He sat down on the solid mahogany bar stool and nodded to the barman. Without a word, the barman turned to get him a pint, as had grown customary to his nightly visits to the seedy joint. He took a moment to survey his surroundings. It was the usual crowd, rowdy and loudmouthed. In fact, the bar was fairly busy for a Saturday night.

As he looked around once more, one girl caught his eye. She looked young - barely 18, and she was distinctly different from the regulars, beer slugging truckers and cheaply made up middle aged women chatting up men half their age. But she stuck out to him, sitting silently at the end of the bar, long brown hair falling gently over her face, huge dark eyes wide and alert. She wore a long green coat, and carried a big backpack. She looked like a runaway, some innocent kid trying to find her way on the streets, although somehow she didn't seem to fit that stereotype either.

She was staring at a group of big guys having some argument when he approached her, and she didn't notice him until he took the barstool next to her. She gasped as he sat down, and her big brown eyes flickered quickly over to him, before looking straight ahead.

"Hey kid" he said, his voice deep and thick.

She gasped again slightly, at his words, and shot another quick sidelong glance in his direction, before returning her eyes to the wall behind the bar.

"H-hey" she replied quietly, her voice shaking.

He glanced down at her half empty glass, water, by the looks of it, and then sighed.

"You want another drink?" he asked, turning to look at her.

Without turning to meet his gaze, she replied softly "Ah... no ah'm alright thank you"

He sighed once more. "Suit yourself, kid"

Just then a commotion had broken out over by the door. He bent his head to see what was causing the fuss, and saw two big guys shouting at a group of four cops, all of whom looked very pissed off. As he turned his head back to the girl next to him, he discovered that she was nowhere to be seen. He looked about, and saw the door to the ladies room swinging shut.

He looked a little confused, but then shrugged and drained the last of his pint, getting up from the bar stool. He kept his head down and ducked out of the door, avoiding the cops who were now roving the bar, questioning the irate locals. As he stepped out into the cold, sharp air, he pulled his collar up to protect his neck from the cutting wind. The question of where the girl had gone to briefly flitted across his mind, but then he shrugged to himself and started to make his way down the street.

He reached his old red pickup, opened the door and slid into the driver seat. He turned on the heater, started the engine, and then sat, rubbing his cold hands together as the car warmed up. It was incredibly cold at this time of year, and he watched as a few people passed outside, bundled up in scarves and hats, their breath appearing in the air in front of them like thick white mist. He absentmindedly ran his fingers over his knuckles, which housed his deadly weapon. He may have had an adamantium skeleton, but he still felt the cold.

As he took the wheel and pulled away from the curb he felt his thoughts drifting as they so often did recently. He was bored of this hell hole of a town, and he knew the time was right to move on. He had lived his life like this for the past fifteen years, moving from place to place, ever restless and never settling for too long. He had a desire to know the truth about his past, but he didn't have a clue about how to go about it, and so he satisfied his urge with constantly moving about, in the hope that the next town would bring him some clue as to where he came from, and who he really was.

Suddenly a blurred shape ran out in front of him, and he had to swerve violently onto the curb to avoid hitting it. He opened the door and stuck his head out to shout at whatever little dick had decided to run across the road, when he realized that the person was in fact being chased. Two big men rounded a corner and approached the figure shouting commands to each other and to the person whom they were chasing. As the outline in his headlights turned around, he realized with a slight jolt that it was the girl from the bar.

Without a moment's hesitation he leaned across and opened the passenger side door and motioned for her to get in. She ran quickly and jumped into the seat as he pulled away and screeched off down the street, nearly plowing into the two cops. Once he had gotten a safe distance away, he turned to the girl in the passenger seat.

"You okay kid?" he asked tentatively.

She turned to face him, took a deep breath and said "Ah'm fine."

After a few second pause she said "Thank you. For saving me from those guys."

He looked over at her, one eyebrow raised. He began to speak and then stopped himself. He tried again.

"Those guys were cops, kid.... Now, I wouldn't usually ask, but seeing as how for all I know I could be sat next to an axe murderer, would you mind telling me why they were after you?"

She looked away, biting her lower lip nervously.

"And why you ran from them in that bar" he urged her.

Hesitantly she answered him "It's complicated. Ah didn't do anything wrong, you have to believe that. You probably wouldn't understand if ah told you."

Not taking his eyes from the road, he replied "Try me. I'm headed for Alberta, so you've got a while."

Slowly, she began to explain her story.

"Ah'm not from round here," she began "and ah was just walking when a guy attacked me. He really scared me, and so ah..... ah accidentally killed him."

He looked at her, his eyes widening, but remained silent. She continued.

"You have to understand, ah'm not like other people. When people touch mah skin, they get hurt. It takes their life, their energy, and so when ah touched this guy he just... died. Ah didn't mean to hurt him. Ah called him an ambulance, and the police came and they arrested me."

She looked up at him, expecting him to be shocked, to stop the truck and throw her out onto the road. But he didn't, he just continued facing the road, an impassive expression on his face.

"Ah couldn't stay there, and so ah broke out. The police have been looking for me since, they want to put me back there, but ah don't want to go back." She finished, wincing slightly as though she expected him to turn the truck round and take her straight back to the police station.

He paused, and then turned to face her. "Look kid, I know what it's like to be different, I'm not exactly what you'd call normal myself." He returned his gaze to the road. "Name's Logan. What's yours?"

"Rogue" she replied quietly.

"Nice name, what's that like some kind of nickname?" he asked, an amused expression on his face.

"Ah dropped mah old name when ah left home" she replied. After a short pause she said "It's Marie."

"Well, it's nice to meet you Marie" he said.

