Author's Chapter Notes:
well i think this one is a lot better than the last two chapters. Not nearly as in depth as i would prefer but still pretty good i think. anyways, enjoy.
The Statue of Liberty (the head):

“Ah, my brothers, welcome,” Magneto’s voice echoed around the X-Men as they hung helplessly from the inner walls of the Statue of Liberty.

Magneto looked at each of Xavier’s students and couldn’t help but envelop himself within his victory. Not even the great X-Men could stop him at this point. Roaming his eyes over the ferocious Wolverine he smirks at the idiocy of bring a mutant with metal coated bones to a fight with a mutant who can control said metal.

“And you, let’s point those claws of yours in a safer direction,” Magneto said to Wolverine and with a flick of his hand had Logan trapped by his own six inch claws.

“Storm, fry him!” Cyclops commands blindly as the fear of being locked in the dark consumes him, bringing back memories long forgotten.

“Oh yes! A bolt of lightning into a huge copper conductor. I thought you lived at a school?” Magneto chided as he began to leave Sabertooth to do what he does best.

“I saw Senator Kelly,” Jean says hurriedly noticing Magneto turning to leave them there with Victor Creed.

“So, the senator survived the fall, and the swim to shore. He’s become more powerful than I imagined,” he gloated as he all but clapped his hands together at his sheer success of it all.

“He’s dead. Just like all those people out there will be,” Jean replies to his egotistical response.

“It’s true. I watched him die,” Storm confirms as she starts to slowly panic from being locked in such a confined space, unable to move, unable to escape.

“Are you sure you saw what you saw?” Magneto questions the two women. As he contemplates what they may or may not have seen, the muffled screams of the girl, Rogue, can be heard in the distance.

Somebody help me! She screams against the high wind.

“You’re so full of shit! If you’re really so righteous, it’d be you in that thing,” Wolverine grounds out as he listens to Rogue’s barely audible plea for help.

He could feel his heart racing, he could sense that time was running out for the woman-child he had met only days before and somewhere deep down within him he could not help but panic at the situation. Usually a man of calm indifference Logan was experiencing a new sensation that many men of normal standards felt every day. He cared. He cared about what happened to this person. He wanted her to live and to live the life she was suppose to live. He wanted to live up to the promise he had made to her on that train station not a day ago. He wanted to be there for her like no one else ever had. And between Logan and Wolverine both were scared shitless at the possibility of what it meant.

“Why do none of you understand what I am trying to do?” Magneto asks them bringing Logan back to the situation at hand and not the one raging within him, “Those people down there-they control our fate and the fate of every other mutant! Well, soon our fate will be theirs,” Magneto barks out to the group of X-Men as he tilts his head to beckon Sabertooth to watch them as he rises high into the atmosphere towards Rogue as she waits for her own gamble with fate.

The Statue of Liberty (the torch):

“Somebody help me! Please!” I scream out to anyone who could hear, praying that maybe the X-Men can hear me and know where to find me before destiny closes its doors on me.

My eyes are shut tight against the whipping of the bitter wind as it blows my long tresses into my face, turning it into a weapon against my untouchable skin. I continue to call out as the minutes tick by and I wait for either one of the leather clad X-Men to come running up the side of the statue, but instead Magneto’s flying form is my only reprieve as to what is to come. By now I know as I feel the all too familiar magnetic pull against my wrists that my hope had been just that. A simple hope.

Magneto says nothing to me as he begins to prepare himself for what I know is inevitable. I tighten my gloved hands into fist and start to pull myself unconsciously away from the machine, but the cuffs that link me to it hold me firmly into place.

“This is for the good of all mankind my dear,” Magneto begins to talk to me as if he’s trying to justify why killing me is the only option we have left in this bleak world.

“I don’t particularly care about mankind at the moment,” I say just above the whipping of the arctic wind.

“Yes, well, the rest of us will care about you. You will be a matriarch for all mutants in this world Rogue,” says he.

“So, what? This is supposed to be a great honor? Fuck that,” I respond to him as I start to stand and pull even harder against my bonds. I can feel the metal cutting into my wrist, burring deep into my porcelain skin, rubbing it raw and breaking it open to allow the faint beginnings of warm blood to begin trickling down my arms under my long sleeve sweater.

He looks at me with a sorrow that I almost want to comfort. But then remember why I am in this situation in the first place. The man is a complete loon. He begins to approach me and I start to struggle with a new vigor I didn’t even know I had ever possessed.

“I am so sorry my dear,” he says to me and I know in that instant I will die up here on the Lady of Liberty. I will not be remembered and I will not live to see another day.

