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Author's Chapter Notes:
Sooooooo, it's been a really long time since I updated here and I'm so sorry about leaving on such a cliffhanger but my computer crashed and it's been ridiculous trying to recover my files. So hopefully I can continue posting now. Yays. Hope you like
Secret Burdens

Chapter Twenty: To Prove Him Wrong

"He has been 'the killer' for so long. It is familiar and deserving and he knows no other way to be."

* * *

Logan felt the weight of her body slumped against him like an accusation. There was no pressure to her fingertips as they rest against his chest, where her hands had fallen as her body went limp. There was no strength left in her. Her breath came in shallow pants, dragging along her throat.

Logan stood there holding her, unmoving, watching as her eyes, heavy and lidded, lifted to catch his gaze. There was the faintest of smiles crossing her lips, her eyes fading slowly and then closing. His grip tightened on her waist and back, trying to swallow down that heavy slice of guilt. He felt it scraping its way down his throat and into his stomach until he felt sick.

Her breathe stopped, her weight deadening against him.

There was the sudden intake of breath before it broke free of his chest, tearing from him in a roar that shook both their bodies.

She died in his arms. And he had killed her.

This was how he had killed Jean.

* * *

Not again, was all he could think. Not this time. Not her.

Anyone but Ororo.

Logan was brought back to reality with the sharp, acrid smell of blood, her blood. It had splashed across his face when the bullet ploughed through her ribcage, ripping a hole straight from her back through to her chest, tearing tissue and muscle along its searing path. He could taste her blood on his tongue.

It was like burning acacias.

He blinked in disbelief at her wavering stance before him, her unfocused eyes searching for his. Her mouth shuddered in its quiet 'o' of pain and recognition as she blinked at Logan, her brows furrowed together. Her hands reached for him without knowing. And then she collapsed.

Logan moved to her with a sense of urgency he had never felt before, catching her weight as she fell forward, into his arms. It was awkward and fumbled and he fell to his knees with her. He heard her groan of pain at the movement and tried to shift her so she was lying on the grass below them, her head and shoulders supported in his arms.

Her head fell back, unable to stay steady and Logan reached a hand to her face, trying to feel her warmth, reassure himself she had not left him. Wisps of white hair clung to her forehead with sweat. She blinked her eyes at him and then shut them tightly as she took in a sharp breath of pain, trying to pull air from her lungs as they soaked through with blood. She began to tremble.

"Ororo." His voice was so shaky even he did not know how he managed her name.

But what left her mouth in a quick and harsh whisper was "Shrap".

Suddenly, Hank was at their sides and Logan's face had blanked so fast, his arms already moving to place Ororo's quivering form in the beast's hands.

He wiped a hand across his blood-splattered face and rose to face the General. There was a quiet stillness that came over him, cold and abrupt. He found that in the moments he had caught and lowered Ororo, Peter had already rampaged Shrap, landing a heavy, metal fist to his jaw.

The General whipped back, landing against the fallen concrete that was his cover, pulling up one arm to brace himself against the fall. His side and forearm hit the concrete, and he stumbled to the ground as he shouted in pain. But he reached back quickly, his breath winded, aiming his Berretta M9 at the oncoming Colossus. His bullets bounced off Peter's shimmering form harmlessly. Shrap had only a moment to blink back the surprise and confusion before Peter's fist had grabbed at the man's collar, bunching his uniform at his throat and raised him from the floor, his feet dangling above the dirt like a rag doll's. A plead choked its way from Shrap's mouth as he grasped at Peter's metal fist.

Their confrontation was broken by a loud and bellowing roar. Both men whipped their heads to the sound, finding Logan hunched and growling to their left, his eyes blazing with rage. Something feral and dangerous was ripping at his chest, screaming to claw its way out. He gulped down thick breathes of air, his nostrils flaring as he tried in vain to control that dark, tearing instinct. It wrapped its claws around his heart and squeezed, pumping fury deep into his blood.

It whispered at him to kill.

Peter had a moment where he realized he might have had a chance to stop Logan, might have had a chance to remind him that they were still X-Men, that Ororo would not want blood spilled in her name. He glanced back at Ororo's still form in the dirt, Hank's wide eyes as they exchanged glances and the Beast curled his blue warmth around her trembling shoulders.

Peter looked back to Logan's snarling face. The man's canines glinted in the still-flashing lighting, his shoulders bunched in readiness. The shink of his released adamantium claws was deafening in the space between them. There was nothing now that could stop the spilling of blood. Logan's eyes glazed over in a dark promise.