She turned her gaze to a metal tag dangling out of the front of his shirt. It was like an army dogtag, and had the inscription 'WOLVERINE" engraved into it.

"Wolverine. What's that like some sort of nickname?" She asked, a slight smile playing across her face.

He grinned and turned once more to face her. "Yeah, I guess it is."

She smiled as he turned back to the wheel. "So, what's your story?"

"I don't have one, kid." He replied.

She looked a bit confused. "What do you mean?"

He hesitated, and then decided 'What the Hell', and told her his story.

"I probably do have a story, but I don't remember it. One day fifteen years ago I wake up to find I don't remember a damn thing. All I know is that I'm in a forest somewhere, butt-naked with these built-in weapons." With a *snickt* he extended the deadly claws from his right knuckles.

She gasped and moved back slightly, but then curiosity overcame her and she leaned forward to get a better look at them.

"Adamantium," he continued "Strongest metal in the world. Practically indestructible. And it's coated to my whole skeleton."

She gave a small tired laugh. "So ah guess ah'm running from my past, and you're trying to find yours."

"Yeah, I guess so." He replied, and they drove on in silence for a few minutes after that.

Rogue was the first to break the silence. "So, what do you expect to find in Alberta?"

It took him a while to work out how to answer her question. "I.... I'm not really sure. Chances are I won't find out anything, but I guess I have to keep looking."

She looked at him for a moment, her eyes softly taking in his face, his eyes that held a longing for something, even after all these years. He cleared his throat a little uncomfortably, and she took it as a hint and averted her gaze. She watched the western Canada landscape pass by the window of the truck, growing more and more sleepy as they went on. She must have dozed off, because the next thing she knew Logan was shaking her gently to wake her up.

Slowly she opened one eye, and he said "You hungry?" She nodded, yawned and got out of the car. They were at a taco restaurant. They went in and took a booth by the window, ordered their food and ate hungrily when it arrived. Logan was in the middle of eating a taco when he noticed a waitress walking past him slow down and then stop entirely mid-step.

He paused and looked around in shock and confusion. A woman in the booth behind had frozen mid-bite of her burrito. Two men were stood, glaring stiffly at each other, stock-still. A child was frozen in a yawn, one hand mid-way to his mouth, his eyes half closed. He looked back at Rogue, who had also noticed the sudden lack of chatter and movement.

Her lips formed the word 'What?' as her eyes widened in alarm.

He looked around once more to see that the entire restaurant had frozen in time. Just at that moment the lights went off. He immediately leapt up from the booth, and she did the same. He moved closer to her, subconsciously protecting her from an unknown enemy. They both looked helplessly around as they heard footsteps and a low squeaking sound approaching them.

"Logan" a male voice resounded in the darkness.

Logan gasped at the sound of his own name, and his eyes darted around quickly. A low growl escaped his throat, but he remained quiet.

"I can help you, Logan" The disembodied voice continued.

"I don't need any help thank you." He replied coldly. "Now d'you want to tell me who the hell you are, and how you knew I was here?"

There was a long pause, in which there could be heard faintly a television in the back of the restaurant, and some distant voice coming from the other end of someone's mobile phone. As their eyes slowly became accustomed to the dark, Logan and Rogue began to make out the eerily still figures around them.

"I can help you find out who you are, Logan" The voice said.

Once more there was a squeaking noise, and footsteps coming closer still. Slowly he began to make out the faint outline of a figure approaching, pushing something - a wheelchair, with another figure in it. They stopped where they were, and the voice continued.

"There's a military base at Alkali Lake, in the north. That may hold the key to discovering your past, Logan. Whether you decide to use this information or not, I wish you luck in finding what you're looking for."

"Who are you?" Logan asked gruffly.

"Let's just say I'm a concerned informant." The man replied, and with that the two shapes retreated from view, and seconds later the lights returned, along with the hustle and bustle of the restaurant. Things were back to normal, and as they both surveyed the restaurant, neither of them could see the two figures.

Slowly they returned to their seats, trying to make sense of what had just happened. Logan sat in silence, eating his tacos and staring at the blank wall behind Rogue. After a few minutes she spoke.

"Are you going to go to Alkali Lake?" She asked the question she had been dying to ask since the lights had returned.

He sat still for a few moments before replying "I guess we're going north, kid."

---

A four hour car journey later, they arrived at a snow covered plaque on the wall of a huge dam, reading ALKALI LAKE.

"This is it, kid" Logan said, rousing Rogue from a light sleep. Together they got out of the truck and made their way over the snowy ground to the door. As they approached Logan realized that the door was ajar, and as he looked through it, to his dismay he saw that the base was abandoned. It was in ruin, and the snow was thickly piled on the remains of walls, and drifted against the remnants of the base. He had spent fifteen years looking for his past, only to discover that the only means of finding out about it no longer existed.

Suddenly he let out a feral roar, full of rage and frustration. He stalked off past a clump of snow-topped bushes, and as she followed, she found him sat on a rock, looking out over the huge abandoned site. She looked closely and saw a small tear escape his dark eye and trickle down his cheek. Quickly he wiped it away with the sleeve of his denim jacket, turning his head pointedly away from her. She sat down on the rock next to him, reached over and placed her small gloved hand over his, as it rested dejectedly on his thigh.

Slowly he turned his head towards her, and his eyes met hers. She looked so calm and beautiful, sat there in the icy snow against the dark green conifers. He swallowed, and ever so slowly moved his head towards hers. She closed her eyes as their lips met, ever so briefly so as not to hurt him. They remained close, and he could feel her soft breath against his face. He saw her lips curl slowly into a warm smile, and his soon followed suit.

Then she lowered her head onto his strong shoulder and once more took his hand into hers. He realized at that moment that he had already found what he was looking for.