Chapter Two: My Best Friend
You stand by me
And you believe in me
Like nobody ever has
When my world goes crazy
You're right there to save me
~Tim McGraw
October 5, 2002
The mutant called Logan stared at the file in his hands, stunned disbelief and unease warring inside him. They’d been in Canada only a few days, but the trip had been far from short. Traversing the snow-capped mountains wore him out when combined with a four-month stop in Japan. His companion never complained, but he knew she was as tired as he.
She sat at the table across from him, a bottle of chilled beer providing a tinkling sound as she nervously tapped her nails on the thick brown glass. They’d been sitting here for several hours, Logan unable to open the file they’d literally had to kill to get their hands on.
The guards were part of the now defunct Weapon X project, protecting the final remaining shred of evidence that held Logan’s stolen life. It took their combined forces “ as well as thousands in American dollars “ to secure this single manila folder. He knew she wanted the answers as much as he did. They were two of a kind, ‘Ro and Logan. The trip would have ended months ago, without the answers he desired, were it not for her loyal companionship.
He glanced up at her, noting the worried crease between her brows. She was worried that he would learn his identity, regain his memory, and bid her a bitter goodbye. No matter how often he told her that no memories or forgotten lives would ever cause him to abandon her, she still worried.
Drawing on his courage, he reached for his own beer, taking a long pull from it as he fought to keep his hands from trembling. The X-Men missed the Dynamic Duo, as they teasingly referred to far away Wolverine and Storm. If he wanted to be honest, he missed the sights and sounds and smells of home.
Once this was over, he planned on going right back to that life. The bunch of geeks at Xavier’s were the closest thing to family he could remember having.
“For the love of the Bright Lady, Logan!” Ororo finally hissed, slamming her fist on the table. “Open it or I will!”
Smirking at her impatience, he shrugged his shoulders. “Where’s your calm, cool head now, eh?”
“Shut up,” she snapped, eyeing the folder as though it would strike. “We have spent months abroad to locate that file. I want to know what it says.”
He turned the thick folder over in his hands. “Yeah, I kinda wanna know who I am, too.”
His friend shook her head somberly. “I know who you are, Logan. Whatever those papers reveal, trust that I know you.”
Strengthened by her sweet, honest statement, Logan unsheathed his fore-claw with a muted snikt!
“Here goes nothin’,” he muttered, slicing the sealed file open.
He heard her adjust in the rickety hotel chair, as though leaning over the table to peek at the neatly stacked papers he gingerly removed from it. Sitting back in his chair, he slipped the cover page which read: “Top Secret” from the stack and placed it on the table.
Upon the first line, below the standardized letterhead that identified the document as an original Weapon X file, was the “subject” name.
“James Howlett.”
“What?”
Ororo jumped out of her chair, coming around the old round table to crouch at his side. He shifted the files so she could ready them easily.
“James,” she murmured. “That is a good, strong name.”
He grunted again, pointing to his birth date. “March 4th, 1888.”
His companion gasped. “Logan, you are a Pisces!”
Logan had to smile at her joke; she was obviously trying to soften the blow. “A one-hundred and thirteen year old Pisces.”
He turned his head, meeting her soft blue gaze. She gave him a teasing grin. “Does that mean I can refer to you as “Old Man”?”
“Not if you expect an answer.”
Trusting her completely, Logan divided the stack of documents and handed one-half of them to her. She took them reverently, knowing what a shock it would be for him to learn of his true history. He had not even twenty years of memory and most of that was as a mutant named Wolverine.
“These are medical records,” she muttered after taking the chair next to him so they could show one another what they found. “You have a list of allergies that covers two full pages. Little James must have required extensive medical intervention.”
“Musta been before my mutation activated,” he said as his eyes found the names of his forgotten parents. “My mother’s name was Elizabeth.”
Ororo looked up at him, her eyes filled with sympathy. “That is a very pretty name. Does it list your father?”
“Jonathon,” Logan said, wondering why he’d remembered Logan as his real name.
When he mentioned this aloud, Ororo frowned. “Perhaps it was someone you were close to in your youth?”
The files did not give him an answer that contradicted her, so he accepted it as possible. Flipping through several more pages, he came upon something he never wished to see.