Shrap's strangled "please" caught Peter's attention and he looked at the red-faced General. Peter's hold on him broke and he dropped Shrap to the floor before stepping back and out of Logan's path.

Logan's bellow thundered around them as he rushed forward, his knee collided with Shrap's face at full speed. The General spun, blood spewing from his nose as he hit the floor. Logan's breathing was heavy and labored and this time, the smell of blood made his lips curl into a menacing glint of a smile. He shouted his rage as he swung one clawed fist through the air, sinking his adamantium deep into the General's thigh.

Shrap screamed in pain, pushing and falling against the ground in a hopeless attempt to rise. He narrowed his eyes at Logan, gasping through the pain, his mouth and chin bloodied from his gushing, broken nose. He reached his hand around the dirt blindly until he found his gun once more and brought it quickly to Logan's chest, firing a round deep into his shoulder.

Logan roared in pain and flinched back, twisting his fist as it was still embedded in Shrap's thigh, but not releasing. The downed soldier screamed in agony again, the pain sending spasms through his body and he dropped the gun to fall back to the floor, tears stinging his eyes. He blinked blearily at Logan and found the mutant hunched over his bleeding thigh, the muscles and skin on his blown shoulder knitting back in a gruesome and grotesque melding of flesh. He saw the mutant grinding his teeth through the throbbing and tearing of his own shoulder, his eyes bunched closed, his breathing deep and labored. Shrap's mouth hung open in awe and disgust.

Logan whipped his eyes open to find the collapsed General staring at him through a haze of suffering. He found his fury enflamed once more and his mouth twisted into a sick smile as he plunged his free claw, tingling with feeling once more now that the majority of his shoulder had healed, into the hand that had held Shrap's gun, the hand that may have murdered Ororo. Shrap screamed as he felt his hand cut through with adamantium knives and then pinned to the earth.

"You've no idea what you've just released," Logan growled lowly to the restrained soldier as he writhed and cried beneath Logan's claws.

Shrap pulled in shaky, bloodied breathes and looked at the dark mutant above him. His lip curled in disgust and he spat at Logan, breathing "Monster" sharply into the air between them.

Logan didn't bother turning his head as he felt the mixture of blood and saliva hit his face and slide down his cheeks. He only smiled more menacingly. "Oh if only you were so lucky, bub." His dark whisper was dangerous and intimate, and Shrap would be lying if he said he didn't quake under Logan's sinister glare. "I'm the thing monsters flee from. I'm the thing that demons fear. I'm what makes your nightmares crawl beneath their puny, fuckin' beds at night. And when I'm through with ya, you'll be pleading for monsters."

Logan pulled his claws free from Shrap's flesh and relished in the answering howl that ripped from his throat. He wrapped a hand around the man's throat and swung a fist to his face. Again and again. Logan landed blows all over the General, into his wounded thigh, into his crushed nose, cracking his ribs harshly in his chest, all the while laughing darkly at the broken man's screams.

"Wolverine, stand down!" came Hank's shout from somewhere behind him. But he couldn't stop. He couldn't stop now that he'd started. He couldn't stop until the man was a pile of broken bones and flesh, seeping into the dirt at his feet, cracking deafeningly beneath the heavy swing of his enraged fists. He doubted even he could stop himself if he wanted to.

He could still smell burning acacias beneath it all. Unbidden, Logan's eyes moisten with hot tears.

"Wolverine!" Warren's yell came with the feeling of hands trying to pull him away from the weeping mess below him. One set, and then two and then Logan registered the frantic attempts of Warren, Kitty and Bobby trying to pry him from Shrap.

The three of them had quickly taken Colonel Marks' antidote and administered it to the downed captive mutants while Peter and then Logan restrained General Shrap, and Hank tried desperately to stem the flow of blood from Ororo's fallen body. Around them, the military forces had built a perimeter, Lieutenant Colonel Dominguez calling for them to stand down. Hank had yelled back about medical attention and the shouts had been drowned out by the steady, beating thrum of propellers in the air. Hank glanced behind the group and found several helicopters landing on the field around them, more soldiers pouring forth. He turned his cries to Logan as he saw the mutant start to savagely beat General Shrap.

"Leave him, Wolverine!" Hank yelled, watching as Kurt suddenly blinked into sight next to him after teleporting to the Blackbird, where he had sent him to grab a trauma kit. Peter knelt on the floor beside them as Kurt ripped open the pack, passing gauze and chemical hemostats to Hank as the Beast laid Ororo gently on the ground and began to apply pressure to the wound with the items. Peter in turn checked her airway, turned her head for better breathing and applied an oxygen pump over her mouth and nose.

