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“She has your eyes.” Ororo spoke, her own twin sapphire not straying from the hazel ones of the child staring at her, her attention focused at the strange woman who had hair just like hers.

Her dada had told her that she had white colored hair because she was special….good special, because only good special people had white hair. That would mean this new person was also special.

“Dada,” she yanked at the leg of her father’s denim jean. “She ‘pecial too?”
“Yeah darlin’,” Logan’s growl carried a unique caring, protective warmth, his gaze darting from between his legs, where on the carpeted floor Kendall sat with her toys, to Ororo, sitting on the couch in front. “She special too.”

The other X-Men, Jean, Kitty and Sam were also in the room, but they had long been forgotten by the trio.

----

Earlier,

“Goddess…” Ororo’s gasp caused her teammates to turn to her, their heads whipping back at Logan’s next words.

“This is Kendall,” he introduced his attacker. “Kendall Logan…Our daughter.”

“Oh, my God!” Jean’s eyes practically jumped out of their sockets. Whatever secrets Wolverine was going to reveal about Ororo’s two years away from the X-Men, never in her wildest dreams, had she thought that it would be this….not a child!

“Wow,” was all Kitty could say, her head repeatedly jerking from Ororo to the small girl and back to Ororo.

As for his part, Sam was left speechless, unsure how to respond to this unusual and completely unexpected development. Mr. Summers had told him to take care of his teammates and get them out at the slightest sign of something odd. If this did not count as odd, he did not know what did.

-

Conscious at the way the strange people were staring at her, Kendall turned around in her father’s strong head, burying into his warm chest, the corner of her eyes not leaving them. She was on her guard now….as well as scared.

The slight variation in the surrounding air currents jarred Ororo out of her stupor. Gulping and bringing her fluctuating emotions under control, she settled the weather, only to have it unsettled again….and again….and again.

‘Its her! She’s doing it.’ Ororo’s eyes sought the huddled child, her slightly milky eyes confirming her suspicion. ‘She’s frightened.’

“Its alright baby,” Logan also sensed his daughter’s turmoil, his nostrils flaring at the fright rolling off her. “Dada’s here. No one is goin’ to hurt you.”

-

Opening her mouth to speak, Jean’s words gave way to a cough and subsequent scream at audible bampf announcing Kurt Wagner’s entrance, Kitty joining in with her own yelp.

“Yaaaahhh,” Kurt leapt of his feet at the scared cry from not one but two of the guests Logan had brought with him.

“Watch it,” Logan’s snarled at their behavior, the claws of his free hand coming out on their own accord. “Yer scaring the kids.” By kids, he meant Kendall as well as Kurt, who having been at the receiving end of such reactions, and even worse ones, throughout his life, lost the expectant glow in his eyes. Trying to hide himself, his pulled the hood of his jacket closer, his tail automatically curling up out of sight.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized, getting ready to teleport away. He had come out to meet Logan and welcome the guests, and help them with their luggage. Henry’s words, that the people coming were mutants, had made him forget that even among mutants, people like him were treated differently.

“Wait, don’t go,” Jean had the presence of mind to speak up. “We are the ones who should be sorry. Its just that….” She once again looked at Ororo and at the girl who was supposedly…. ‘No, not supposedly,’ she corrected herself. ‘There is not doubt. Even if this is not her daughter, this child is somehow related to Ororo.’

“Vas is das?” Kurt gasped as he got a good look at the third and seemingly frozen woman in the guests. Ororo hadn’t spoken a word since seeing the white haired, mocha skinned child. “Logan?” He asked his mentor, his voice filled with confusion.

“Lets get them in Elf,” Logan grunted and jerked his head towards the mansion, his next words spoken only for Ororo. “Come. We got a lot to talk about.”

-----
Present,

“Wow,” that word had found a starring role in Kitty Pryde’s vocabulary. She had wowed countless times since reaching this place. First by seeing Ms. Monroe’s daughter….daughter!! She still couldn’t get over that, everything else in this place only adding onto that disbelief. First it was that scary looking Kurt, who had scared the living daylights out of her. Then that other man, the blue furred one, Mr….Dr. McCoy, had come to meet Logan and introduce himself to the X-Men. Then there was the man with the skin marking and his human…human girlfriend.

‘What is a human doing here?’ That thought had been a natural one, but one she was ashamed of. She wasn’t a racist or ‘specist’ or whatever. Her own parents were non-mutants. ‘I shouldn’t be thinking like this,’ she was thankful that Jean wasn’t able to read her thoughts as she said a quick prayer for forgiveness at her vile thoughts.

