Chapter Seventeen: The Visit
Darling, I forgive you after all
Anything is better than to be alone
And in the end I guess I had to fall
Always find my place among the ashes
I can't hold on to me
Wonder what's wrong with me
~Evanescence
“The battle for Alcatraz Island could have been taken directly out of a Hollywood screenplay. There were good guys, bad guys, and innocent lives in the balance. A group wielding enormous and uncontrollable power stormed the island after shifting the Golden Gate Bridge itself. And as with any good script, the heroes of the day were just as extraordinary and noble as the best Tinsel Town has to offer.”
He watched with hooded, furious eyes as the woman moved with calculated grace along the studio wall. The blue screen behind her was filled with images taken from the battle two years prior and she ran them without pity or mercy.
“What would have been missing from such this simple, thrilling tale was the romantic kiss between hero and heroine, the cliché yet heartwarming ride into the sunset. Instead, they would have only been given more pain. Here in New York, just two days ago, the mutant known as Storm was arrested for crimes no one seems ready to confirm or deny.”
Without changing his expression, he reached forward to turn the monitor’s volume up.
“Storm, whom has been badgered by questions and loathsome innuendo for the last two years, was taken from her home early Monday morning. Ripped from her family, the woman endured her arrest without so much as a tremble. She is currently being held at an undisclosed location, though spokesmen for the United States government assured the press that she is being well cared for.”
He snorted crudely, watching the raven haired, stormy eyed woman with careful consideration. She was formidable; he had known that from her first scathing report. But in light of this new development there was fire in her eyes that no amount of calm composure could ever completely quell.
“However, during the conference held this morning at the U.N.’s headquarters, the press was shocked to learn that Storm is well into her second trimester. She is expecting a child this summer, which was not taken into account when she was arrested. Already hundreds of protests have been raised and demands made that the woman be released while pending trial.”
Of course there had been demands, he thought with something like admiration. Before Tilby even contemplated getting in front of that camera, she had faxed and emailed her copy of the report to every mutant activist group in the country. She’d fanned the flames before getting started.
Clever. Very clever.
“When Secretary Trask, whom has been credited with the arrest and impending trial, was asked why a pregnant woman was arrested so nonchalantly, he merely stated “ quote “ “We are treating Storm as we would any woman under suspicion”. End quote.
“But has Trask finally gone too far? His obsession and crusade have already brought him under fire by his own allies. What is to become of Storm and her unborn child? What of the father? Are his rights to be infringed upon as well? Patricia Tilby, NCBC News, New York.”
The television monitor clicked off, halting the live report. Stryker looked around the room, his eyes finding the fury in Trask almost immediately.
“That bitch.”
“Your sharpshooter shouldn’t have missed,” he replied mildly.
“My sharpshooter has been dealt with,” Trask said testily as he rounded the long table. He rifled through his files for several tensely silent moments, leaving Stryker to gaze at the mansion’s monitors.
Wolverine was cooking. If that were not comical enough, he seemed to be singing along with whatever music was playing in the kitchen. The man was so simple, Stryker thought. He’d been such an eager student, so ready to alter himself forever in the name of battle.
He had lied so effortlessly all those years ago at Alkali Lake. Face to face with clawed Wolverine had brought about all those instincts he’d thought buried. The man known only as Logan had been his greatest triumph. Not only had his body renewed itself after the adamantium alteration, his temperament had been the perfection the project had so sorely needed.
But his Wolverine had run away from him. Stripped of the memories of his former life, an unanticipated side effect had destroyed Stryker’s work. He had thought that taking his memories would leave the man pliable, willing to undergo anything and trusting his creator completely.
How could he have known that Wolverine would revert to a completely primal state?
Wolverine had to be brought back into the fold. Storm and her unfortunate offspring would provide him with the means. Logan was to be his greatest assassin, crusader for everything he stood for. When he outlived his usefulness…well, Stryker was not foolish enough to attempt killing him. He would be handed his past, that thin, battered manila folder Stryker had locked in a bank.
