In his lifetime he had known terror. Intimately. He faced it almost nightly in the form of horrific dreams that were really fragmented memories.

He knew the terror of having his body sliced open in the most methodically evil manner imaginable.

He knew the terror of having hot metal poured onto his bones.

He knew the terror of feeling like a caged animal as doctors and soldiers stood around and basked in his pain.

He knew the terror that came with waking up, naked, in the snow, with no clue as to who or what he was.

Terror had played a key role in many aspects of his life. He knew what terror felt like. What it tasted like…what it smelled like.

But beyond terror, he also knew peace.

He knew the peace that came with realizing he was not a self centered bastard.

He knew the peace that came with the realization that The Wolverine could actually care for another.

He knew the peace that could be found in beautifully, bottomless, brown eyes.

He first found peace sitting in a bar, scared and alone, she had set there, stealing glances at him, looking too beautiful and too innocent for her own damn good.

Later, he would find peace in knowing he had saved that brown eyes girl.

Standing on that statue, dressed in that insane, borrowed, leather uniform, he felt peace in knowing she would live as life poured from his body into hers.

Of course, like a fool, he abandoned that peace, when he left her to search for his forgotten past.

But when he returned, he found it again.

The moment he looked at her, his peace was renewed. His life seemed to have some meaning again…she gave his life meaning and light and purpose.

But then the soldiers came.

The world fell apart.

He had to take her and the Fire Kids and the prick that called himself her boyfriend and he had to run. To save them. All three had entrusted him with their lives, but the boys were fools if they thought they mattered to him…they were foolish if they thought he cared about their safety.

She was all that mattered.

It was her screams he heard when the cop fired and the bullet slammed into his head.

She was the only one he wanted to reassure as he fell to the ground…she was the one he knew he would come back to life for.

And he did.

And the plane came for them.

In the Blackbird, he sighed with relief, and not at the sight of Jean.

He sighed with relief because Marie was safe.

Marie was safe.

That was all that mattered.

And then it happened…

The terror returned…

Only this terror was unlike anything he had ever known before.

This terror came from knowing he was powerless to save her…he was powerless as she screamed and looked at him in the second before she was sucked from the plane.

In a flash, she was gone.

His peace.

Gone.

Falling freely to the earth.

Taking his heart and soul with her.

Marie…

His Marie…

His peace…

His love…

He bellowed his anguish as he reached out a useless hand.

She was gone.

And then she wasn’t.

In an instant, she was black, encased in the blue embrace of The Nightcrawler.

The blue demon had saved her.

He had saved Marie.

Logan knew he would never be able to repay the man.

Words were not his to speak in the moment that followed…he couldn’t move or think or breathe, he could only offer silent thanks to a God he didn’t even believe in.

His peace was back.

Alive.

Safe.

His Marie was safe.

But the hell that had broken free at the mansion was far from over.

More would come.

He would be forced to work with Magneto and The Blue Bitch.

He would kiss Jean in a misguided effort to escape what he felt for Marie.

He would find part of his past.

He would learn from Stryker that there was more, he still did not known.

He would realize he didn’t care.

Whatever he had been in the forgotten past, he no longer was.

He was not an experiment.

He was not an animal.

He was a man.

A man who knew peace.

A man who knew love.

A man who would shed tears over Jean’s death.

A man who would hold Scott as he cried for his lost love.

A man that would again find himself thinking God that his precious love was alive.

His peace was alive.

Feet from him.

Within his reach.

There for him to touch.

It did not matter that she called the Ice Kid her boyfriend.

I did not matter if the Ice Kid thought he loved her.

Because he didn’t.

Not as Logan did.

And would.

Once the time was right for her and him.

The future was theirs.

The past didn’t matter.

He had his eye on what was to come…the life he and his love would share, once he gave her time to grow and learn and come into herself.

And in the mean time, he would wait…he would watch…he would bask in the peace that filled his soul each time he looked into brown eyes that easily washed away all traces of past terror.

The End