“Ms. Monroe’s daughter is so cute,” she turned towards Jean, getting a silent nod in return.

“Yeah, a real peach-plum,” Jubilee grunted between chomps of her favorite junkfood. “You should see her when she’s in her Wolvie mode. It makes you thank that she doesn’t have her claws like her old man.”

-

Jean was herself in a difficult situation. At seeing the young child, her first instinct had been to take off the telepathic inhibitor and contact the Professor.

However, having given her word not to do so, she had stopped herself….just barely, from doing so. It was no longer just a question of her or her teammates. The ballgame had just gotten a whole lot bigger. She was in completely new territory now.

‘This is definitely going to take more than a day,’ she told herself, her eyes filling with tears at the way Ororo just about broke down at the first tentative touch from her daughter, who after her own lengthy scrutiny and urging from her father had finally got up and walked up to the strange lady.

‘She’s matching colors,’ Jean realized at what the child was doing. First, had been Ororo’s hand; small fingers firmly grasping at Ororo’s index digit, checking to see how colors matched between them. After that, she had climbed onto the couch, and reached for a lock of silky white hair, her eyes lighting when she held it against her own and found that it was the same as hers.

“Dada, same hair, same hair,” she called to her father, who just nodded with a happy-sad smile, his throat too choked to form words.

-----

“Watch out,” Ororo gasped at Kendall’s leap off the sofa, her hands instinctively reaching out to protected her child, who showing amazing…almost animal like litheness slipped out of her grasp to run to her father.

“Dada sad?” Kendall climbed onto her father's knees. Grabbing at his shirt lapel for support, she intently looked at him, demanding an answer for her question.

“Nah, darlin’,” Logan lifted one hand and laid her against his chest. Looking up at Ororo, he smiled. “She’s got it, my senses and healing factor. Not much, but enough so that she heals faster than normal and doesn’t fall sick as often or as easily.”

“Oh,” Ororo nodded, his words bringing back the memory of how the young girl had manipulated the air currents around them. “Her mutation is already active?”

From what Xavier had told them, it was usually at puberty that mutations became active. It was very rare to have them working at such a young age.


“Yeah,” Logan responded, sitting up Kendall to face her mother. “Been like that since day one…since her birth. Hank says it’ll change as she gets older. Its already changing.”

“Changing?” A lump formed in Ororo’s throat. “How?”

“When she was born, the part she got from me was already active,” Logan explained calmly. “She had yers, but only a little of it. Like when she cried, her eyes would change color like yers. Not full white, but a little, sort of blue-grey. We thought that was all she got frem you. But now, now its changing. The things she got from you, they are starting now. She can do small things. Not fly or make lightening or anything like that. Not yet. But, she can change the air a little. The thing she got from me and the air thing she does, it gives her a hell of a jump. No other four year old can jump this much.”

“Oh,” Ororo once again recalled her first meeting with her child. Kendall had attacked Logan. Was her daughter as feral….as animalistic as Logan’s other daughters?

Other daughters…..that brought along a whole lot of questions. Where were their mothers? Having seen X23…Laura and then Kirika and Amiko, she knew that girls did not have the same mother. Where did that leave her and her daughter? Moreover, how old was Logan anyway? Looking at him, she guessed him to be in his mid thirties. That would make him too young to be Kirika’s, who was in her early twenties, biological father. ‘But the claws,’ she reminded herself.

“Does she….” She started to ask, hesitant in her question. “Does she have…have claws.”
“Nah,” Logan flipped his hand. “Didn’t get that. Good for her. Saves her frem the pain.”

“Pain?”
“Yeah,” Logan sighed. Setting Kendall onto the floor, he patted her behind, urging her towards her mother. Lifting one hand away from her, he let out its claws, just a little….and showed it to Ororo. “When they come out….”

“They cut the skin,” Ororo’s eyes widened as a something akin to a memory flashed at the back of her mind.

--

“Do they hurt,” she had asked him.
“Every time,” he had answered with a sigh.

--

“An’ everything in between.” Logan amended her answer. “It’s a good thing she didn’t get them. Better if she gets yet powers. Hank says the animal part she got from mine, it will stay the same. That will keep her from going crazy like me and Laura do.” At home now, Logan finally used X23’s real name.

“About Laura….” Ororo couldn’t contain herself. She had to ask the questions; including the ones she wanted the answer for most. What had happened to them? Why had they separated? Why had he not tried to find her? Why had he kept her daughter away from her? “Their mothers….”

