Chapter Fifteen: Fallen
Death before my eyes
Lying next to me, I fear
She beckons me, shall I give in
Upon my end, shall I begin
Forsaking all I've fallen for
I rise to meet the end
~Evanescence
The metallic bonds holding him to the wall were impossible to break free from. He strained weary muscles and filled the room with spitting growls. All the while, the words “Your son” echoed in his mind.
A child. All the pain, devastation, and horror they had been through were suddenly made more than worth it. Through it all, they’d created life. His child grew inside the belly of a woman he loved more than anything in the world.
And he was to watch it all taken from him. That was Jeffery’s true goal. First he would kill their child, then Storm, and then Logan would be ripped from the world while in his deepest despair.
He’d seen it in Ororo’s eyes the moment Jeffery revealed that she’d become pregnant. She hadn’t known either. She couldn’t be more than a few weeks along, she’d never had the chance to revel in the little person she held inside of her. Jeffery was keen on taking that from them both.
Jeffery was playing with her now. Logan’s strong, willful lover was reduced to pleading for her son’s life. She would have never begged for her life or Logan’s, but their innocent child was worth laying pride down for.
The glare from Jeffery’s blade sent shivers down Logan’s spine, even as he wrenched his arm from the socket in a desperate attempt to save his family. A young boy had been so corrupted by things beyond his control that he laughed when Ororo’s tears spilled onto her cheeks.
Through it all, Logan knew that she still had so much more strength than he. If only there was a way to make her tap into it. Not only was she strong, but also that maternal bond had been suddenly wrought between mother and child by Jeffery’s revelation. If she could tap into it…
“’Ro,” he grunted as his shoulder stitched back together. “Darlin’, look at me.”
She whimpered, but soon he found those striking eyes on his again.
“Shut up!” Jeffery screamed, attempting to break their eye contact.
“Darlin’,” Logan continued. “That’s your baby. You won’t let anything in this world take somethin’ you love.”
The fear in her eyes tore his heart and made the beast inside him roar with all consuming rage. His words became forced as he bit back the howling inside him.
“That’s our baby, ‘Ro,” he bored his eyes into hers. “My girl ain’t gonna stand for some psycho threaten’ him.”
He felt more than watched as steel poured into his lover’s spine. The chant of “our baby” he knew was suddenly playing in her mind was nearly audible, even as Jeffery turned his spitting rage onto Logan.
It was exactly the opening he’d been hoping for.
As Jeffery turned to face Logan, Ororo hit the ground, taking a controlled fall onto her side. With speed he’d taught her, she kicked her left leg out, sweeping Jeffery onto the floor.
“Get ‘im, baby!”
While Logan shouted, Ororo had already straddled her would-be killer. Three solid punches landed on Jeffery’s youthful face before the boy managed to shake her off.
Ororo was tossed backward, crying out when her back met the steel of a support beam. For a moment, Logan feared she had broken her back again.
“Get up!” he screamed, tearing at the bonds. “Move, darlin’!”
The door slammed open a beat later, taking Logan’s attention from his lover. Relief swept through him with the force of a hurricane.
“Get me down, One-Eye!”
Cyclops immediately jogged forward, his ruby-quartz covered eyes searching the room as he did so. Ororo and Jeffery were both on their feet, trading blows like something out of a bad kung-fu movie.
Storm took a hit to the abdomen as Cyclops trained a beam on the thick steel holding Logan to the wall.
“What the hell?” the thin man questioned, catching Logan as he pitched forward.
“Jeffery,” Logan growled. “He tried to kill my son.”
Snikt!
Six long, adamantium claws tore from the flesh of his hands and he moved to sidestep his friend. This kid would be lucky if Logan ended him quickly. As it was, he wanted to torture the little asshole into further madness.
“Wait, what?” Scott grabbed Logan’s arm, stopping him as Ororo delivered a stunning uppercut to their former student.
“’Ro’s pregnant,” Wolverine grunted. “Jeff was ready to cut it out of her.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Logan saw the immediate and deadly scowl that crossed his friend’s features.
“Can I help gut the bastard?”
