Day had started nice enough. She had gotten up little before eight. Brushed her teeth and put on her new dress. Her mother had combed and braided her hair. She had had cereal for breakfast. Sun had been shining outside. Perfect morning. First day of the last summer she would spend as a child. Next summer she would be already a big girl, enjoying her first, official summer holiday. Of course it would mean that she would spend next autumn, winter and fall away from home, in New York. In a school for other kids like her. Professor Xavier’s School For Gifted Youngsters. A month ago in a routine check-up doctor had taken a drop of her blood, just a routine test that was performed for every six year old, to determine whether they would be spending rest of their childhood with ordinary children. When results of that test had come her mother had cried. They had had long and meaningful conversations with her father, talking with hushed tones. Then one day her mother had taken her to have some ice cream, and when she had been licking happily her strawberry cone, she had used the M-word for the first time.

It had taken her a week to fully understand what it meant. One day she would gain power, almost like those brave heroes and heroines in comics. But before that she would only be a little girl, whose status as a mutant would be clear for everybody, tattooed to her left cheek with a series of blue numbers.

And it was starting to get her painfully clear what exactly other people around her were thinking about mutants.

She had gotten her mother’s permission to go outside to play after she had eaten. From earlier experience she knew that the park just few blocks away from her home would most likely be deserted at this time of day. She had skipped to there, already excited about the chance to get all swings, slides and carousels for herself. Usually other kids chased her off. Their parents didn’t want them to mingle with a mutant.

She had stopped dead on her tracks when park came to her view. It had been packed to the brim with other kids and their parents. Strange-looking creatures were towering over them, weaving through the crowd and kneeling down to chat with children. It had taken her a while to realize that they were cartoon characters. People masked as cartoon characters.

She had squashed her initial fear. There were so many children that she doubted if they would even notice her. She had walked in to their midst. Just another kid amongst other kids, wearing pretty blue dress and blue sandals, red ribbon in her hair.

Now she was very scared little girl in a torn, blue dress. She had lost her one sandal, and red ribbon lay somewhere on the ground, far below her.

As soon as people had noticed her they had turned against her. Adults turning their backs while their kids attacked her ruthlessly, chasing her until she had no other choice but to find a tall enough tree and climb to safety.

She had been sitting there for what felt like eternity, clutching the thick trunk with her both hands and hiding her burning, tear-stained face against the rough bark. She was tired. She was hungry. She wanted to go home. And she started to get a distinctive feeling that she wasn’t alone.

“Coast is clear, kid.” She dared a quick peek. A man stood there down below, leaning against the tree, smoking a cigar. Dark hair, wide shoulders. Worn, brown leatherjacket.
“Did you hear? I think you can come down now,” he said, turning to look at her. Dark eyes peered from under somewhat bushy eyebrows. Shadow of a beard covered his chin, and sides of his face were lined with funny-looking sideburns. For a moment he looked kind of scary, but then he smiled a little. Just a small smile, crinkling the corners of his eyes a bit.
“Come on. Climb down from there. I’ll take you home.”
“I can’t.” She was absolutely too tired and scared to even try to climb down. Man huffed and put away his cigar, extending his arms towards her.
“Hop down. I’ll catch you.”
“You promise?”
“I promise. Come on. You’re folks must be worried by now…”

Mention about her parents made her forget safety and warnings about trusting to strangers. She let go of the trunk and dived down from the branch, her eyes closed. For a moment she felt like she was flying. Fleeting thought of what would happen if the man couldn’t catch her flickered through her mind, but it was already late. Strong hands curled around her, and for a moment she was surrounded by the scent of cigars and the leather. Coarse hair on his cheek brushed against her face and she could hear his sharp intake of breath. He tightened his hold around her, then suddenly lowered her to the ground and let her go.
“Go home, kid. You don’t want to worry your parents.”

When she got back home, out of breath and still rattled from her ordeal, her parents were worried. Very worried. Worried enough to ground her for the rest of the week.

She was in trouble. Big trouble. People were scurrying around, minding their own business. Nobody paid attention to a lost little girl.

At the end of the week her mother had been making an inventory of her clothes, and she had decided she would need completely new wardrobe since she was going to be a big girl and move away to boarding school. They had gone to the mall. She had been overjoyed for a chance to get out of the house she had been confined for days. Too excited to notice that her mother had gone her way while she had been staring at a pretty doll in the window of a toy store. And now, half an hour later she was completely lost.

“Excuse me… Sir?… Excuse me, ma’am?” She tried desperately to gain attention. Anybody would do. Some people even looked at her, but passed her by as soon as they noticed the ugly blue tattoo adorning her left cheek.
“Excuse me, could you help… me?” It was hopeless. Everybody was too busy or too disgusted of mutants to even stop and listen what was the matter with her. Panic started to settle to the pit of her stomach. If she ever managed to found her mother, she would most likely get grounded for the rest of her life. And that didn’t sound a bad option right now. At least if she was grounded she couldn’t wander off and get lost.

“Hi, kid. You lost?” Voice sounded familiar, little rough and scratchy. Low. More like a murmur than any other voice she had heard before. Jeans. Huge belt buckle. Brown leather jacket. Finally her eyes settled to the face of the man she had seen in the park.
“Mom and dad said that I shouldn’t talk with strangers,” she blurted out the first thing that came to her mind. This man, even if he had helped her earlier, definitely fell in to the category of ‘scary-strangers-you-shouldn’t-talk-with’.
“You can call me Logan. And now I’m not a stranger anymore. You got lost from your mother?” Man asked, kneeling so that his face was in level with hers.

She had spent past half an hour trying to get attention from strangers passing by. Now she felt strangely reluctant to trust the man kneeling in front of her. There was something in him that she couldn’t quite put her finger on. Something just beneath the surface, creeping behind hazel pools of his eyes. Wild and feral.
“Come on, kid. I haven’t got the whole day. You’re here with your mother, right?” Man asked.
“Yes.” She had to force the word out of her mouth. Man flashed her a brief smile.
“Hop on to my shoulders. I’ll give you a ride to the info desk. They can call your mother through speakers.”

