PRELUDE:
-“The human body is one of the most complex things in the world.”
‘I remember Hank used to say something like that all the time. I can hear him now, babblin’ on about all the marvelous things It can do”most in less than the blink o’ an eye.
‘All the simultaneous actions & reactions taking place inside our bodies, working independently of”and sometimes in spite of”each other. The good Dr. McCoy could sit in his lab fer hours, just watching a body breath.’
‘I’ll remember that…in a few hours.’
‘Right now, “My body-complex” is having a hard time concentrating on anything”much less breathing. I’ll have to remember that.
‘You’ll have to ‘cuse my ramblin; after all my years of trainin’”in Japan, in Madripoor, w/ Dept. H or The X-Men”none of it’s keepin’ my mind sane enough to deal with the pain my body’s feelin’ right now…’
‘I remember my fingers were seared to the controls in the cockpit; whether by instinct or by the extreme heat in the small plane, I’d never know. I couldn’t feel ‘em anymore anyway.
‘All I can do at this point is squint through the broken glass of the ‘pit, cursing my fate as it quickly approaches, speeding toward me just as I was careening toward the blinding, brutal expanse of the shimmering desert below.
‘It was fitting, I suppose. I couldn’t have known it then, but that patch of dirt in the middle of an empty space of African desert could very likely have been the end of me…
…but it turned out to be just the beginning.’
---
Chapter 01, “I Dreamt of Rain…”
-Somewhere in the desert between Uganda & Kenya
1:27pm Local Time…
Scott Summers’ gloved hands gripped the controls of the Blackbird so hard the slight sound of leather stretching could barely be heard over the surrounding sounds of flight outside. It was a good thing it wasn’t obvious, because the last thing he would have wanted was for the rest of his teammates to think he was actually worried.
Behind and to the left of his shoulder, however, Jean Grey Summers couldn’t be fooled. She knew her husband well enough that their telepathic link wasn’t even needed to sense his distress. After all, she shared it as well as the rest of the small team in the plane deployed to the east African country.
As she kept her gaze alternating between the slowly, barely-blinking homing beacon on the panel before Cyclops and the approaching desert vista ahead, her brow furrowed every so often in renewed attempts to block the thoughts of the others from intruding on her already frazzled nerves. Her own over-active imagination was good enough, thank you.
“We’re approaching Kenyan airspace…” Henry McCoy announced beside Scott, automatically adjusting the co-pilot controls and double-checking their cloaking device; considering their mission, the last thing they’d need right then was to be spotted by government air officials.
“The beacon’s signal is weakening.” Scott’s tone was such it was obvious he didn’t want to point that out. After he said it, his head turned just briefly to his left, though his eyes never left the view before him.
“I can’t ‘sense’ him…” was all Jean replied quietly, hoping her words were heard only by their team leader.
No such luck.
Behind them, the three in the cockpit could hear safety belts clacking as they were unsecured”evidently in a hurry. It was only a few seconds before Bobby, Katheryn & Rogue were pressed against the ‘pit’s doorframe, their wide eyes expectant.
“What’ve you got, Sug?”
“Do you have a lock on his last position yet?” Bobby directed toward Hank.
“Jean..?”
The fiery red-head hated to turn her eyes, to see the deep worry lines aging Shadowcat’s youthful features.
“…is he..? Can you..?”
Before Jean would have to answer, the steady beacon began to go wild on the panel, louder than before and flashed with a much quicker rate on the map before them. It managed to get everyone’s attention, and as Scott yanked the controls in that direction (hard enough that he probably should’ve given a “hang on” warning), pushing the plane’s speed to the limits, Hank tried to stay in his seat and focus the beacon’s signal for an exact location.
“I’m triangulating the coordinates now. The Scouter’s distress signal and the last known point of contact are coming through now…”
With her fingers gripping her temples, Jean focuses on a mental image of her missing teammate; she can hear his gruff but boisterous laugh (heard so little, admittedly), see his piercing silver-grey eyes. It was always difficult for her as a telepath to ‘get a fix’ on someone like Logan, but she knew she had to try.
‘I should never have let him go.’
It slipped through her shields and her expression changed for just a second, as she forced her husband’s guilt and worry back out. She wanted to comfort Scott, to reach out and assuage his fears. Cyclops should know well of any of them, that One was never in the position to “let” Logan do anything; the man may be a teammate, but when it came to personal matters, The Wolverine didn’t ask permission of anyone. Not Scott, not Charles”no one.
It was no different in this situation. After the team’s battle in the forests of Alberta with a long-thought gone faction of Dept. H, Wolverine had been stripped of both his adamantium and his God-given healing factor. It was a double insult by the monsters that had made him what he was, and for months now Logan had been the most sullen and cantankerous as anyone had ever seen him since first joining the team.
