didn’t answer. "Logan, please tell me. Why did she need your trust?" Ororo prodded.
Logan sighed miserably, then he answered, sounding ashamed. "So I would let her touch me… pleasure me," he whispered.
Ororo’s heart sank, knowing now that they had used images of Logan’s friends to cause him pain. Even the memories of pleasure were now painful memories, because it was used to betray him. So why did he want the visor back? Why had he put it on in the first place? Ororo asked him, and waited for his reply.
"Because," he answered, "I don’t know what’s real anymore. And as long as I’m in here like this… they won’t hurt me."
Ororo slid down to sit on the floor, leaning against the doorway. She stared at Logan bound up in the dark, his eyes closed, his muscles now trembling under his weight as he continued to crouch there – how long now? He’d been starving himself - punishing himself in the absence of his enemies – he was showing signs of dehydration and exhaustion. He didn’t trust the things he could see, or hear, or smell, or touch. His senses were useless to him now, he didn’t trust them. The virtual ‘reality’ they had kept him caged in was distorting his belief of which reality truly existed. He was free of them and yet he was still their prisoner. He was home. He was safe. Everything was supposed to be fine now.
"Can I have the visor back?" he asked quietly, and Ororo covered her face and cried.
TBC in "The Calming Storm – Part Four"