I watch helplessly as he places his cold weathered hands on my pale cheeks and scream as his mutation, his memories, his thoughts rip through me with no consideration for my own consciousness. Tears stream down my face as the pain blurs my vision and for awhile all I see is a bright, white light. The pain is searing and all of my skin is on fire, my bones feel like they are being yanked from me in one big pull. It’s all too much to take.

I can’t see or feel Eric near me anymore as I lose myself to the sensation of my mutation, but I can feel him inside of me. I can hear him convincing me to power the machine, to free the mutants in this world, to be their savior.

I just want to throw up and never wake up again.


The Statue of Liberty (the head):
“Hey, bub, I’m not finished with you yet,” Logan declares with all of the effort he has left within him as he drops carelessly behind Sabertooth. His wounds have healed but the dark, ruby leftovers from him or from Victor can still be seen as they drip from the tips of his claws onto the copper floor of the Statue of Liberty.

Victor Creed turns to face the mutant in front of him. He growls out in a feral warning only one of his breed can understand. The smell of blood is thick in the air and causes both mutants to feel the bloodlust that runs thick in their veins. Sabertooth crouches low to the ground ready to pounce. His eyes turn a bright yellow-green color as he eyes his prey. Wolverine immediately notices the threatening position but takes head.

“Jean,” Wolverine spoke aloud as he held Cyclops visor tightly in his hand. He works with everything he has to keep himself in check. The stark shriek of Rogue’s painful cry holds him together longer than he had ever thought imaginable.

“Scott,” she whispered to her husband and she caught the idea Logan was projecting, “when I tell you, open your eyes.”

“No!” Scott all but yelled out to her. His own self consciousness has already begun to seep through his usually strong mental walls.

“Trust me,” she whispers back to him in a soothing way. Jean looks back to Logan and did her best to nod her head at him in the tightly bound position she is in. Wolverine all but smiles at the beastlike man before him, as he raises Scott’s visor into the air with a chuckle that leaves Goosebumps on Jean’s arms.

“You drop something?” Logan asks Victor mockingly as Jean uses her telekinetic powers to lift the visor in out of Logan’s hand and place them in front of Scott.

“Scott now!” Jean screamed out as the blinding light of Cyclops optic power is released upon Sabertooth in one hurdling blow that threw him clear out of the Statue of Liberty.

Breathing heavily Logan stalks his way over to the X-Men and begins the process of freeing the team.

“Thanks,” Cyclops said to Wolverine as they began to make their way towards the arm of the statue.

They hadn’t made it two feet before they all watched as Magneto forced Rogue to take everything he had. They could hear her scream in pain across the cool night air. Wolverine smelt the familiar scent of burnt flesh and pure, natural pain as it emanated from Rogue’s body in a heavy wave across the Statue.

“We gotta get her out of there. Cyclops, can you hit it?” Logan asked as a white light began to flow unevenly from the spinning rings that surrounded Rogue.

“The rings are moving too fast,” Scott admitted as he tried to find a safe way to take out the machine and not Rogue.

“Just shoot it!” Logan yelled in panic. His heart had begun to beat at an unusually fast rhythm as Rogue’s body all but lifted from the ground as she poured Eric’s power into the Machine.

“I’ll kill her!” Scott protested as he searched for any plausible way to liberate her.

“Storm can you get me up there?” Scott asked his team mate.

“You could fly right over the torch,” She replied helplessly.

“Then let me go. If I don’t make it, than at least you can still blast the damn thing!” Logan thought out to Scott as they came to a silent agreement in that moment. They both had the same objective, save the girl, no matter what the costs.

“All right, do it. Jean use your power, try to steady him,” Cyclops commanded getting a weary look from both of his female team members, neither however questioned his leadership.

“Hang onto something,” Storm warned her compatriots as her chocolate eyes turned milky white and the wind turned deadly.


The Statue of Liberty (the torch): Logan’s POV

The metal in my bones felt on fire as Magneto stretched them to their limits. I had never seen adamantium bend in such away as mine had. I didn’t feel the pain though as I looked at Rogue. She just looked tired even through all the pain, I could see. I could see that she just wanted it all to stop. She was so close to just letting it all go, giving in to the pain around her that I almost stopped fighting and let her have her moment of piece.

I can’t even remember the point when her screams completely stopped and went to silent whimpering only one with my abilities could hear. I think it was about the same time the white in her hair began to slowly creep its way through her dark, chocolate locks.