Photographs of the process which gave him the adamantium bonded to his skeletal structure glared up at him, bringing with them flashes of nightmarish memories. He dropped the files instantly, startling when his best friend reached for his hand.
Though he tried to hide the pictures, she used her skill as a pickpocket and thief to snatch them from his grasp. He watched, horrified, as those kind, sapphire eyes looked over each disgusting photograph. Rage and hatred, so alien on her dark and delicate features, clouded her face with each page she turned.
“Burn them,” she whispered finally.
“Knock yourself out,” he replied, touched in that small, light space on his soul that only she could reach unhindered. “Light ‘em up, darlin’.”
Ororo stood, crossing the small hotel room to the roaring fireplace. She tossed the stack of photographs into the orange flame, then wiped her hands on the ass of her leather trousers, as though trying cleanse them.
When she returned to the table, they swapped stacks of files. Logan looked over his medical reports from before, during, and after the process that stole his memory and forever altered his life. It created a roiling sickness in his belly, reading what they’d done to him in that cold, medical jargon.
“Logan…”
At Ororo’s shocked whisper, he brought his eyes back to her. She had the folder in her one hand, her other closed as though something lay in the palm. Her eyes rested on one of his papers.
“You were married.”
She opened her palm, revealing a thick circle of gold. A wedding band. He reached forward, taking the ring gently between his fingers.
“There is an inscription,” she said in a quiet tone.
He turned the band in his hand, swallowing hard. To James with all my love.
“What’s it say about her?” he inquired, not sure how he felt about this. No memory came to him, no snippets of conversations long forgotten or even the scent of perfume.
“Deceased, December 1931,” Ororo read from the file before looking up at him. “She is buried just outside of Ontario.”
Logan digested this, wondering what kind of woman had married him. Were they happy? Did they have children? Had he left her all alone?
The need to visit her burial plot, no matter what the circumstances had been, Logan swallowed hard, cleared his throat, and met the blue gaze of his friend.
“Feel like takin’ another trip?”
~**~
October 7, 2002
Snow had fallen sometime during the night, blanketing the world around them in a fresh layer of pure white. He and Ororo had spent two days traveling by train, wondering what they would find in the tiny village outside Ontario.
Ororo’s phone calls to the mansion revealed nothing to their awaiting friends, and he again reveled in the fact that she knew him so well. They never needed to say certain things, there was a simple, honest rapport between the two mutants that never needed the clutter of useless talk.
During the train ride, Logan had looked over the files again and again, until he had most of it memorized. He thought about his mother and father. What had they been like? Obviously, based on the estate Ororo had located under his father’s name back in the 19th century, they’d been rich as hell. She was still in the process of looking up his genealogy on the laptop computer she carried with her.
He returned from the club car, arms filled with sandwiches to feed his overworked friend. She was sitting on the long, cushioned bench, long legs stretched out in front of her. Logan handed her a plastic-wrapped sandwich and she looked up in surprise.
“Oh! There you are,” she smiled faintly. “Thank you.”
Logan sat beside her, nudging her in that friendly way he knew got on her nerves. Rewarded by her irritated sigh, he peeked onto her computer.
“I believe I have the answer,” she said around a mouthful of her egg salad sandwich. “Look.”
He took the computer onto his lap, scrolling down with the touch pad’s pointer to read an article from a French newspaper printed nearly ninety years ago.
The story detailed how a groundskeeper on Jonathan Howlett’s estate entered the master’s bedroom and shot him to death when Mrs. Elizabeth Howlett refused to leave the property with him. It seemed the groundskeeper had been fired just days beforehand.
Logan pushed the computer away, noting that the assailant had been found beside the murdered landowner’s body with three stab wounds to the chest.
“I believe,” Ororo said when he finished. “That may have been the incident that triggered your mutation.”
Snikt! Logan unleashed his claws, staring at the shining metal as the holes in his hands healed instantly.
“These are metal,” he replied obviously.
“Yes, thank you, Caption Obvious,” she replied tartly “But perhaps the claw mutation was natural and not a side effect from the Weapon X project as we assumed.”
“Think so?” he muttered, admiring the metal protruding from his hands.
“Perhaps,” she mused in a thoughtful tone before chewing another bite of her sandwich. “When the adamantium was grafted to your skeleton, it would have sheathed the claws as well.”
“That’s some theory.”