Charles’ counseling sessions had not worked well in the beginning, and the mansion was a difficult place to be during Logan’s waking hours, but that had started to change in the last few weeks. That is, until Wolverine discovered one of the original scientists from the Weapon X program was going to be exiled to Madripoor by way of the east African nation of Kenya, his last known locale.
Jean hadn’t even known Logan was looking.
Evidently, no one else had either, as they awoke the next morning to the sound of the smaller Scouter plane (‘cousin’ to the Blackbird) powering up and exiting the grounds. Logan’s mind had been made up, but that didn’t mean Charles wasn’t expecting some sort of explanation. Which the Wolverine grudgingly gave, and promptly raised the plane’s psi-shields & departed.
If Scott had been conflicted about not going after the AWOL team member, surely Charles had had a rough time of allowing his troubled ‘student’ to seek his own answers & absolution. Of them all, Charles Xavier was probably the closest to knowing the pain and yes, disgrace that colored Logan’s palette every day he had to awaken to the realization that it hadn’t just been some twisted dream, and that yes, his indestructible skeleton was gone…along with his ability to heal.
It was that knowledge that kept Charles’ tongue from insisting Logan return, or from sending a group to bring him back, by force if necessary. That decision went against his gut, it went against his rationale, and Scott wasn’t that pleased with it either.
“There! Look, there it is!” Kitty leaned over Henry’s shoulder to point out the large window. The others squinted their eyes at the bright horizon, where it was nearly impossible to see the dark plume of smoke that trailed from the sky down to the Earth.
No one even questioned how she’d been able to pick that out, and Henry didn’t hesitate in capturing the image to magnify on his side of the viewer. Sure enough, there was the Scouter…or more precisely, what was left of it.
A collective gasp echoed through the cockpit as the team watched the aircraft burning in a ball of fire. The plane’s cockpit was still intact; the ejection module unused.
With a steep dip, Scott brought the Blackbird around, heading in that direction. “I’m taking us down, hang on!”
As the others struggled to stay on their feet, Jean clutched her stomach, and then shook her head. Again & again she reached out, but there was nothing there…
About 10 mins. ago, down below in the wreckage…
For all the advanced technology put into the Blackbird Scouter, its hot, black metal yielded to the force and power of flame. For about half of a mile behind the wreckage there was left a trail of still-burning debris and scorched Earth. Upon first glance, it would seem impossible for anything to have survived such a crash.
However…
A charred, bloody hand reaches out of the crumpled hull of the vessel, and it could only be sheer instinct that brought him to his feet long enough to tumble out of the plane and onto the comparably cooler desert sand.
I dream of gardens in the desert sand
I wake in pain
I dream of love as time runs through my hand
His mangled body hits the dry sand like a dead weight, smoke & sand rising from his position. Almost immediately Logan attempts to rise”struggling to place his hands beneath him and lift his battered body back up”but finds the action impossible.
His bleeding eyes search through the haze, his scalded scalp turning to his right to reveal what his other senses seemingly couldn’t recognize: his right sleeve fluttered in the wind, no arm sticking out of it to move. A low, guttural sound escaped his parched lips as the cauterized nerves all over his body vainly attempted to send pain signals to his brain. Unfortunately, some of them were successful.
Spastically, his left hand reached out before him, clutching the sand in a hopeless attempt and his head slowly rose, tears blasted against his cheeks in dry, crusty streaks as the desert wind suddenly picked up, sending sand into his aching eyes.
Those dreams are tied to a horse that will never tire
And in the flames
Her shadows play in the shape of a man's desire
‘So…this…is where I’m going to die.’ Just as the thought found its way through his brain, he closed his eyes against the injustice of it all, focusing on the warmth tingling in his body, and the breeze of the winds, cooler in comparison to the blistered heat of the raging inferno in the Scouter.
The breeze stroked his face”almost the only part of his body he could still feel through the immense pain”and reminded him of Mariko…
…Startled, Logan’s eyes flew open with the stark realization that someone actually was touching his face.
And it wasn’t Mariko.
Moving away from him as he focused on her, the mysterious woman floated before Logan’s eyes like a specter, her gossamer gowns melting and flowing in the desert heat like a mirage.
Each of her veils, a secret promise
This desert flower
No sweet perfume ever tortured me more than this
The woman smiles at him, somewhat kindly, somewhat saddened, and her arms open, a beckoning call; immediately Logan feels his body move, though not of his will, and he rides a soft cushion of air upward toward her waiting, smiling visage.
He can only grunt in confusion & pain as a piercing light radiates from her body, blinding him. The hackles on the back of his neck tingle, but Wolverine is unable to resist her…or unwilling.