She hesitated for a moment. If she did as he asked, nothing would stop him to walk out of here with her and take her to… to… Away. It happened. Every day. There were bad people who liked to hurt other people. She knew about them. She wasn’t stupid. But she was lost, and this Logan-guy was the only one even remotely interested to help her out.

She walked around him and climbed to his shoulders, swinging her legs down to his chest, and grabbed a firm hold from his forehead. He held his hands in the pockets of his jacket, and apparently expected her to take care of herself up there on her own. He stood up slowly, and suddenly everybody and everything around her looked so small. She giggled a bit, and clutched his head tighter when he started walking towards the escalators. She could feel him flinch a bit when she accidentally kicked him when she moved to a better position.
“Careful, kid… Don’t want you to fall down,” he huffed with a tight voice.

She never saw the trail of tiny droplets of blood he left at his wake to the marble floor.

When they got to the info desk, people there were more than willing to find her mother. Anything to get a mutant child off from their hands. She had a feeling that the angry grimace Logan had flashed when he had heard them calling her a mutant had something to do with the swiftness of finding her mother from a store that sold schoolbags, notebooks and pens. She hadn’t even noticed that she was missing.

During that summer Logan seemed to appear almost magically whenever she got in to trouble. He was there when other kids bullied her, towering over her and telling them to get lost. He was there when she fell from a tree and hurt her ankle, carrying her to home and disappearing before her parents saw him. He was there when she got lost from her parents at K-mart.

“Are you an angel?” She had asked him once when they sat in the park.
“Hardly.”
“Then how do you know every time I’m in trouble?”
“It’s magic, kid…” Logan had said with a serious tone, but when she had looked at him, he had been smiling, mischievous glint in his eyes.
“I just know. I just know. But it’s getting late. You should head back home.”

“Why aren’t you afraid of me like everybody else?” She had asked when he had been carrying her back home after she had sprained her ankle.
“Why should I be? You’re just a kid.”
“I’m a mutant. People… They don’t like me. Mom and dad are sending me to a school away from here.”
“They’re doing it for your own good, kid. They want you to be safe and happy.”

Safe and happy was the last thing on her mind that night. She was supposed to get on to a plane at next morning. To a flight to New York. But right now it looked like it was already too late. Mom and dad were in the kitchen, talking nervously with hushed tones. There were people outside, their neighbors and friends. They weren’t acting overly friendly that night. Many of them had torches and baseball bats with them. Some of them even had guns. They had obviously gotten enough. They were going to get rid of her once and for all.

“The line is dead… What are we going to do?” She heard her mother asking.
“I’m sure somebody has called to the police already…”
“Look outside! There’s nobody left to call to police, they’re all standing at our front porch!”
“Calm down. I’ll go and have a word with them.” Dad. Always the sensible one.

First shot rang out when her father opened the door. He stumbled backwards and fell flat on his back to the floor, bright red flower spreading rapidly to the front of his pajamas. She couldn’t comprehend what was happening. She heard her mother screaming, something breaking in the kitchen, and then suddenly somebody brushed past her, closing the door to the porch before people standing there decided to come in. Her mother screamed again, glass was breaking in the kitchen. Windows above the sink. Wide enough for a grown man to crawl through. Somebody had broken them.

“We’re leaving, kid. Do you have your bags packed already?” Logan. Logan was there. Holding her hand and pulling her away. Away from her father. Away from the kitchen and her mother that had stopped screaming abruptly.
“Mom! Dad!”
“I can’t help them, kid! I came to get you! We have to get you out of here!”

He dragged her to upstairs to her room.
“Your bags? Where are they?” He scanned the room, stomping around, crushing delicate toys scattered around under the heels of his boots. He wasn’t her friend anymore. He wasn’t the goofy Logan she had gotten used to. He was her angel, and all she could think about when he climbed to the windowsill, holding her against his chest with one hand, and her bags with the other, was that she was going to die and he didn’t even know her name.
“Don’t worry, kid. I’ll take care of you.”
“You promise? Cross your heart and hope to die?”
“Cross my heart and hope not to die…” Logan murmured, and then they were airborne.

For a brief moment she felt like flying again. All too soon gravity grasped them to its clutches and they were falling. Ground was approaching. She screamed. Logan’s hold around her tightened. She closed her eyes. They landed with a jarring thud. Logan stumbled a bit, but he stayed on his feet.
“My bike is few blocks away. I’ll take you to the airport.”

Rest of the journey was a blur to her. She was tired and shocked; it was hard to think anything, hard to notice things. It got even harder when she realized that Logan was going to leave her in to custody of an airport guard who would escort her to the plane.
“I don’t want you to go!”
“I can’t come in there, kid.”
“Why! I want you to come with me!”
“I can’t. I can’t Marie. I’m sorry.” Marie.
“How did you know my name?” She asked suddenly flustered. Not once during their impromptu meetings had she considered telling him her name. He had called her kid, and somehow it had felt appropriate.
“It’s magic…” Again he smiled, but this time it was a sad smile.
“Go with this nice man, Marie. He will take care that you get in to the right plane. And there’s somebody waiting in New York.”
“But… I don’t want to go alone…” Her chin started to tremble.
“Hey… Don’t worry kid. Everything will be all right. I promise,” Logan murmured, pulling her against his chest.
“And I have somebody here who’s going to keep you company…” He pulled a tattered teddy bear from the pocket of his jacket. Her favorite teddy. The one she had gotten from her parents a year ago when a carnival had stopped in to town. Her dad had won it from skeet shooting.
“Are you going to come and see me again?” She asked. Logan cleared his throat.
“You won’t need me anymore, kid. You’ll get new friends from where you’re going. They’re good people.”
“But I like you. You’re my friend.” Logan hugged her tighter.
“And I like you, kid. Go. Live a little.”

It took almost sixteen years. Sixteen years of studying and practicing under the watchful eyes of professor Xavier, from which two of them were spent working as his private secretary before she saw her friend again.