Logan let a feral smirk cover his lips. “Get in line.”
Before either of them could make good on the gut instinct to murder the sick bastard Ororo was pounding on, several armed guards popped through the door at the opposite end of the room.
Cyclops and Wolverine immediately went into action. The cycloptic X-Men leader grabbed something that looked suspiciously like an ice pick from a nearby tray and tossed it even as Logan took a flying leap into the fray.
One guard went down, the ice pick protruding from the bone of his thigh. Wolverine fell on two more, taking bullets into his flesh as he advanced on them. The hot beams from Cyclops’ mutated eyes lit up the room around him as he sliced into more of the anti-mutant guards come to collect their leader.
They were joined scant moments later by the rest of the cavalry. Fire-wreathed Phoenix tossed two guards toward Cyclops with her telekinetic aura. Rogue and Jubilee were busy breaking bones with a few well-placed kicks. Iceman easily entombed a man to the neck in thick ice.
It was the X-Men at their best. Just shy of lethal, they easily fell into formations, holding back the tides that would have defended their psychopathic prophet.
When the steady stream of bad guys began to ebb, Logan turned to find Ororo.
Just as his eyes landed on her lithe form, Jeffery’s knife lashed out, slicing her across the belly.
“NO!”
Screaming, spitting with rage, Logan ran full tilt across the room. He sliced tables out of his way, dimly aware that the other X-Men were hot on his heels. Ororo fell to the ground, her hand pressed the wound in mute horror.
“What did you DO?” she shouted to her attacker, even as he advanced on her.
But Wolverine was faster. He reached Jeffery before he could touch Ororo again. Placing both hands on either side of his head, Logan snapped his arms to the side, the deafening crack of bones breaking in half echoing through the room.
When the body slumped to the floor, all resistance from the Friends of Humanity ceased immediately.
It was over. Finally.
~**~
“My baby.”
Ororo sat in stunned shock on the floor of the Friends of Humanity base for long, silent moments after the death of her tormentor. Logan stepped over the body, reaching for his lover.
She looked at him when his arms encircled her. He didn’t know what to say or even how to feel. The fear in his chest was debilitating. There was nothing in this world he wanted more than family, and he was somehow certain he would watch it crumble around him now.
He took her shaking body into his arms, lifting her easily. Looking over his shoulder into the sea of confused faces, he swallowed over the lump in his throat.
“She needs a doctor.”
Rogue and Jubilee turned immediately, running down the hall screaming for someone named “Michael.” Logan moved Ororo to one of the examination tables, urging to her lie back and be still.
Jean came up, the wreath of fire snuffed out as she peeled back the blood soaked leather of Ororo’s uniform.
“It’s not that deep…”
“My baby, Jean,” Storm whimpered, clutching Logan’s hand. “Did he take our son?”
“What baby?” Jean nearly shrieked, her calm demeanor replaced by frantic movements almost instantly.
Logan held Ororo’s hand tightly, leaning down to whisper into her ear.
“It’s all right,” he told her with more certainty than he felt. “We’re in this together, darlin’.”
She looked up at him, tears splashing down her cheeks that were coupled with a not-so-distant boom of thunder.
“Did you kill that bastard?”
A shaky smile covered his lips and he nodded once. “Yeah. I killed him, baby.”
“Good.”
Jean pressed on Ororo’s stomach for a moment, then shook her head. “I don’t see any amniotic fluid or anything, but we have to get her to a hospital for an ultrasound to be sure.”
“I’ll carry her,” Logan nodded, lifting his love into his arms again.
She curled into his chest as they left the accursed base. Outside, Magneto and his jet were waiting. The moment Jean mentioned Ororo’s endangered pregnancy, he ushered them both onto the jet and immediately ordered Mystique to fly them to the nearest hospital.
Logan kept clean bandages on Storm’s wound as they took to the air. After they had been airborne for some time, an unavoidable urge pushed at his mind, begging to be released. He gave into the impulse, allowing that strange effect Ororo had always had on him to overtake him. He would never be able to resist it.
“Hey, ‘Ro?” he nudged the half-dozing mutant.
“Yes?”
