...Will Make You Stronger by aranenumenesse
Summary: “It was never meant to be like this.”
Categories: AU Characters: None
Genres: Drabble
Tags: None
Warnings: None
Challenges:
Series: Wasteland
Chapters: 1 Completed: Yes Word count: 825 Read: 2181 Published: 11/08/2009 Updated: 11/08/2009

1. Chapter 1 by aranenumenesse

Chapter 1 by aranenumenesse
Author's Notes:
Last in the series, for now.
And just like that, one day the gates were opened. She walked down the empty streets with Logan, wondering silently how all this had been possible.

“It was never meant to be like this.”
“I certainly hope so,” she whispered, her feeling strangely numb all over.
“It’s… Xavier and Magneto, they had a plan and… Well, shit.”
“I’m sure that it was a good plan,” she whispered, skirting past now strangely silent announcement booth. Logan chuckled bitterly.
“It was a shitty plan. But it was all we got. So we went along with it. It’s just… It was never meant to be like this. We were supposed to be safe once the gates were sealed. People on the outside were supposed to be safe from us.”

The Great Plan of How to Get Along With People. Total isolation, voluntary imprisonment and loss of civil rights. She had spent well over twenty years behind grey wall, and all Logan could do was to offer apologies? Sorry about this all, kid. Your whole life was wasted, but at least you’re alive to enjoy the brave new world where everybody’s still afraid of you, and most likely will try to kill you just in case you decide to go berserk and give them hell.

As they approached the gates she could feel the tension rising. Logan had suggested that they stay in the ghetto until the worst rush is over. They had ended up spending a whole week cooped up in her apartment, waiting for the crowds to clear. Now that freedom was there, waiting for her at the end of the street, this all started to feel so unreal.

Your local waste disposal unit bids you good day and…

Message ended abruptly when Logan severed the cord of the loudspeaker, sparks crackling over his claws briefly before he sheathed them. He tilted his head, tired grin spreading over his face.
“Wanted to do that for years now… Ever since the system went haywire.”
“I’m glad you’re having fun,” she stated dryly, wondering how exactly Logan had been able to lie to her all these years. And what about her parents? What about all the supposed victims of human oppression?
“They were expendable. Hell, we were all expendable according to Xavier and Magneto. Anything and everything for the sake of the survival of the species,” Logan grunted as if reading her mind.
“Sure. It’s not the individual that matters, right?” She asked, trying to comprehend how and why it had all gone so wrong.
“You know… If either one of those old geezers were still alive, I’d pay them a visit. We could ask if this all was worth it. It’s a shame that they died during The Great Riots,” Logan said.
“You didn’t die,” she pointed out, reluctant to admit the full truth even to herself. Logan stopped dead on his tracks, staring at her blankly.

“You think I had something to do with this?” He asked his face now ashen, his voice a mere whisper.
“You seem to know awful lot about what was going on back then,” she said. It came out sounding more like a question than an accusation. She still wasn’t sure; she still wanted to believe that Logan was just another victim in this whole, ugly mess.
“I know a lot. Doesn’t mean that I had anything to do with this. I was against this from the beginning, but I was in the minority. What would I know? Poor Wolverine, we can’t afford full scale war. It’s better this way. It’s better for all of us.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t…”
“I tried to prevent this. I tried to help people to get out from here at the beginning, but then they replaced the barbwire with concrete and it isn’t easy to get through it, not when that fucking wall is well over half meter thick! I managed to dig holes in it, but nights weren’t long enough and every fucking time I got back to one of those holes somebody had already repaired the wall! Then this all went to Hell and they started fucking terminating us, and I had no time left for the wall because I had to make sure that only right people ended up in gas chambers and incarceration! So do I know what was going on? Hell, yeah!”
“Right people?” She asked, not really wanting to know the answer. Logan shrugged his shoulders.
“Battlefield triage. Somebody had to make sure that those of us that would have even the slightest chance of survival outside of those walls got through this hell alive.”
“And the rest of us?” She asked. Now Logan grimaced, then turned his back on her and started walking toward the gates.
“Common household waste. Better off dead than taking up space and consuming resources.”
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