“You called?”
“Yes, Rogue. Please, sit down,” professor Xavier smiled and waved to the general direction of leather couch. She took the offered seat. Xavier rarely used mental summons, so this had to be important.
“Wolverine is coming in.” Wolverine. A living legend.
“And…”
“Arrange a room for him. Open the old wing. There’s a room at the end of the corridor.” Awfully far from other residents.
“He’s quite distressed, for some reason or another. Just go and make sure there are clean linens, towels and soap. Do not spend any more time in that room than it’s absolutely necessary.”

She understood professor’s instructions. From what she knew, Wolverine was a healer, equipped with inhuman senses. He wouldn’t want any intruding scents floating around in his room.

Corridor of the old wing was dusty and dimly lit. Rooms in there were rarely used. She walked past several doors, until she came to the one professor had wanted her to check in. Keys jingled softly when she opened the lock and pushed the door open. Room was dark, curtains drawn in front of the windows. She suppressed the urge to open them. The less she tampered, better it would go. She placed the towels to the towel rack in the bathroom, bar of soap to the soap dish, and a bottle of lightly scented shampoo to the counter. Bed was already made, and sheets looked clean, so she let it be. She turned to take one last glance of the room, backing slowly out and trying to notice even the smallest thing out of place. Her whole attention riveted to the room she never noticed the man standing behind her. Not before she backed straight against him.
“Watch it.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t notice… Logan?”

Logan. The man she had last seen when she was only six years old. He was standing there, battered backpack slung over his shoulder, looking positively pissed off.
“You’re… You’re Wolverine?” She stammered.
“Yeah. Do you mind? I’m kind of tired…” For a moment she just stared at him. Logan huffed exasperatedly.
“You’re in my way. Move before I move you.” She stepped aside. Logan brushed past her and closed the door with a loud slam, leaving her alone in the corridor.

There had been no sign of recognition on his face. She had been a complete stranger to him. Granted, it had been nearly sixteen years, and she had grown, matured, but now knowing his senses… Shouldn’t he at least have recognized her scent? She had studied biology enough to know that each person had a distinctive, unique scent. Hormones, what that person did and what she ate, where she lived and what kind of clothes that person wore gave a small addition, but basic scent stayed the same during whole lifetime.
“He forgot.”

She managed to reason with herself. She managed to lie to herself almost rest of that evening. She had been just a kid. For whatever reason Logan had been there and protected her, it had been only a job for him. Or something to pass by dull moments.

Then she remembered the way he had hugged her at the airport. How even his voice had trembled slightly. How hard it had been for him to let go when her flight had been called out. For a moment she had thought that he would change his mind and follow her past the gates to the plane. In the end he had stopped in front of the metal detectors, waving her good bye.

“He forgot.”
“His mind is at fragile state. I’d advice you to stay clear from him.” She shrugged out of her thoughts and met professor Xavier’s concerned gaze. Apparently he was as unable to sleep as she.
“At fragile state? What do you mean?” She asked, taking a sip from the hot cocoa.
“He has been away for fifteen years. His memories from those years are at best fragmented and incoherent. I’m going to help him to place them all back together.”
“But why? What happened to him?” She asked. Professor squinted his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“That is none of your concern, Rogue. As long as he stays here, you must stay out of his way. If you need to address him for anything, I would ask you to use his codename instead of the one he revealed to you when you first met.”
“But…”
“Rogue, try to understand. I need memories he has from the past fifteen years. We all need them. We can’t have wrong memories surfacing and pushing them to the back of his mind. If he were to forget what happened while he was away… It would take away the whole meaning and purpose of those fifteen years from him, and for the rest of us, for our cause, it would be a serious setback.”

Cause? Setback? Fragmented? She felt sick. Xavier spoke about Logan like he was nothing more than just a part of machinery, a chip in the computer. Something slightly broken that he was going to mend so that he could be used again. She left the half empty cup of cocoa and the professor to the kitchen and walked out to the back garden. If she didn’t get fresh air soon she was really going to be sick.

She ended up climbing to a tree at the outer perimeter of the garden. For some reason she had always felt safer in higher grounds. Safety meant time. You had time to think things over. Everything was clear.

“Coast is clear, kid.” She turned to look. Familiar scent of tobacco wafted from down below, and she could see the glowing tip of a cigar in the darkness.
“Xavier is partly right. I’m messed up right now.”
“Wolverine?”
“Cut the crap, kid. I gave you my name to keep. Use it.”
“But Xavier said…”
“I heard what he said. I was at the patio.”
“Okay…”
“Could you come down from there? I’d like to see the person I’m talking with.”
“Okay… I’ll just… Fuck.”
“What?”
“I can’t.”
“You have got to be shitting me…”
“Nope.”
“Jump. I’ll catch you.”
“You promise?”
“Cross my heart and hope not to die.”

Again she put her trust and life to the hands of his and let go. His hands wound around her waist and stopped her from falling. She inhaled deeply scents that she had learned to know when she was just a scared little child. Leather. Tobacco. Underneath lurked something new. Burnt blood and metal.

“There are some things that Xavier’s wrong about. I do remember you. Sort of. Took a while to connect you with the kid. You’re all grown up. But I do remember that last night. I remember the airport.” Logan spoke softly; his low and hushed voice turning some syllables almost unrecognizable murmurs. They were sitting at the patio outside of the kitchen.
“And I do remember why I first decided to spend so much time with you. You were my last assignment before I went undercover. I knew this would happen. I knew they would mess up my head. For that I needed somebody who would remember who I was. I needed a reason to get out of there after the mission was over. I needed a trigger.”
“Where did you go? What happened to you?” She placed her hand over his forearm, and he twitched a bit.
“Doesn’t matter. But I got out of there because of you. Because you asked me to come to see you.”
“But I was just a kid!”
“A kid I made a promise for. I don’t go around handing off promises left and right like they meant nothing.”
“Why did you pick me? There are lots of people in here at school who already knew you. Professor Xavier, Jean, Scott…”
“All grownups. With a life expectancy of a pogo-stick tester on a minefield. I needed somebody young who was going to stick around long enough.”
“So… It all was just… What was it?” She asked confused. Somehow she felt used. Exploited. But at the same time strange warmth was making a nest inside of her chest.
“It begun as careful planning. But at the airport… Hell, you weren’t just another job. You were my friend,” Logan huffed and chuckled bitterly.
“Out of all the people in the world… A little girl.”
“I… I really was your friend?”
“Were? We aren’t friends anymore?”