“Not in the picture,” Logan cut her off halfway. “Kirika’s mother was first….” He started to say wife because that was he regarded her as. “She was my fiancée. She died years ago. Kirika’s all her I got left o’ hers. Amiko, her I found and brought home. Her mother was dying and the kid would’ve been alone. An’ since I can’t adopt her in Japan, Kirika is her legal guardian.”

“And Laura?”
“Laura,” Logan was silent for a few seconds before starting with her story. “She’s mine, but not…she was born in a lab,” he tried to be as simple and direct as possible. “The same people who put this metal in my body,” he drew back his claws. “They also took my blood. Years later, they used that blood to create her. They had twenty two tries before they got it right with her.”

“She’s your clone?”
“Yeah, could say so,” Logan nodded.

“And the other twenty two?” Ororo asked with a foreboding feeling.
“They were all considered as failures and destr…..they all died.”

“Goddess,” Ororo’s heart clenched with pain. “Why did they do it? Why kill children?”
“Same reason they got me…same reason they got you. They wanted a weapon,” Logan’s words stunned her. He had just said what the Professor had already suspected…..It had been the Weapon X people who had captured her.

---

Back in Westchester,

“Professor, any message?” It had been for the third time in as many hours that Scott *officially freaked out* Summers had tracked down his mentor, every time asking the same question.
“No Scott, I’m afraid not,” Xavier sighed the same answer. “As I have already told you, Jean, Ororo and the others disappeared soon after you dropped them off in Calgary.”

“I should have gone with them,” Scott’s frown was back. “Its been over eight hours and still not any contact from them.”
“I know Scott, and I am worried about them too,” Xavier supplied beforehand, having memorized Scott’s answers from the previous times.

“Where do you think he has taken them?” Yet another repeated question, although this one only for the second time.
“I have no idea,” Xavier shook her head. “The tracker you planted on the truck, and which I am sure Logan knew about, any movement from that?”

“No Sir,” it was Scott’s turn to shake his head. “None at all. It has been stationary since the last seven hours. Warren and I already went back and checked it out. The truck is there, and so is the tracker, but that’s all. Also, no one remembers seeing anyone matching either Jean, Ororo’s or even Logan’s description.”

“In that case,” it was time for the Professor to retire for the night. “I suggest we wait, at least for the twenty four hours we decided on, before making any moves.”

Still not convinced, but bowing down in front of his senior’s decision, Scott nodded numbly and started for the door.

“Goodnight Professor.”

“Goodnight Scott.”

-----

In Canada,

“Logan…” The question had been gaining strength inside Ororo. Barely able to contain herself in front of the now asleep Kendall, she fired as soon as the child went to bed. What had hurt….angered…pained….her even more was that her own child wanted not her but her father to help her get settled for bed. The rational part of her told Ororo this was completely understandable, seeing that to young Kendall this woman, even though sharing the same skin and hair color was still a stranger, someone she would go near and allow near her, but not someone to put her to bed and kiss her goodnight….the rational told her that. However, her entire existence through for a loop at finding that not only did she have an almost four year old daughter, she was also married….MARRIED to man she had no memory of….to a man she wasn’t sure she even liked.

While she might have not believed a thing of what he said, she could not refute the irrefutable proof he had just handed her.

Scattered before her were photographs of Logan and her…..a younger, five years younger her. Apart from the ones of just the two of them, there were dozens of her, Logan and Laura or just her and Laura, once again a younger, barely teenaged Laura. Not only that, there were even photographs of them and Kirika….in Japan, and if those weren’t enough in themselves, along with the photographs documenting her pregnancy, all taken in wacky poses, with her standing almost in profile cradling her slowly growing belly, there were also documents. Kendall’s birth certificate naming her as mother and Logan as father, her Canadian immigration papers, her marriage certificate, it was all there.

----

“Why?” Her one word held a plethora of questions inside it.
“Why?” Logan had been staring at her nonstop…..he had almost three years of separation to make up for.

“Why?” Ororo spoke again, her tear-filled eyes flashing with all the emotions welling up inside her, something that Logan sensed as well as heard in the howling winds and incessant rain that had appeared all of a sudden and had been going on and gaining strength….for the past three hours. “Why this? Why so long? Why did we separate? Why did I leave? Did you not try to find me? Did you not want my daughter to have her mother?”

“Ororo,” Logan tried to assuage her, to have her keep her increasingly loud voice down.

“WHY DID YOU KEEP MY DAUGHTER AWAY FROM ME?” Ororo bellowed, a loud lightening and thunder flash accompanying and accentuating her words.

“YOU LEFT,” Logan yelled back, his anger quickly dissolving to pain. “You left….you were the one who said you wanted to forget it….like a bad dream. Remember? You said that.”