He continued to watch the man as children flooded the kitchen, drawn by whatever was cooking on the stove. Logan laughed at something the young girl “ Rogue he thought “ mimed nausea.
It was too bad, really. Perhaps the Wolverine would have made a good father.
“Everything is in place for Storm’s extraction,” Trask broke into the silence again.
“Are you certain?”
“Yes,” the dark man nodded. “If Goldstein had not interfered, we could have moved more swiftly. As it stands, this will not go over well.”
“What do I care?” Stryker waved him off impatiently as Logan looked up, seemingly aware that he was being watched. “The public is your problem.”
“You do not need to remind me,” his companion muttered.
Stryker smiled benevolently as Wolverine continued looking about, as though unable to discover the source of his instinctual alertness. His eyes found the camera and for a moment, Stryker stared right back at him.
It would be good to have the Wolverine back home. When the time was right.
~**~
“Its good work,” Lew complimented his favorite investigative reporter as she lounged in his office.
He was a tall, lanky man in his middle years with a full head of gray hair. His face, once considered uncommonly handsome, was gouged with the unfaltering lines of time. Dark eyes glittered with a reporter’s wit and a father’s kindness. He had seen wars, various coup d'état, and government scandal.
The time he spent in Nam showed in the dimpled scar on his cheek, a run in with militants in South Africa reflected in his eyes. He had rarely spoken of what happened during his forty-day imprisonment, but Trish had seen the change in his eyes upon his return.
She’d been an intern then, carefully tucked under his wing before he’d torn off into the hate riots of Johannesburg. When he came back, he hung up his investigative cap and donned that of a producer. He had backed the idealistic Tilby from the get-go, ensuring she gobbled up airtime and sank her teeth into hard-hitting reports.
She adored him.
Lew Richards, once an award-winning reporter turned exalted producer, regarded her carefully over the expanse of his antique oak desk. His hands were clasped firmly, the grim set to his mouth telling her more than a thousand carefully chosen words.
He could see she hadn’t slept much, that she was back to living on coffee and air with a few painkillers thrown in for flavor. She hated the damn things, but they pushed the pain away. Since that terrible night two weeks ago, when she’d walked out on Hank, nothing was right.
Her world was off-kilter, a little to the left of center. She hated it, hated the fact that losing a man had done this to her.
Then again, Hank was never just another man.
“What happened?”
Two words, a wealth of meaning. Though reporters by trade, by soul, Trish and Lew never needed anything more than simple sentences and crisp words to get their feelings across. She knew her friend better than most, allowed him to see parts of her better left unexposed.
“Hank and I broke up.” No pretenses, no lies. It wouldn’t have mattered. He would have seen through her defenses as though they were made of glass. Why bother fighting it?
“Because you wanted this story?”
“Because I need this story,” she countered. “I took a bullet for it.”
“Precisely,” Lew sighed, scrubbing a hand over his aging face. “You shouldn’t let your work come between you.”
“He has his job and I have mine,” Trish deflected, her ire rising. “He should understand what I’m trying to accomplish.”
Lew tilted his head, gazing at her openly, gauging her, measuring. “I imagine he’s having a hard time seeing past watching you take that bullet on the evening news.”
Trish’s mouth came closed with an audible snap of teeth. The observation that Hank so often did that was not lost on her, but pushed aside to be dealt with another time. Lew continued to watch her, not the least bit disturbed by her temper.
Hadn’t he let her scream and destroy his office after that disaster in Rwanda? She’d yelled and fought, then gave into the grief of losing a fellow journalist. Lew let her get it out, handed her off to a tactile Hank.
He was more her father than the man who impregnated her distant mother.
She stood, knowing temper was allowed, that it wouldn’t be rebuffed or shied from. Temper was all right, she could let it out. Grief. Sorrow. Bliss. Everything was all right.
“I don’t want to scare him, Lew. I really don’t.” She brought her hands up, the tiny fists giving way to white knuckles. “Goddamnit, I want to hide him in a hole just to protect that heart. I’m so damned afraid I’ll hurt him, or someone else will.”