There was a blank look on his face, but for a moment she had seen disappointment and hurt flashing to surface. Friend?
“I think of you as my friend. I always did. But I don’t… You don’t have to feel obligated to…”
“Stop spewing that bullshit, Marie. Being friends is not an obligation. It’s a privilege,” Logan grunted and held out his hand. She took it.

“Friends.”
“Friends,” she affirmed.
“Now that’s settled… Shouldn’t you be in bed already?” Logan asked, taking a drag from the cigar. She stifled a giggle that turned to a huge yawn.
“I guess so. Early morning tomorrow.”
“Xavier keeping you busy?”
“I’m not complaining as long as my salary is in my account at the end of the month.”
“You free for lunch?”
“I usually eat with students and the rest of the staff.”
“I’ll come and pick you up at eleven. There’s this place down the road… At least there used to be. I thought I could check out my old haunts. Professor gave me couple of days off to settle in before he starts prodding my head.”
“Eleven it is.”

“Logan?” She approached him timidly. He was sitting buck naked in a dark corner, shivering and whispering to himself, rocking slightly back and forth.
“Logan?” she called him again and his gaze rose from the floor to her face. Rocking ceased. He tilted his head, and his brows knit together in confusion.
“Kid?”
“It’s me, Logan.”
“What the hell are you doing in here? They got you too?”
“Logan, I…”
“Fuck. Not good. This is not good…”
“Logan, you’re safe. We’re both safe.”
“They got you, too. They got you, too. Fucking bastards.”
“Logan, calm down. Nobody got me. Nobody got us. You’re home. We’re both home.”
“Home?”
“At Xavier’s.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely. Come on. That floor must be awfully cold. Lets get you back in to bed…”

She had gone through this drill several times during past weeks. Going through his memories with the professor was absolute torture to Logan. Xavier had been able to tear down blocks that Logan had built in his mind, and now memories of what had happened to him, what had been done to him, kept waking him up in the middle of the night screaming and sobbing. Professor kept promising it wouldn’t take long, that he would be soon able to swipe off the most disturbing images from his mind, but he kept finding new material every day.

Either of the men was reluctant to reveal even the smallest detail of what had happened during the years Logan had been gone. She had stopped asking when Xavier had threatened to move their therapy, and Logan out of the mansion to a secret location if she didn’t stop meddling. Strangely enough Logan seemed to agree with the professor. That really left her no other option but to agree with the two of them.

From what she had understood from the fragments she had heard from their conversations, and what she had managed to put together from his half-awake ramblings during his nightmares, she was quite sure that Logan had been imprisoned all the years he had been gone. Imprisoned and tortured. And somehow it was important and that he remembered all of it. Locations, names, procedures. Most of it he had blocked away, hidden behind an image of her, Marie, clutching her tattered teddy bear.

“Shit… I’m so fucking sick and tired of this…” Logan muttered, standing up slowly. She tried not to look at him, but found it almost impossible. Her gaze wandered over hard planes of his body over and over again. Logan didn’t seem to notice. If he did, he didn’t mind.
“I need a shower.” His skin was glistening from sweat that nightmare had dragged forth from every pore.
“I could draw you a bath…” She proposed. Logan shook his head quickly, combing back strands of hair that had plastered against his forehead.
“No. No bath. And you need to go to bed anyway.” She pssahhed and waved her hand.
“It’s nearly five o’clock. I wouldn’t get any sleep anymore. I can keep you company.”
“You sure about that?” Logan asked.
“I’m positive.”
“Okay. Thanks. I… I’ll go and have that shower now. Wait here.”

She changed sweat soaked sheets and covers from his bed to fresh ones while he showered.
“I thought we could go for a ride,” Logan ventured stepping out of the bathroom.
“Okay. I’ll just go and change…” She was wearing her nightgown and bathrobe. Not the most comfortable outfit when riding a motorcycle.
“Good. Come in to the garage. I’ll wait for you in there.”

She changed quickly. Warm sweater and long underpants. On top of those leather pants and jacket, both enforced with extra thick paddings to the point where they reminded more of a shell of a tortoise than actual leather. She had bought them few years ago when she had gotten her own bike, a gift from professor Xavier.

“Hey, Logan! Do we take yours, or is it okay if I take…” Question died to her lips. Logan wasn’t alone in the garage. Professor Xavier was there with him. It looked like either of the men hadn’t noticed her. She ducked behind Scott’s car. Xavier knew very well about her involvement with Logan, but she didn’t need to rub his nose in to it.

“… Claws?” Xavier asked something from Logan. Logan shook his head.
“Not this time… never with her in the same room…”
“Be careful. All people in here, you two included, you’re my children. I don’t wish to see…” And with that said Xavier wheeled away, soft whirr of his wheelchair disappearing to the darkness.

“Coast is clear, kid.” She rose slowly from her crouched position.
“What was that all about?” She asked. Logan shook his head.
“Nothing important. Xavier just wanted to know if I was all right. I don’t think he even knew that you were here, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“No. I’m not worried. He knows already. Has known from the beginning. But what was that talk about claws?” She asked curious. Logan coughed and fiddled with the bike nervously.
“Just… It was just something about my dreams…” It was clearly something he wasn’t comfortable discussing with her, so she let it slide.
“Okay. But how about that ride?” Logan nodded.
“Ride with me?”