They rode the rest of the trip in thoughtful silence, each consumed by what only a few days told them. When they reached the bustling station in Ontario, Ororo secured them a rental car, driving them away from the busy city and into the sprawling white countryside.
Finding the cemetery where his wife was buried proved easy enough, but Logan felt nothing as they located the weather-tarnished headstone.
“Windsong Howlett-Reeves,” Ororo read the engraving. “Beloved wife and daughter.”
He heard Ororo’s boots crunch the snow under her feet as she looked around, calling out the names of the woman’s deceased family. No children under the Howlett name were buried here and none were named in the files. Logan assumed that meant he was still childless. At least he hadn’t fucked up too many lives.
He took the ring from his pocket, sniffing in the frosty Canadian air. Everything smelled of snow, the mountains jutting out of the horizon like the fingers of God. It was a beautiful place, one he was sure made a perfect place to spend the afterlife.
Taking a single step, Logan placed his wedding band on the bottom of his unknown wife’s grave.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, feeling Ororo step up behind him. “If I did somethin’ wrong, I’m really sorry.”
Still, no pain or memory filled his mind. It was as though the woman did not exist for him. He turned to Ororo, an ache forming in his chest that he thought was homesickness. His beautiful friend stood stoic behind him, her long white hair fluttering in the cold breeze.
“Enough,” he told her, stuffing his hands into his pocket. “I’m ready to go home.”
Ororo nodded, smiling that soft, sweet smile meant only for him. “All right.”
When she paused, he raised a brow, urging her to speak.
“Do you wish to be called by your birth name or your true name?”
Logan smiled, shaking his head. James was dead, and there would be no bringing him back. He moved to walk past his friend, turning so he could reply while moving backward.
“What do you think?”
She began to follow him, that smile never faltering as they made their way back to the rental.
“Logan,” she said confidently. “Just as I thought.”
When she caught up with him, he threw an arm around her waist, leaning his head on her much taller form.
“I think you know me just a little too well, darlin’.”
“I know,” she quipped, wrapping her slender arm about his shoulder. “But I do enjoy that.”
~**~
Present
The memory still flooded his mind, even when the pain began to sink in. He tested the air, out of habit more than conscious thought, relieved to find the scent of rain-soaked earth surrounding him.
Every inch of him hurt and hurt to the bone. His befuddled mind could not remember why, but his instincts told him something was very wrong with his battered body. His eyes stubbornly refused to open, mind stuck on that memory of Ororo when they’d learned his birth name.
She was close by, wherever he was. He couldn’t detect any fear from her, so obviously there was no danger. He was on his back, lying on something hard. A medical bed, maybe? He could feel his body twitching from the inside out as his healing factor repaired what had to be extensive damage.
Warm weight kept his right hand from moving. He knew those fingers, that soft skin. Storm had hold of him, her grip almost painful. Damn, what happened?
Trying to wake completely could be likened to swimming in cold black water, the surface always just a little too far to break. Logan concentrated on opening his eyes. Slowly, other scents drifted to his sensitive nostrils. Metallic equipment, acrid cleansers, fresh roses, and printing ink all melded together atop the faint hint of blood.
Roses and ink told him that Jean and Hank were somewhere nearby or had been not long ago. The others pointed to the med-lab.
Cautiously, Logan pried one eye open. The med-lab was dark, save for a single, dim light. He spotted a crop of soft white hair lying beside his arm, the sound of deep, heavy breathing hinting that his friend had fallen asleep during her vigil.
Disoriented as to the time and place, he opened his other eye, glad that someone had the forethought to protect his vision from harsh fluorescent lighting.
When he regained enough control to turn his head, he did so, finding Ororo’s sleeping face turned toward him. Their hands were joined and she used them as a pillow. He frowned at the dark circles under her eyes, the hollow look to her cheeks. That normally perfectly coifed hair was tangled and fell from the loose elastic holding it back.
Logan squeezed Ororo’s hand, grunting through the pain. He could see bandages covering his arms and torso; from the feel of tape on his legs, he had them there too. Logan winced, tugging on Ororo’s hand as a flash of memory hit him. Pain. Blood. Screaming. Storm calling his name.
“Logan?”
He looked back down at her, the sleepy look to her eyes telling him she wasn’t quite awake. Managing the barest hint of a smile, he nodded.