“All that aside, sugar, I don’t think he gives a shit,” Lew observed mildly. “Anyone can see he’s wild about you, though right now, I couldn’t tell you why.”
Trish snatched up a crystal paperweight and hurled it at him.
Lew grinned as he easily dodged the heavy projectile. “Still throw like a girl.”
She sighed, bringing her aching hands up to rub at her temples. “I don’t know what to do here, Lew. I’m scared and I’m hurting “ physically and emotionally “ but I can’t take it back. I can’t let this go.”
He shrugged one shoulder. “Then don’t. You’ve got to meet each other halfway. Just ask Helen. She’s gone through more for this reporter in thirty-five years than most.”
Trish paused, thinking of Lew’s lovely, beautiful wife. She’d given him five children, waited alone for his return for months at a time.
“Helen’s a saint, she doesn’t count,” Trish returned. Most of the fight had left her, so she dropped back into her chair.
“Sure she is,” Lew agreed, glancing at the photo of her and their kids sitting so proudly on his desk. “But even she went nuts when I took that story in Johannesburg after the fiasco in Calcutta. We didn’t speak for months.”
The dark haired protégé looked down at her hands, picking at nails in desperate need of a manicure. Her dear friend leaned forward, taking her hand over the cluttered desk and squeezing it paternally.
“Don’t let it take a prison “ or a bullet “ to fix this, sugar.”
Before she could answer, Mitch came barreling into the room. He tripped and pitched forward, gripping the metal doorknob to hold himself upright. The usually immaculately groomed man was a mess of flyaways, his face puffy and red from running.
“You’re not going to believe this.”
That was all that needed saying in a newsroom. Trish and Lew were on their feet, scrambling out of the office for a peek at the dozens of monitors in the screening room. Trish skid to a halt, narrowly avoiding a collision with several gawking reporters.
“There,” Mitch took Trish’s arm and indicated to the center screen.
On it, her beloved Hank stood before a mass of flashing cameras and bickering journalists. He looked as handsome as ever in a tailored suit, the black-rimmed glasses glinting in the light as he read from an obviously pre-composed statement.
“Because of changes in my personal life, I have resigned from my position as a United Nations Ambassador. This decision has been weighed heavily and revolves around the need for me in another place. I will be taking on my former profession as an educator at the request of a close friend.”
Trish let her hand cover her mouth as he continued, thanking everyone for the opportunity to work with the U.N. before taking questions.
“Freddie’s there,” Mitch whispered to her. “It was supposed to be a run of the mill press conference.”
She shook his half-assed apology off, turning her back on the image of her Henry, trying to block out the sound of his voice.
“Damn it, Hank,” she whispered as she slammed into her office. “What did you do?”
~**~
In the silence of late night, Logan moved through the mansion easily. Christmas had been a subdued affair. The children go into the spirit somewhat late and even then, there was the dull ache beneath the merriment of a missing family member.
He’d tried his hardest to shield the kids from Tilby’s ongoing attacks on the government in the name of justice. After that first, awful night, he’d had to fish Hank out of a vodka bottle twice more. The second time, Logan had sworn to murder him if he tried it again.
Hank had been on his best behavior since then. It wasn’t so bad though, Logan admitted. Keeping busy kept him from feeling the loss of his woman and child too keenly. During the day, he had so much to do that he barely spared a thought for himself.
He liked it that way.
But in the night, when the unwelcome guest of darkness crept inside, his mind ran amok with fear and worry. He kept it at bay by continuing his rounds, checking on the children, ensuring everything was in place for the next day.
Logan hated feeling so lost. Though Hank was now with them full time, he couldn’t get past that damn near debilitating lonesomeness. ‘Ro’s arrest had left him all lone in the life they had begun to make for themselves. His life was her, their baby, the family they made. It just didn’t work without her.