Last time she had ridden with Logan had been years ago, when she had been just a little girl. Logan had lifted her sitting in front of him, between his thighs, and secured her against his chest, under his jacket. Now she climbed behind him and wrapped her hands around his waist. Pressed her body against his back.
“Ready?” Logan asked, grabbing her hands and moving them around him more securely.
“Ready,” she affirmed. Engine of the beast roared and they drove in to the night.

Logan drove hard and fast, taking on every curve and the bump on the road as a challenge. She turned and tilted along him, following his every move to keep the balance. Wind dragged air out of her lungs and tears from her eyes. Slicked her hair back and made her feel almost as if she were flying. She wanted to lean backwards and spread her hands, but it was impossible in the speed he was driving. It seemed almost as if he was trying to outrun something, something horrible that clung to bike’s exhaust, following every turn and twitch of the bike. Instead of letting go she clutched her hands around him tighter, and enjoyed the feel of shifting muscles and warmth that were seeping through his jacket.

“I think you can let go of me now,” Logan’s voice rumbled through his whole body, making her cheek itch from where she pressed her face against his back. Sun was rising. Logan had stopped the bike in front of Xavier’s garage.
“Do I have to?” She was suddenly awfully tired, unable to move.
“It’s kind of mandatory. Come on, I’ll put my bike in, and we can go to breakfast. Okay?”
“Fine…” She mumbled, let go of him and slid down from the saddle.

Her feet felt like overcooked spaghetti, wobbly and sticky, ready to collapse from under her at any given moment. She sat down on the still moist pavement and leaned her chin to her knees, letting her eyes wander to the man and the bike in the garage. Logan was going through his personal check-up list, making sure that the bike was all right, and tank was full. Just in case something happened and he had to leave, everything would be okay. He wouldn’t have to stop in the first service station to get gas or even worse, find some new parts because engine of the bike refused to work. Lastly he rolled the bike to a dimly lit corner and pulled a tarp over it, shielding it. Hiding it. She knew that he had other routines too. All of them geared towards survival. Something to get him through anything. Way he ate, way he sat, and way he chose places he slept in. Way he folded his clothes. Routines after routines, which he followed to the tee no matter how tired and worn out he was.

“I should have made you go back to sleep,” Logan muttered stirring his coffee. She was sitting opposite him, nursing a steaming cup of tea and the beginnings of a world-class headache. She wasn’t used to staying up late, and past three weeks had wrecked havoc on her sleeping patterns. She couldn’t just turn her back and go back to sleep when she heard Logan’s agonized screams echoing from the old wing.
“Don’t worry. I just have to get through this day. Starting from tomorrow I have one week off from work.”
“Any plans for that week?” Logan asked.
“No. Right now I feel like I could spend that whole week in my bed. Under blankets. Sleeping.” Logan smirked and took a sip from his coffee.
“Xavier is giving me few days off as well. He’s blocking my memories… At least the bad ones. No use driving me nuts before we have gotten out everything we need. I was thinking… There’s a small pond nearby. There’s a cabin, too…”
“You mean Hunter’s Pond?” Marie asked. Logan tilted his head.
“How do you know about that place?”
“I used to go there swimming… Back when I couldn’t control my mutation.”
“Prof told you about it?” Logan asked. She nodded.
“I was thinking we could go there for few days. I need to get out of this place for a while. Too crowded and noisy,” Logan said letting his gaze wander around the dining hall. It was almost seven o’clock, and the hall was already packed to the brim with kids, chatting and laughing with each other.
“And it sounds like you could use some peace and quiet, too.”
“When do we leave?”
“Tomorrow okay with you?” Logan asked. She rubbed the bridge of her nose and yawned.
“Better than okay. First thing in the morning?”
“What time do you get up?”
“What time do we leave?”
“Come to garage at nine.”

“Come on, Logan! Water’s warm!”
“I don’t swim.”
“You can’t swim?”
“I can. But I don’t swim. I’m just fine over here…”
“Suit yourself…”

She threw one last glance to Logan who was sitting at the edge of the water, dangling his feet under the surface, jeans rolled above his knees. They had arrived few hours ago. Sun was shining, and weather was scorching hot. She had been more than pleased to shed off some clothes and change to her swimsuit. Logan had opted to fill a cooler with beer and sit on grassy edge of the pond, watching her and the forest surrounding them, taking small sips from the beer and dozing off when he felt like it.

She dove underwater, and enjoyed the cool feel of it sliding over her skin. It was quiet. Water blocked off all noises, pressed against her intimately, cocooned her. She was slowly starting to relax. She hadn’t even realized how wound up she had been. If she felt like shit for staying up few nights every now and then, for Logan it had to be absolute hell. Waking up every night. For not being able to sleep. Hearing, seeing, smelling and feeling everything around him. Sleepy scents and sights at night, restless energy radiating from the kids and staff of Xavier’s during days.

When she surfaced Logan had emptied his beer and lay on his back, his hands crossed behind his neck, eyes closed. He appeared to be sleeping. There were still sharp lines of tension on his face, but he already looked more at ease.
“Logan?” She called his name.
“Yeah?” Sleepy mumble. Like a big, lazy cat purring.
“Thanks. For bringing me here.”
“You’re welcome. Think you could let me sleep now, kid?”
“Sure.”

She swam until her fingers and toes turned blue. She rose from the water teeth chattering and grabbed the towel she had brought outside with her, rubbing her skin vigorously to warm it up. It felt absolutely wonderful. Even when sun was doing its best to burn her up, she felt cool and relaxed. Logan was snoring softly, his feet still in the water. Something in that bugged her brain. Something was wrong in the way his feet lay under the surface. She couldn’t quite put her finger on to it, so she shrugged the thought off as irrelevant. Her mind was probably just playing tricks at her. Sure sign that she really needed this mini-vacation. She left Logan sleeping and went in to the cabin to change off her wet swimsuit. When she got back out Logan was standing up, stretching his back and yawning, rubbing his stomach and chest sleepily.
“Slept well?” She asked.
“Fine. Xavier’s blocks… They’re amazing. Almost nothing comes through. You hungry yet?”
“I could eat something.”
“That diner down the road okay with you?”
“Yeah. They make mean burgers.”
“That they do. I swear that cook must be a mutant. No normal human would be still alive and kicking at her age. She was old when I first found the place!”
“When was that?” She asked.
“Must have been nearly twenty years ago. I had just started working for Xavier. She had that same grey hair. Those same shoes. And she knew how to flip burgers.”
“Well, we have to go and make sure that she hasn’t forgotten. After all, it has been almost a week when we last visited…” She giggled. Logan finished tying his shoes and rolled down his jeans.