With his single hand, Logan attempts to shield his eyes, but as suddenly as the blinding light appeared, it subsided, and he looks up, captured by her startling clear blue eyes that seem to glow with an incandescence he’d never seen before.
So distracted by her eyes, Logan is initially unaware of the fact that his body has been lifted steadily toward hers until they are almost about to collide. Before he can protest, she lifts her head, closing her eyes with a smile, and reaches out to him.
Logan’s mind registers shock, puzzlement & alarm when their bodies don’t collide, but meld together instead; his pain subsides immediately, replaced with a warmth & calm he never remembered feeling before in all his troubled years.
This way she moves in the logic of all my dreams
This fire burns
I realize that nothing's as it seems
A slightly nauseating feeling overwhelms him and Logan closes his eyes again, reaching out in vain to steady himself though his body still floats far enough away he couldn’t possibly touch anything. For several seconds he remains thus, his chin lifted to the skies and body floating freely, caressed by a cooler, soothing wind that should not have existed in the hot desert of Africa.
Suddenly he feels a wetness on his face, and his eyes pop open to discover it is a light rain”as impossible as that may’ve seemed to him, it only got worse as he blinked several times to adjust his vision only to realize that he was no longer in the desert.
Tall, full tropical trees towered around and above him; the air was light and a cool breeze fluttered by; the environment was alive with forest wildlife as brightly-colored birds flew overhead; some yards away, a modest-sized waterfall bubbled down into a brook that disappeared downstream to a shadowed lagoon.
Stumbling, Logan realizes his feet have touched the ground, his body is bruised but healed”all of it, even his missing appendage has miraculously reappeared, fully functional (but sore).
Awestruck, he can only stare at the colorful array of life around him. It’s a short-lived distraction, however, as his healed senses recognize that he isn’t alone. Whirling around, his lip curled instinctively, he sees her, loose silver-white hair blowing around her bare shoulders and the sheer veil-like gown hugging her body before billowing out to swirl about her bare feet. Her head is cocked to one side as she evaluates him openly, as if waiting for his next move.
And he does, taking a step toward her, but pauses when she backs up. Raising his right hand, which is still stiff as if it hadn’t been used in years, Logan didn’t even have a chance to open his mouth, to calm her sudden antsy behavior, before she turned away, running into the depths of the forest. He hesitated only long enough to see her turn briefly, their eyes meeting; follow me ran through his mind in a deep, feminine whisper.
He could only obey.
I dream of gardens in the desert sand
I wake in pain
I dream of love as time runs through my hand
I dream of rain
I lift my gaze to empty skies above
I close my eyes, this rare perfume
Is the sweet intoxication of her love…
No matter how quickly Logan thought he ran, cutting through the thick underbrush like a shark through water, he couldn’t seem to catch up with her as she turned back to him several times, coaxing him (or daring him?) to pursue.
Finally, the cloud-haired beauty turns into a dead end, backed by the bubbling waterfall in a shaded glen. When Logan turned, cornering her, she didn’t seem afraid of him, watching his movements with a sense of anticipation as she gulped for air, her chest rising deeply with every breath.
His blood pumped feverishly through his veins as he closed in on her slowly, his palms itching, fingers clenching reflexively. He wanted to know who she was, what had she done to him and where in God’s name were they? As he stopped only inches away from her, his lips parting to ask just that, he looked into her eyes but never got the chance.
A quick hand struck out, and was surprised to actually touch flesh; drawing her to him, Logan crushed the woman to his chest, their faces mere inches apart as they both breathed heavily, staring at each other. She smiled coyly at him, and it was all the invitation he needed before smothering her full, pouting lips, secretly surprised at how ‘real’ his mirage felt.
She pulled him down and they crashed against the soft plush bed of flowers and grass at the base of the waterfall as he continued his abuse of her mouth. Her nails clawed at the tattered remains of his clothes and before he even realized they’d been released, sharp bone claws threaded the gossamer material of her gown until she lay completely naked beneath his touch.
Overcome with a hunger he could never remember ever feeling, Logan quenched his thirst all over her supple, dark caramel body; every inch of her he touched only made him howl for more, and when she reached between them to caress the stiff hardness of his appetite, he buried his face in her neck to stop from crying out.
I dream of gardens in the desert sand
I wake in pain
I dream of love as time runs through my hand
Sweet desert rose
Each of her veils, a secret promise
This desert flower
No sweet perfume ever tortured me more than this
Sweet desert rose
This memory of Eden haunts us all
This desert flower, this rare perfume
Is the sweet intoxication of the fall
Time dissolved amid the blistering heat of their passion, and when they could take no more, the satiated lovers collapsed against the cool grass, exhausted, cradled in each other’s arms. After several moments, Logan heard a low, whispered humming; a song he didn’t recognize in a language he couldn’t understand. Despite himself”all the unanswered questions, the confusion, the joy that he felt”his eyes fluttered closed and he yawned, trying to muster the energy to ask her what the song was. As his muscles relaxed, he never got the chance.