Having her own words thrown at her stunned Ororo into momentary silence, not because Logan was lying, and not only because it was the truth, but because when and where she had spoken those words….in a party, a public gathering….at the X-Mansion, in New York.

“How do you…?” She was finally able to ask, trailing off at the way Logan looked at her. There was no accusation in that look, not anymore, only pain….pain akin to her own. It was as if, he had spent all these years carrying that pain.

“I followed,” Logan hung his head, staring at his hands. “Three months, that’s how it took me to find you. You had just upped and disappeared. I had to. Trashed all the labs I could find….then trashed them again, so that if they’d got you, they’d have one less place to bring you to. Finally got a lead from a small town newspaper. Freak attacks innocent man. That’s what the headline said.”

“He tried to take advantage of me,” Ororo recalled her run-in with that trucker. On her way to Westchester, and having gotten tired after hours of flying, she had hitched a ride, only to have him try to rape her. Electrifying his nuts off, she had made a break for it….not approaching anyone for a ride or any kind of help again. Almost a day later, she had arrived at the mansion, fatigued and hungry.

“Yeah, well, he won’t do that anymore…to anyone.” -snikt- Logan had made sure of that. Following Ororo, he had tracked down the trucker in the news article and had left him with a souvenir….his sliced off genitals shoved into his mouth, his hands chopped off, his eyes gouged out and his tongue where his penis used to be.

----

“I followed you all the way to Westchester,” Logan resumed his explanation. “Was so happy to finally have found ya. Didn’t have Kendall with me. Left her at a friend’s place. Told her, she’d get her mamma soon. Thought they had captured ya….was ready to kill each one of them for it.”

“They didn’t,” was all Ororo could say. Things were becoming clear to her now. Logan had come after her, even found her. Too bad it had been on the night when Scott and Jean had organized a party officially welcoming her back. The words he had told her, the ones were the ones she had spoken to Jean’s father.

He had asked her whether she remembered anything of her last two years. She had not only denied that, she had also said that it all seemed like a bad dream, a nightmare that she wanted to forget…..and at that time, it had been true.

Until weeks after her return, she had nightmares of a different her, a her who had a family….a child. It had become so harrowing for her that she could not sleep anymore…..apart from being physically and emotionally draining for her, it was dangerous for the others around her. When she fell asleep and did have those nightmares, she lost control over powers. She had finally got over it with Xavier’s help, the telepath giving her a little nudge away from her nightmares, helping her lock them away….until Logan and Laura came to the mansion. Their return had brought back those nightmares, those subconscious memories, as she now realized what they were.
----

“You can come out. I know yer there,” Logan’s grunt jarred her out of her musings. Turning around to see whom he had spoken to, she caught sight of Jean, who had been hiding behind a door at the far end of the room.

“Sorry, we didn’t mean to….” Jean started but stopped at the slanted look Logan gave her. ‘Enhanced senses,’ she reminded herself. ‘He’ll catch your lie.’

“Done with One-Eye?” The redhead nodded at Logan’s question. After dinner, she had called up Westchester, telling a highly animated Scott that everything was fine and they’d be calling in the morning. She had however, avoided revealing anything about what she had learnt about Ororo’s past, feeling that it should be Ororo who should get to break that news…..unless it was the Professor who asked her.

“Yes. Thank you,” she came and sat down next to Ororo, a guilty smile on her face.

----

An abrupt silence fell over the now party of three, a silence that Logan broke.

“You wanna know everything?” His query had been more for Ororo than Jean.

“Yes,” Ororo’s answer was instantaneous.

Silent for the next few seconds, Logan gathered his thoughts, deciding where to begin from.

“I met ya…found ya more’en five years ago.”


Note: Forgot to write about the latest and most important character introduction.

Kendall Logan (No codename….as yet): Daughter of Logan (Wolverine) and Ororo Monroe (Storm), this character is from the ‘What if?’ series that Marvel publishes. Although she was shown as a teenager, here she is much younger. Having both parents as mutants, her powers have been active since birth, growing and developing with her. She’s got enhanced senses and a healing factor that she gets from her father. Although no where as strong as Wolverine’s, its more than enough to get by the usual scrapes and nicks, even illnesses. The powers she gets from her mother have been slower in developing. While her father’s half was active since birth and has remained the same, her weather controlling powers have gone from non-existent to minor manipulations at present. Dr. McCoy has hypnotized that as she grows, so will those powers, until hopefully one day she is able to reach the same levels as her mother. (Age: Three and a half to four years….3 ½ to 4)

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