“About mutants… How come you don’t have a tattoo like the rest of us?” She asked when they were sitting in front of the diner, on a garden chairs, waiting for their burgers.
“I have this instead.” His dog tag. Thin metal plate.
“So you are registered?”
“Kind of. They know about me. Probably even more than they know about you. And I don’t think ‘registered’ is a proper word to use. They don’t ask if you want it. They examine you, label and categorize you, and mark you. After that you’re ‘free’ to go and do as you like. All people have to do is to look at those numbers on your cheek, and they know exactly what you are. After that they rarely even bother to find out who you are.”
“It’s not that bad. I even have some human friends…”
“Not that bad? It’s fucked up. That’s what it is. We should have a right to choose if we want to register or not. They don’t walk around branding ordinary people from alcoholism. They don’t tattoo cancer patients or mentally ill. They don’t do that to rapists and murderers. Yet they think it’s perfectly okay to stick a needle and color to a helpless little kids who have done nothing wrong.”
“I… I have never thought about it like that.”

Registering was just something that happened. One event on your life, like getting your tetanus shot, or choosing to which school you were going to go. Government wasn’t openly prosecuting or harassing mutants, just keeping track of them for the best of their abilities. It was the other people, the normal ones that were the problem. The ones with twisted ideas and minds. People who organized parties and meetings in the name of pure race and humanity. It had never even occurred to her that without registration act those people wouldn’t even know about her status as a mutant.

“That’s something Xavier’s trying to change. To make them see that they don’t have the right to brand us like cattle. That shit he’s digging from my head… It’s supposed to prove that some people are actually using the intel they gather from mutants.”
“Using? What do you mean?” She asked puzzled.
“That’s not important. But the point is, they’re using something, doing something that they shouldn’t do. What they wouldn’t even be able to do without that registration act. To me, Xavier, you… All of us alive now it’s already too late, but if Xavier manages to guarantee the congress about how wrong that act is… It might save our children some day.” Logan finished his little speech when waitress came over with their burgers.
“Not that we would have children. But figuratively speaking…” He said smirking.
“Of course! Of course! I… I knew you meant it like that…” She stuttered and hid her burning cheeks behind the wide brim of her tall glass of soda.

Rest of their meal they spoke about lighter topics. Weather, her job, about what they were going to do for the following days. Just friends exchanging pleasantries over burgers, taking a short lunch break before returning to doing nothing on this pleasant, hot summer day.

Words he had chosen, and that smirk of his lingered in her mind well past that day. She noticed that she was still mulling them over when they were sitting at the front porch of the cabin, enjoying the view the setting sun offered over the pond. When Logan threw his arm around her shoulders, urging her to lean on his side, she couldn’t help the nervous flush that crept over her cheeks. If he noticed, he didn’t comment it. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply his scent, wondering how different reactions it woke in her now compared to those back sixteen years ago. He still felt like safety, but there was something more underneath.

“Naptime, kid,” she heard Logan whisper. She was floating in that pleasant place, just between awareness and dreams, her whole body numb and lax. She was quite sure that it would be impossible to move from where she lay, legs spread on the porch, her upper body and head cradled against Logan’s side. Logan seemed to read her mind. He gathered her carefully on his arms and carried her to bed, tucking her under covers and brushing a strand of hair off from her forehead.
“Good night.”
“Good night, Logan…” Her hand crept out on it’s own volition and she squeezed his wrist briefly.
“I’ll be here if you need anything…” She muttered sleepily and curled on her side, letting his hand go and tucking her hands under her chin. She heard him leaving and closing the door. Lock on the door next to hers rattling. Little later soft creak of the bedsprings when he lay down.

She woke up some time during the night and sat up, blinking her eyes in the darkness. At first she wasn’t sure of what had woken her. She sat there, listening the silent cracks and creaks of the cabin. Owls calling to each other outside. Small insects pinging softly against the window. She strained her hearing. Just silence. Almost complete silence. Clock on the bedside table announced that it was four-thirty in the morning. Suddenly she realized. She had become so attuned to Logan’s fragmented dreaming habits that he managed to wake her up even now, when there was nothing wrong, nothing to worry about. No reason at all to get up from her warm bed.
“Crap…” She muttered slightly annoyed. She knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep anymore.
“Might as well get up…”

She wrapped her bathrobe over her nightgown and opened the door carefully. Logan was a light sleeper. Even the tiniest noise would bring him out of rest, and he needed to sleep. She could stay here for the rest of the week, but he would have to return to the mansion soon. Xavier had already called him, anxious to continue their meetings. Logan had agreed to return on Thursday morning, and it was already Wednesday.

“Couldn’t sleep?” She jumped in the air and nearly screamed before she realized that it had been just Logan. She had crept as silently as she could to outside, intent on staying there until he woke up, only to find him creeping up on her and scaring her out of her wits.
“Jesus! Trying to give me a heart attack?” She hissed and swatted him. Logan smirked.
“That’s what you get from sneaking around. Had troubles sleeping?” He asked again, taking a drag from a cigar that was dangling between his fingers.
“Sort of. But it doesn’t matter. It’s beautiful around here at night.”
“Quiet… Well, almost,” he chuckled when an owl flew past them and let out a loud shriek.
“It must be difficult for you. To live in there with all of us.”
“Well… I have lived in worse places. And Xavier’s looking up a way to soundproof my room.”
“You’re staying?” She asked surprised.
“Yeah.”
“I thought…” she had expected him to bolt out back to road again as soon as he had things settled with Xavier.
“I’m through with the road. Besides, wouldn’t that make me quite a shitty friend? If I just took off like you meant nothing to me?”
“I…”
“Of course if you don’t want me here, I’m sure I could find something else…”
“No! Of course I want you to stay!” She practically attacked him, plastering herself over his chest and hugging him against her tightly.
“I missed you all those years. Waited for you. I knew it was stupid, I was just a little kid and you were… Well, you were you. But I still waited the day you would come back to see me.” Strange tightness in her throat made it hard to speak.
“I was waiting for that day, too. More than you can imagine…” Logan murmured discarding the stub of the cigar and answering to her hug with an embrace of his own. She could feel his face pressing against the crown of her head, and she heard him inhale.