He entertained ideas of breaking her out, but knew it would never work. They would have to abandon their life here and he figured neither of them was ready for that. Everything was off it’s keel, but he had to hold it together.
‘Ro would, he thought. If she could hold her shit together after losing Jean and Scott and Chuck, damn it, he could hold it together now.
Logan climbed the stairs and ducked into his bedroom. Her scent was fading; it didn’t matter. His sensory perception could bring back that telltale scent on command. He did so now, closing his eyes quickly as he disrobed.
Yeah. He could smell her, see the hazy memory-image of her brushing her teeth in the bathroom, rubbing a dark hand over her swelling middle. For just a moment, just that single instant before reality came crashing back in, his soul was calmed, soothed by the presence of his mate.
“Hello, Logan.”
Eyes snapped open and a bare-chested Wolverine spun on the balls of his feet like a cat. Every hair on his body stood at end, spooked in a way that he could never recall in what life he remembered.
Standing in the entrance to the terrace, flanked by the curtains that danced lightly in the chilled winter breeze, was Charles Xavier.
Logan took one step closer, wanting the paternal, gentle presence of the school’s late Headmaster without any thought to reality. He felt his spine chill, the scream of instinct in his blood telling him that this wasn’t possible.
That soft, kind smile and the twinkle in those blue eyes was so familiar, though. His pressed suit was of a light gray, that familiar face etched with time, his head completely bald. God, it looked like Xavier.
“You’re dead,” Logan breathed, one hand reaching, searching though he knew it was useless.
“Quite,” Charles said almost jovially. “It does put a damper on one’s social schedule.”
Unable to resist, Logan’s lips twitched into a small smile. He relaxed a fraction, no matter what the inner beast was telling him.
“Think of this little visit as a dream,” Xavier offered in his usual soothing manner. “You fell asleep watching The Undefeated on AMC.”
Somewhat calmed by that thought, as Logan had made it a point to attempt staying up to watch one of his favorites, he relaxed a fraction.
“Ok.” Logan grunted. “What’s up, Chuck?”
“Put a shirt on,” Charles grinned. “Then come outside with me.”
Logan did as commanded, pulling his battered tank over his head before he followed the solid-looking image of his friend onto the terrace. He thought, briefly, that this was where his entire relationship with Ororo had begun. The thought sliced through him, leaving his heart open and bleeding.
Charles moved to the heavy stone railing, placing his lily-white hands on the edge and staring out across the grounds that had been his. Logan stood beside him, still somewhat alarmed that he was having such a vivid dream. He’d tried to not think about this man, the first person to show him kindness, that genuinely wanted to help him.
This one man had changed his entire life. How did you thank someone for that?
“I love this place,” Charles said softly. “So many nights I sat out here to watch the light dim, to count the stars as they appeared. I could hear the mental hum of my students, my family, in the house. I let it fall away until I was alone.”
Logan remained silent, surprised to see this side of his friend.
“When Ororo came to me, she crept out here on her first night. I was sitting right here and she boldly came up behind me, sat on the rail. We talked of her life in Cairo, of mine here. She, quite simply, became my friend that night.”
He smiled though his eyes never strayed from the beautiful view from the balcony. Logan’s heart twisted again, imagining a young, knobby-kneed Ororo coming to her mentor that first night, so afraid of this new life. Did he know? Had Charles known how remarkable that little girl would be as she grew into adulthood?
Did he know that he’d played such a large part in shaping her?
“I loved Scott and Jean as the children I was never meant to have,” Charles continued quietly. “But Ororo was my friend, my confidante.”
“And me?” Logan asked without thinking as he leaned his elbows on the railing, letting his hands dangle over the side. “What was I?”
Charles turned those soulful eyes to him. “You, Wolverine, were someone I needed to save. I fear I did not accomplish that goal while I lived.”
“Nope,” Logan admitted, looking over the grounds as he spoke. “You did it after you died.”
“So I see,” his friend had emotion in his voice. “I only wish I had lived to see you together.”