“Ya look like shit, darlin’,” he rasped, his throat sore and dry.
That woke her up all the way. Ororo’s head popped up like that “Whack a Mole” game she loved at carnivals. She was blinking rapidly, her grip on his hand becoming even more intense.
“Hello,” she said, giving him that soft smile as she leaned closer. “Where did you go?”
“Canada,” he replied hoarsely. “With you.”
Ororo’s smile widened. “Was I dressed?”
He took the straw she lifted to his mouth with his lips, taking slow sips of cool water. It soothed his throat and after clearing it, his voice was almost normal.
“Yeah,” Logan half-grinned. “Gotta have a talk with my dream girl about that.”
“Hrmm,” she murmured, blinking tears away. “Yes, whip this dream girl into shape.”
“Stop it,” Logan grunted, trying to not laugh. “When ya talk like that, it turns me on.”
Ororo laughed, the sound just a little teary. He heard her sniffle and squeezed her hand.
“Hey,” he whispered, drawing her closer. “Hey, don’t go all girly on me.”
She kissed his forehead lightly, though he could feel a tear or two drop from her face onto his hair. Her slender body, usually filled with strength, seemed to tremble.
“I was afraid,” she whimpered, laying her head on his chest. “You frightened me.”
Worried at the broken hitch to her voice, Logan raised his free hand, placing it on her head and stroking her hair with his thumb. What had happened that frightened his friend so? She knew, better than most, what his healing abilities were. It must have been bad if”
Halting his train of thought, Logan stilled on the medical bed. He remembered, suddenly and with eerie clarity what happened. Magneto’s attack. Ororo held in the mutant’s magnetic field. Stabbing him. Die.
“He took it,” Logan said quietly. “He took my adamantium, didn’t he?”
The woman looked up, tears still standing in angry eyes. She nodded quickly, reaching to touch his chest.
“Yes,” she whispered. “All of it.”
“That’s why I feel…hollow,” he mused, surprised at how empty he felt. “I feel wrong.”
Ororo rubbed her nose with the back of her hand, sniffling. “I do not doubt it. You nearly died.”
“How long?” he questioned, knowing her appearance would not have deteriorated so much in a matter of hours. “How long was I out?”
“Three weeks.”
“Shit.”
“Your healing factor overloaded,” she explained as though the words physically hurt her. “Jean and Henry had you on life support for five days.”
“Damn,” he shook his head, the news shaking him. He’d lived over one hundred years and one mutant had nearly destroyed him.
Remembering Ororo’s fall, he looked at her sharply. “You ok?”
Her face took on an expression of confused surprise. “Yes. I bruised a few ribs and twisted my ankle, but I am quite fine. It is you I am worried about.”
Relieved that she’d not suffered worse, Logan nodding to his bandages. “Lets take a look, eh? I wanna see how bad it is, cause it hurts to the bone, darlin’.”
She nodded, leaving his side for a moment only to return armed with a pair of scissors. He watched her curiously as she gently cut a few of his bandages, peeling the gauze away to expose flesh.
Almost every inch of him was covered in angry red scars or deep purple bruises. Wincing at the sight of his mangled body, he was relieved to see many of the wounds had closed. Ororo’s tender hands traced a few of the marks, though she stopped the moment he winced.
“It’s ok,” he assured her. “Just…hurts.”
“Let me get Jean,” she offered. “She can give you something for the pain and assess how much longer you’ll need to stay here.”
Knowing it was selfish and that she desperately needed to care for herself, he caught her hand before she could move away. She turned that beautiful face to him, stepping back to the bed.
“You’ll stay?”
Her smile was like the sun coming up, bright and beautiful. “I will never leave you.”
“Yeah,” he muttered as she turned to the intercom to call Jean. “That’s what I love bout you, kid.”
~**~
“Remarkable,” Hank was muttering as he took Logan’s vitals. “You are well on your way to a full recovery.”
He glanced at Jean over Logan’s prone form. Ororo sat on the edge of the counter where Jean kept supplies, her hands gripping the edge as she leaned forward to watch them. True to her word, she’d not left the med-lab since he woke.
Jean revealed that, in fact, Ororo had rarely left the lab in the three weeks Logan fought to live. When she did leave, she returned within an hour, content to simply sit at his bedside and wait. That sort of loyalty was what kept Wolverine and Storm close. It seemed to baffle everyone else.