“You still use the same shampoo.”
“Huh?”
“Remember when you asked how I always found you?” Logan asked.
“You said it was magic. Are you going to crush my dreams and reveal the great secret now?” She asked, and heard Logan chuckle.
“Not too many little girls around here used vanilla-scented shampoo. You were easy to track down. Though I must admit I made a mistake couple of times. Found an old lady wearing a blue dress with flowers on it instead of you.”
“That must have been my grandmother. She gave me that shampoo. I like the scent of it. She always bought two bottles at the end of every month, and gave one to me.”
“Your grandmother?” She could hear surprise in Logan’s voice.
“Well, she wasn’t my real grandmother, but I liked to pretend that she was. She was just a nice lady from the next door. Came to see me almost every day. She had grandchildren, but they lived in Canada, and she didn’t get to see them so often. We kind of adopted each other I guess. When they tattooed me she stopped coming. And that night… She was in our garden with the rest of our neighbors. I think she was the one who set our house on fire.”
“I’m sorry. Sorry that I couldn’t do more. I would have if…”
“It wasn’t your fault. I know that. They were just stupid people. Most of the times they were just afraid of me. They just wanted me to leave.”
“Doesn’t make it right. They had no right to scare and harass you. They have no right to do that to anybody. That’s… That’s why I had to leave. Why I had to stay away all these years. I want to make sure that in the future they have no chance to hurt us anymore.”

“Rogue, I need you to do something.”

She could still hear professor Xavier’s words echo in her head. But she couldn’t see the stack of tapes and papers in front of her, every single one of them labeled with a name ‘Wolverine’, and a session number. She had barely started listening the first tape when she had thrown the recorder away, smashing it against the far wall of her office. Instead of papers and tapes she saw Logan. Naked, bleeding, strapped on to a metal plate, screaming his lungs out when scalpels and wound retractors parted his flesh.

“Why?”
“Because we needed to know,” professor spoke from the doorway.
“But why Logan?” She asked, feeling bile rise to the back of her throat when professor answered.
“Because he was the one we could trust to go in there and come back out alive.”
“Whose idea it was?” She asked fighting back nausea that tried to overwhelm her.
“His. We knew about those places, but we had no proof. Nothing, just vague rumors about what was going on behind closed doors. At first we thought he could go in as one of them. Get a job as a janitor, or maybe a security guard. When that failed, he decided that we should continue anyway. He would let them catch him. He would go in and get as much information as he could, and would return as soon as he was able. I managed to monitor him every now and then through Cerebro, on moments when he wasn’t too heavily sedated, and from that I knew that he was still alive. All I could do was to wait for his return.”

Her gaze drifted from professor back to the table in front of her. File after file, tape after tape, filled with every imaginable atrocity that could be committed by human means. Few of them even by inhuman means. Pitting two mutants against each other wasn’t a rare event in those places where Logan had spent sixteen years during which she had played with dolls and her friends, getting education and coddling from the real world. He had a metal skeleton. He had metal claws buried inside of his arms. Permanent souvenirs from his trip to Hell.
“Those tapes and files contain all the information I was able to retrieve from his mind. All the proof we need to shut down those centers and maybe even make them to remove the registration act. I do not wish to expose too many peoples to this information. Since you have developed a relationship of sorts with Logan, I think it should be you who puts it all together.”
“But…”
“This is not a punishment, though I understand that it may feel like one. But this will help you to understand better the situation you’re getting in to. He’s not the same man you met when you were just a child, Rogue,” professor said and left, leaving her alone with her thoughts.

That night she went to bed feeling miserable. She had spent whole day listening the tapes and jotting down notes, trying to form coherent sentences while all she wanted to do was to curl up and die, hide from horrors which Logan’s strangely calm voice described, as if they hadn’t been performed to him. Now she found it impossible to forget, to detach her mind from that task. Every time she closed her eyes she could see a sickening slideshow of him, of Logan, in various states of hurt and blood.

“He shouldn’t have done that.” She opened her eyes. Logan was sitting on the floor of her room, leaning his back against the door, a bottle of beer dangling from his fingers.
“Xavier?” She asked. Logan nodded.
“There was no reason to shove that load of shit and filth upon you. It was none of your business.”
“Oh, God, Logan… It was horrible! Why didn’t you say anything earlier?”
“Say what? Tell you the whole fucking tale? For what? To score pity points?” He took a sip from his beer and laughed bitterly.
“You and Xavier are the only ones besides me who know where I was and what I did. As far as the rest of this freak show is concerned, I was on the road, drinking my ass off and getting laid. I prefer it that way. I don’t need sympathy or pity. I did what I had to do to stop it happening again to some poor schmuck who wouldn’t get out of there alive. I did it because I could. I would do it again if needed.”
“I don’t want you to go,” she whispered quickly. Her mouth felt dry and her throat was too parched to speak out loud. Logan snorted.
“Then stop pitying me and do your goddamned work! I didn’t do it so that you and Xavier could stuff those tapes to the back of a filing cabinet because you were too terrified to write down what is on them!” Logan almost shouted and stood up, opening the door and turning to leave.
“And get some sleep, for Christ’s sakes. It gets harder and more scattered towards the end,” he added more softly before closing the door and stomping off.