For a little while she laid there in his loose embrace before turning to look at the man’s face. He was sleeping, completely worn out and she smiled, lightly brushing her fingertips over his slightly bruised lips, knowing hers were just as sensitive. With a sad smile, she carefully rolled away from him, coming to her knees to watch him sleep. Before she rose, she reached up to her ear, dislodging the rumpled petals from her hair…
Logan.
LOGAN.
“Logan!” His eyes snapped open and just as quickly squinted against the bright glare of the desert sun above him. Momentarily, a dark shadow passed over him, and once his eyes adjusted to the light, he confirmed his other senses’ immediate registry of Jean’s voice. Disoriented, Wolverine attempted to sit up, but felt the hands of his teammates attempt to restrain him. “Whoa, wait a minute, big guy.”
“Take it easy, Sug.”
“You know you scared the shit outta me??!” Kitty punched the sand, kneeling beside him; she would’ve hit him, but didn’t want to risk his health”or ire, for that matter.
“Language, Shadowcat.” Cyclops stood behind them all, his arms crossed as he grinned down at Wolverine.
“Sorry.” She ducked her head.
Logan looked at each of them, then down at himself; he couldn’t believe his eyes as he saw his arm, bruised but there, when he remembered it had been gone but a while ago. The blood on his torn clothes was dried, his wounds healing. Healing!
“Wha…What the hell’s goin’ on?” His throat was dry, the vocal cords constricted as if he’d been yelling for days.
Henry was at his other side, with a hand-held device ‘borrowed’ from the Shi’ar, taking his vitals. Without looking up he confirmed what Logan’s internal senses already knew. “You crash-landed just inside the Kenyan border. While the Blackbird Scouter will undoubtedly not be seeing better days, you on the other hand…seem to be healing quite nicely.”
Logan’s eyes shifted to Hank’s, wide and wild as if the Doctor had told a bad joke. But he knew it was true. He’d gotten his healing factor back. How, when, or why he knew not; ultimately it didn’t matter.
“How’d you find me?” he tried to get up again, but it was McCoy that kept him down this time. With a slight growl, Logan turned back to the good doc.
“Never mind that.” Scott interjected, tapping his wristband remote; behind them several yards the Blackbird’s loading dock descended, though the plane itself was still cloaked. “We’ve got to get in the air and out of Kenyan territory before we’re spotted. The wreckage is bound to attract some interest.”
While Bobby & Hank rolled Logan onto a stretcher, the others got ready to dispose of the incriminating evidence of the Scouter. Jean dragged her worried gaze away from Logan, concentrating on the rubble of the small plane. Her skills of telekinesis had improved much, as the air around the plane wavered with a pinkish glow before the physical matter dissolved; the pieces of metal moved so quickly, the action couldn’t be caught by the naked eye.
Grimacing and nodding in satisfaction, she moved to Scott’s side as Hank & Bobby lifted the stretcher with a barely patient Logan in tow. As they quickly headed toward the Blackbird, none of the X-Men argued with him as Logan put up a fuss at being hauled back on the stretcher; they were all just glad to be able to hear his voice at all.
As for the formerly stricken Wolverine, he grumbled to himself as his teammates haltingly carried his carcass up the ramp. He was sobered by the knowledge that if he’d still had his adamantium, it probably would’ve taken not only Hank & Bobby, but probably Jean’s power as well to safely lift him.
When the engines powered back up & the bird slowly lifted off, the others settled into their seats, strapping themselves in. Hank left Logan in the small triage room in the belly of the plane to ready his instruments for preliminary tests; he was just as shocked as the others at the sudden, unexplained reappearance of the Wolverine’s healing factor after almost a year-long hiatus.
Shaking his head, Logan reached out to grasp onto the side of the bolted-down bed as the plane lifted off, but then his sharp eyes caught the movement of something that fell from his grip…something he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding.
Leaning gingerly down over the side of the bed, through the guard rails to the floor, he searched w/ his hand, his face buried in the pillow. After a few unsuccessful moments he was rewarded when his fingers brushed against something soft & fragile as it nearly escaped his grasp to roll farther beneath the triage bed.
As Logan brought his hand into view, he couldn’t believe his eyes. Laying there plain as day”and as real as he was”were slightly crumpled, but nonetheless obvious, bright blue rose petals.
TBC…