“I’ve got an idea.”
“Oh?” she looked up at him, a question in her eyes.
Swallowing over the lump in his throat, he tilted his head as though studying her.
“Yeah,” he smiled softly. “I think we should get married.”
For a moment, he feared she would faint, for her pupils dilated dangerously.
“Logan,” she began in a tone one might use for an unruly toddler. “We have just been rescued from a terrorist group, murdered an eighteen-year-old child hell bent on killing not only the two of us, but our unborn child. You are covered in blood, I have a four inch laceration on my stomach and we have no idea if aforementioned unborn child will survive and now you bring up the possibility of marriage?”
Logan smirked. “Yeah.”
She stared at him for some time, shaking her head slowly as though she thought he had truly lost his mind. He watched her eyes carefully, marking the emotions she allowed to shine through.
“This is certainly not moonlight and roses.”
Logan scoffed. “When have we ever been the moonlight and roses type?”
“Hrmm,” she said thoughtfully. “You do have a point.”
“Marry me,” he whispered, holding her closer as the jet began to descend toward what he assumed was a hospital. “Marry me, Ororo Munroe.”
Tears shone from the woman’s eyes as she leaned forward, and gave him an answer whispered against his lips.
~**~
“Oh my God, he’s so little.”
“He won’t stay that way, Mr Logan,” the doctor’s voice was jovial, soothing to Wolverine’s frayed nerves. “You can see the injury didn’t go far enough to hurt the baby and I’ll say that Mommy here is just about six weeks along.”
“That is fairly accurate,” Ororo’s voice was breathy, her eyes glued to the little screen.
Logan watched in a sort of awed fascination as the doctor moved the ultrasound wand over his woman’s dark skin. Her wound did not require stitches and was already bandaged properly.
Though the doctor at the small medical facility in southern Germany had not feared for the child, he told both prospective parents that an ultrasound would allay any of their concerns.
Now, the three of them watched a machine reflect the little person Ororo was growing inside of her. He could barely move and scarcely breathe as he counted the tiny heartbeats.
“This is…” he swallowed over the emotion building in his throat. “Wow, ‘Ro.”
The doctor smiled fondly. “Did you just find out?”
“Yes,” Ororo answered swiftly as Logan stared at their child. “Just before the accident.”
“Well, I wouldn’t worry about the accident,” he said in that soothing tone. “Looks like your little one’s in perfect health.”
When he switched the monitor off, Logan frowned. He’d enjoyed watching the baby, more than he’d thought he would. It was still shocking, thinking he and Ororo created life. A whole person.
The doctor left the room a moment later, muttering something about a tape. Logan turned back to his smiling lover.
“Welcome back,” she teased. “I thought you lost forever.”
Smiling, suddenly more at ease with her, Logan leaned over her, pressing his ear to her still-bare belly. Her eyes danced with relieved laughter when he held a finger to his lips, asking her to be silent.
The steady, fast thud of his child’s heart echoed through layers of flesh and fluid. His smile widening, he closed his eyes, content to simply listen to the little one’s heart.
“Can you hear him?” she asked in a whisper.
“Yeah, I can,” Logan replied just as quietly. “I’ll always be able to tell you if he’s doin’ ok. Kinda comfortin’.”
“Yes, very much so,” she agreed, touching his cheek as his eyes opened again.
“I have to tell ya,” he said suddenly, lifting his head and laying his hand over her flat tummy. “I’ve only been that scared one other time in my life.”
At her confused look, he leaned up to kiss her gently. “The day I pulled you out of that car.”
She shushed him immediately, covering his lips with her gentle fingers.
“No more,” Ororo ordered seriously. “We are alive, the Friends are broken, and our son’s heart beats within me. I want to have this moment as ours.”
Nodding, he captured her lips in a swift kiss once more. Her hand joined his on her belly and for the first time in his life, Logan knew true peace.
~**~**~**~
A/N:My muse bit me in the butt! I hadn't intended to complete Blackout today, but this is the end folks. Thank you for sticking with me through this series. I may write a stand alone epilogue at some point, but I'm not really sure. Ciao, darlings!