It took her whole year to go through the whole material and form a single document that revealed Logan’s gruesome story in detail. He had been right. At first his memories were coherent, but the further she ventured to that black world of blood and grime harder it got to distinguish hard facts from delusional ramblings. Things he had gone through, drug regimen they kept him under, and sheer monotony of days had turned him nearly insane, and there were moments she wasn’t sure if he was there at all. And then there were other moments that made her cry. Long periods filled with silence, after one whispered word. Word that floated through screams and ragged intakes of breath.
“Marie…”

During that year which she spent cooped up to her office Logan made himself scarce, hardly bothering to nod a greeting when they passed by on the corridors. She noticed that he kept his own company, avoiding other residents as well as her too. And it seemed to suit just fine everybody. He was the Wolverine. Grouchy, bitter and mean being lurking in the shadows, drinking and brawling, attending missions when he felt like it, mostly just lounging around and driving them nuts just with his presence. She started to wonder if Xavier had been truly right. If there really wasn’t anything left from the man she had learned to know to some extent when she was a child.

“It’s finished?” She shrugged out of her thoughts and turned to look at him. Logan was standing at the doorstep, leaning against the doorjamb, that ever-present cigar dangling from his fingers.
“Finished,” she affirmed, not sure of how she should respond or react to his sudden interest.
“Good. Ready to go?” Logan asked. She scrunched her forehead in confusion.
“Go? To where?”
“We have to get you drunk or laid. Preferably both.”
“Huh?”
“Trust me. It’ll make you feel better.”

“It’s so fucking unfair…” She slurred, trying to focus her gaze. There seemed to be several Logans, all of them sitting in front of her and swaying back and forth.
“What’s unfair?” Logans asked. She had to think about it for a moment.
“I’m ready to keel over… And you’re not even tipsy! It’s so fucking unfair!”
“One of us have to be sober if we’re ever going to get to the next part of our plan,” Three Logans smirked lazily.
“Next part?” Was there something else? Had she forgotten something?
“The part where you get laid.”
“Uhh… I don’t think that’s such a good idea right now…” She was ready to pass out.
“Besides, who would want me? I’m a freaking mutie!” She emphasized that fact by pointing at the tattoo that glowed eerily blue from under the concealer she had applied carefully hours ago when she had been getting ready for her night out with Logan.
“Come on! Since when did you turn in to a wuss? Stomach in, breasts out! Show me you’re a woman!”
“Fine. I’ll suck in my stomach. I’ll stick out my boobs. But I will definitely not show you, or anybody else if I’m a woman or not…” She grumbled, straightened her back and whipped off strands of long, brown hair that had fallen over her face. That defiant move made her tilt to the side, and she almost fell off from the chair she was sitting on. She managed to drag herself back upright.
“Christ! I’m complete klutz! This is so fucking embarrassing…” Logan snickered and caught her hands before she hid her face.
“Don’t. You’re cute when you’re blushing.”
“Cute? I’m cute? Spank you very much, mister!” She hissed, downing her drink. It did nothing to alleviate the heat that was caressing her cheekbones. It only served to intensify the feeling up to a point where she felt that she would most likely spontaneously combust if she didn’t get out of here soon.

“And now would be a good time to go home…” She heard Logan’s voice murmuring from a distance, which was very odd, because she could feel his hands around her, his chest against her side, his breath tickling her throat, which had to mean that in fact he was awfully close to her.
“But I didn’t even get laid yet…” She whined sleepily, grabbing the front of his jacket and shaking him to make her point clear.
“Not yet. Later.”
“You promise?” She asked, focusing, and finally managing to catch his eyes.
“Cross my heart and hope not to die.”

When she woke up later she was at first confused and disoriented. Room felt all wrong. Bed felt all wrong.
“What the hell…” Somebody was snoring next to her. She bolted off from the bed, regretted moving so abruptly when her stomach and head protested, and took in her surroundings. Room looked vaguely familiar. And in fact, even the snoring sounded somehow familiar. She crept closer to the bed and squinted her eyes, trying to see better in the dim light that seeped through closed curtains. Logan. She was in Logan’s room. Quick inspection revealed nothing out of place. She was fully clothed. No used condoms lying around. Even Logan had some clothes on. A black T-shirt and boxers. She let out a relieved sigh and snuck to the door.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” Logan asked.
“Uh… To my room? To my own bed?”
“What’s the rush? We never get to the last part of our plan…” Logan smirked, turning on his side and rubbing his chest.
“First off, it was your plan. And second… I… There’s… Fuck! I’m sure there are several good reasons why we shouldn’t go through with that wacky blueprint of yours.” She squashed the sudden urge to grab something heavy and hurl it at him when Logan’s smirk got only wider.
“You sure were on board with that idea last night. In fact, if you hadn’t passed out…”
“I’m not listening! I’m not listening!” She slammed her palms over her ears and started to singsong from the top of her lungs to drown out his voice. When it seemed that he stopped talking she stopped and let her hands fall to her sides.
“… As I said, if you hadn’t passed out, we would have probably fucked the living daylights out of each other.”
“Logan!”

She bolted out of the room and choose the shortest possible route to her own. It didn’t occur her before she locked the door to her room behind her, that she had to be nuts. Completely insane. There had got to be something seriously wrong with the way she was thinking. There was no way she had just given up the possibility to see if the rumors circling around about his proves in bed were true.
“And I wasn’t just thinking about Logan in bed. I wasn’t… Oh, fuck. I’m screwed.”
“Not yet you are. You ran out too fast,” she heard his voice through the door. He sounded clearly amused.
“Go away!”
“I’ll go. I just came to bring your boots. You forgot them in to my room. I leave them here.”

She waited for several moments, listening the sound of retreating footsteps, before she dared to open the door. Corridor was empty for except her boots that sat next to the door. There was something tucked in to the left boot. A slip of paper, with a small key attached to it. ‘Moving out. I’ll be at the cabin.’

She knew that the key would fit perfectly to the lock on the cabin’s front door.