"Beast…" Peter breathed shakily.

"I know," Hank snapped, looking up to catch the sight of medical personnel rushing toward them. He ground his teeth in helplessness, not wanting to release her in the hands of the military, but knowing their hospital was closer than the X-facility and that time was against them. He would have to trust that his contacts on the hill had brokered enough peace between the Montauk officials and his own team. He looked back to Ororo, her eyelids fluttering in barely held confusion. With her head turned, she caught sight of Logan and Shrap. She coughed into the mask on her face, reaching a heavy hand to Kurt, the effort of such a simple act quickening the inky blackness swirling around her vision. Peter removed the mask to hear her just as the soldiers closed in on them.

It was a chaos of voices and raised weapons and Logan was frantically pushing back his teammates, Kitty's tear-filled pleading empty to him as he swung one more fist toward Shrap as the general curled in on himself.

"Logan."

His arm stopped mid-swing at the unexpected wash of relief that her whisper brought. Even over the steady beating of overhead propellers, the shouts between the X-men and soldiers, Peter's arguing with the trauma response to get Ororo on a chopper for the hospital, Lieutenant Colonel Dominguez's yelling for Logan to stand down, Kitty's keening cries and sobs as she pulled weakly at him, even over all the noise on that battlefield, Logan could make out the sudden and pained cry of his name that came from Ororo's lips. He froze, staring down at the bleeding General. Shrap's head rolled back in an unfocused haze, his face bloodied, the skin of his cheeks broken and bruised.

A hush fell over the crowd at Logan's sudden stillness.

"Don't…" Ororo coughed, and Logan turned to look at her.

It almost broke him again.

Hank and Kurt looked at her, the Beast holding his hands to her wound, Kurt simply holding her hands.

"Ororo." He didn't think he could say her name again without the tears breaking free. His hatred and fury still curled tightly in his chest, breathing there in steady patience for its inevitable release once more in the breaking of skin beneath Logan's white knuckles.

Her fingers tightened over Kurt's and she found the strength to form words. Her gaze was steady and unwavering on Logan and she swallowed painfully, feeling the fuzzy thickness of her own tongue in her mouth. "If you kill him…" she started, pulling in a sharp breath through her nose to continue, "we become the terror…he thought us to be."

Logan's fist still hovered tightly above Shrap's semi-conscious body.

"Logan," Hank reached out softly. "The bullet came close to her spine. I don't know if…" He stopped and swallowed the heavy break in his voice. "She needs a hospital now. She needs surgery now." His stare was heavy on Logan. "She needs you now."

Logan looked back to Shrap's blood-smeared face, his eyes blinking in and out of consciousness.

Ororo's firm yet breaking voice washed over him once more. "I did not take – take this bullet…to prove him right," she breathed tightly between clenched teeth.

Logan closed his eyes and pulled in a shaking breath. When he opened them once more, he sent his fist down on the General, his claws breaking free to stab through the man's knee, breaking bone and cartilage in a sick twisting and churning. Shrap cried out at the assault and snapped his eyes open, back to full awareness at the sudden rending pain.

"If she never walks again," Logan snarled, inches from the crying man's own face, his breath hot on his wounded cheeks, "then neither do you."

Logan retracted his claws sharply, the quick release sending Shrap to finally black out from the shock of the pain. Logan stood and turned from him, and he never looked back.

* * *

It was all oddly stark and slow and painfully vibrant. Medical teams had gotten Ororo and Shrap each on separate helicopters headed for the hospital. Warren and Bobby had rounded up the captive mutants as they blinked back to conscious awareness and filed into the Blackbird at the X-team's behest, ready to head back to their facility for evaluation and treatment. Hank had helped load Ororo onto the carrier with as minimal movement as possible, jumping in next to the silent Logan to travel with her. None of the soldiers aboard argued. Hank exchanged words briefly with the ranking officer sent in to break up their fight before he left to brief Colonel Marks and Lieutenant Colonel Dominguez. The rest of the army had slowly dissipated to gather their wounded and round up any other officers involved in Shrap's operation. From his vantage point high above the field as their helicopter rose into the air, Hank could see Colonel Marks being handcuffed, his head low, his arms unresisting. Across the field he saw the Blackbird lifting with Warren, Peter, Bobby, Kitty, Kurt and the captive mutants aboard. Pieces of crumbling concrete still toppled from the demolished bunker's roof.

The propellers thudded through the air, deafening the space around them. And as they rose steadily higher, Hank watched as the pool of blood staining the grass where Ororo had fallen grew smaller and smaller.





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