Logan smiled briefly, ducking his head before he turned to look at Chuck again. “She’s my whole world, Chuck.”
“Oh, how I know it,” he chuckled softly. “You would gladly charge into Hell for her. And she understands that so clearly.”
“She’d do the same for me,” Logan confessed, letting his emotions show. What the hell did he have to hide? It was his dream and who would Chuck tell?
“I need not ask you to take care of her, as you are well on your way.” Charles met his eyes again, unflinching and searching. “Everything will work out, have faith in that, Logan.”
He wanted to. Oh, he wanted to believe Chuck’s words, but deep inside, that fear and nagging worry consumed him. He couldn’t shake it off. He was terrified someone would take Ororo and their unborn child away forever. He wouldn’t allow it.
“I’m afraid,” he continued. “All the time. And I worry. Bout the kids, Hank, ‘Ro, the baby. Sometimes it’s so much, I can’t stand it.”
Chuck was quiet, so Logan went on.
“I keep thinking that if I walked away, it’d be easier. Then I get to thinkin’ about what would happen to me. I think I’d die if I lost them, all of them. That’s a weird thought, Chuck. I shouldn’t need anybody. I’m the motherfuckin’ Wolverine, ain’t I?”
His friend made a soft noise of agreement. “But?”
“But…goddamnit. I love them. I love this house, this school. This fuckin’ dream of yours might be the first thing I’ve ever believed in. That makes it worth it. ‘Ro and the baby, they’re in my heart, in my soul. I keep looking around wonderin’ how this happened. I gave myself to this place, to her, and I can’t take it back.”
“Would you?” Charles asked quietly. “If you had the choice?”
Logan paused, thinking about it. Ororo he would never give back. That was a gift nobody in their right mind would want to return. But the kids? The school?
He thought back over the last two weeks. Artie’d almost blown up the Chem. Lab, Jubilee twisted an ankle playing flag football, and three got into a “My powers beat your powers” argument that left scorch marks all over the living room and set fire to a fichus.
Every incident was remembered with a smile. It was oddly contenting to see children acting a fool, to run herd on the lot of them without losing his mind. He enjoyed talking with Hank, sparring with Tin-Man.
This place was home, in every sense of the word.
“Not in a million years.”
Charles grinned. “For that I am eternally grateful.”
“You passin’ me that torch of yours?”
“No,” Charles shook his bald head slightly. “I passed it to Ororo, whom handed a piece to you. You’ve created your own torch.”
Logan digested that for a moment.
Charles turned sharply, alarm coming over his face as he took Logan’s arm.
“You are being watched,” he hissed softly. “Someone has eyes inside. Destroy them.”
Shocked that he could feel Charles’ hand warm on his bare arm, he tried to understand the words. But Charles had that vacant look to his eyes, as if his powerful mind were touching something too far away.
“He’s watching you, Logan. Watching and waiting. He’ll strike. He’ll strike at her.”
Logan woke up.
With a startled yelp, he fell off of the sofa and popped up on his feet. Snikt! Six lethal blades erupted from his hands as he tried to catch his bearings.
Wayne was on the television, the final scene rolling out to swelling music. But Charles’ warning echoed in Logan’s mind.
He’d fallen asleep. It was just a dream, like the wraith had told him. So why couldn’t he retract? Why was every hair on his body standing firmly at attention?
Sensitive ears honed in, searching for any sound out of place. He caught the sound of gears, followed it to the far wall. Peering at a picture he couldn’t remember from his first months among the X-Men, he yanked it off of the wall.
Three thin wires fed into the frame from the drywall. Snarling, Logan jammed his claws through the image of a rolling Irish hillside. He tore the wood and canvas apart, finding the tiny camera lens affixed to the upper corner.
“Son of a btich!”
He grasped the delicate technology, bringing it up to his face. He hoped whomever had planted the bug was watched as an adamantium claw came up and deftly sliced it in two. Someone was watching them. Who? Why?
He’ll strike. He’ll strike at her.
“’Ro.”