“How’s the pain now?” Jean asked, carefully adjusting the medication snaking through long hoses into his IV.
“Better,” he grunted. “Can’t you up the dosage a little?”
“I could,” the red head replied with a frown. “But as it is, the dose you have would kill Hank and I don’t want to push your healing factor more than I have to.”
“Yeah,” he replied, turning his head to look at his best friend. She gave him that small, private smile. “What’re you smirkin’ at, girlie?”
“A grouchy old man alive enough to be grouchy,” the dark beauty stated calmly.
“One for your side,” Logan gave her a mock glare.
She scrunched her face up and returned the gesture, which almost made him smile.
“Logan?”
Jean’s call brought his eyes back to her. She glanced at his hands, a pained look on her face.
“If you don’t mind, I’d like to analyze your claws.”
The sound of his releasing the claws from his hand was different. Bone scraping bone replaced the grating of metal on metal. He brought one hand up, gazing in a sort of horrified fascination at the thick bone protruding from his flesh.
They weren’t bad looking and slightly more terrifying than clean adamantium. He glanced at Storm, who was looking at his face, not his claws.
“Yer right so much, it’s fuckin’ sick,” he said, reminded of her theory that his claws were a natural part of him.
“I know,” Ororo quipped.
Jean used a small file to scrape some of the bone from his claw, capturing it on a sterilized slip of glass. When she was done, she and Hank moved to the microscope resting on the far counter with their chemistry equipment.
Storm hopped down from her place by the sink, moving toward him as he continued to stare at his claws.
“Are you all right?” she asked, concern furrowing her white brows.
“Dunno,” he answered honestly. “It’s like part of me’s missin’, even though I know I wasn’t born with the adamantium, it’s been there as long as I can remember.”
“I cannot say I know how it feels, but I understand,” Ororo answered truthfully. “But you will heal and then learn how to use these without the benefit of being unbreakable.”
He offered her a small smile, slipping the claws back into their dormant place in his forearms.
“Amazing!” Hank cried from the microscope. “This is a million times more dense than human bone.”
“It fits,” Jean chimed in. “The rest of your skeleton, Logan, seemed far thicker than we expected. Your bones were made to be nearly unbreakable.”
“Interesting,” Logan replied, unsure how he felt about this development. With Jean and Hank going nuts over him, he was reminded of Weapon X.
Had they found him just as interesting? Was that why they chose him? Uncomfortable, he looked at the ceiling, a scowl on his face.
“Could we move him?” Ororo was asking. “To the boathouse?”
He glanced at her, raising a brow. “Huh?”
“I believe he will need time before we expose him to the questions of the children,” Ororo ignored him, speaking directly to Jean.
When he turned to the others, he caught the look shared between them. He felt Storm stiffen and took her hand, shielding the intimate touch from the others with his body.
“We have more tests to run,” Hank began slowly, as though talking to a child.
“Medically or scientifically?”
Ororo’s harsh tone did not go unnoticed, and he noted with a bit of pride that both Hank and Jean looked slightly ashamed.
“That is what I thought,” she snapped. “Help me move him to my boathouse or I will do it myself.”
“Ororo…”
“Jean,” Storm shook her head. “He’s not a science project.”
Before anyone could move, Logan sat up, hissing through the pain. He reached over, releasing Ororo’s hand, and yanked the IV from his arm. She helped him peel the sticky monitors from his chest, back and forehead.
He wanted out before they could poke and prod him any more. Hank had just said he would recover. Ororo guessed right, as she tended to. He needed some time alone. And by alone, he meant ushered into the peace provided by Storm’s boathouse retreat.
After they successfully removed anything binding him to the machines, Ororo caught his arm over her shoulders and helped him down. Though his body screamed in protest, he stumbled to the wheelchair she led him to.
Once he was seated, the monitors beeping at the loss of Logan’s vitals, Jean and Hank began to sputter, trying to talk the annoyed mutants out of rash behavior. Logan was never prouder of his friend than when she got behind the chair and wheeled him out. Neither of them spared the doctors a glance.
Closing his eyes, safe in Ororo’s care, Logan let himself smile. She’d keep them all away; let him heal. Yeah, she was definitely a friend worth keeping.