I couldn’t move I couldn’t help her as I waited for something to happen, something that I was waiting for. Her screams echoed within me long before they faded into the back of my mind. There they had stirred something, something dark and long forgotten within the tangled web I called my past.

It wasn’t until I saw the streak of red that darted through the sky did I know I was free to make my move. With as much force as I could muster I tore at the machines spinning rings, chopping them into tiny unusable pieces. Nevertheless the entire I time I did so I kept thinking to myself, what am I doing? I don’t save people, hell I can’t even save myself.

But when that light finally faded away and everything got real quite again I knew I couldn’t, not save her. I all but lunged to her side as she hung limply from the metal contraption holding her in place.

I released her from the bonds that bound her to the monstrosity and held her to my chest as we both slumped down to the base of the broken machine. I looked down at her, laying quietly in my arms and in that moment, when I looked at her I knew. I knew she was gone. She had finally let it all go.

I hesitated for a moment unsure of what to do. I know how her mutation works; I know I would be the only one who would have the slightest chance to save her. But I hesitated. I almost didn’t place my hand on her face. It was as if something deep within me told me to wait, to just let her go and move on, forget that this had ever happened.

But I have never been very good at listening, especially listening to myself.

When I placed my hand on her freezing, cold skin and nothing happened I felt as if my heart had just dropped into my stomach and nothing was holding it into place anymore. I am aware of the fact that I don’t know this woman very well and it sounds rather cliqued to be speaking like this, but it happened.

I hugged her tighter to me, resting my face against her untouchable skin, savoring a moment that no one will ever have with her, not ever again, smelling magnolias and the faintest trace of clean linen that was all her.

And that’s when it happened.

I was thrown head first into a pool of flashing images and loud noise and dark green surroundings. And then I was standing dressed as I am now in a room I had only seen briefly in my deepest, darkest dreams.

I was in my past, fifteen or so years ago. I was pacing back and forth with in a tiny cell. I could see blood flecked across my chest and my hair was only slowly growing back on my arms and chest.

I could hear a boy murmuring in the dark a few cells down.

Not the dark, not in the dark, I am not in the dark.

Despite what looked like poor condition my cell was rather clean and I looked practically well fed. It wasn’t anything as monstrous as I had made myself believe. I was even dressed in something that slightly resembled clothing as I paced my prison. I looked kind of strung out. As if I was impatient. I didn’t understand that. At the time I had all of the time in the world, right?

But that’s when I smelt it. Just the faintest trace of it as it lingered down my cell block towards me. The weakest trace of Magnolias and clean linen.

Magnolias and clean linen.

For a moment I couldn’t believe my eyes or my nose, for that matter, as she came walking down the cell block first stopping at the murmuring boys cell.

“It’s alright Slim, don’t worry. I am right here I promise,” she said soothingly to the boy. I couldn’t believe it. I knew who Slim was. I knew exactly where I was now. But I refused to let myself think otherwise. It all had to be some bad dream. Like I was mixing my own experience in with what Xavier had told me about Rogue and Summers.

“I am going to go down a few cells and take care of the other one okay?” she said to who I know now as Scott Summers.

“You’ll come back?” he asked her. His voice sounded as if it hadn’t been used in awhile.

“Don’t I always,” she said with a southern twang she doesn’t really have now. He didn’t say anything back to her as she moved down closer to me. She was carrying a large tray filled with a wonderful aroma.

“Hey Logan, it’s just me, time for dinner and a little clean up,” she says to me as if this is a habitual thing.

“Hey kid, what’s for dinner?” The younger version of me asks her as she set the tray of food down. Then I realize that’s because it is.

“I convinced the cook to make us some roast with potatoes for tonight,” she tells me and I can’t help but smile as I realize that’s how she knew I didn’t like peas. Funny how something so inconsequential the comment made only a few days prior meant so little to me.

I watched us eat in silence. I remember now that I liked it, her and me eating dinner together like that. It made me feel- human, if only for a little while. She didn’t look up from her dinner plate as we ate and that worried me-us.

“Hey, kid you alright?” I asked her.

“I can’t take this anymore Logan!” She nearly screamed at me throwing down her fork, “he’s my brother and there’s nothing I can do to stop this...this hell!”

She said to me as she motions to the bars around us and tears start to fall from her eyes from the anger, from the fear of the unknown.

“Come here kid,” I say to her and motion for her to come and rest next to me.

I hate it when she cries I can feel it with my whole body, the way she aches in pain and longing all at once it stirs something deep down inside of me that I spend every minute of every waking hour controlling. But I let her cry for awhile into my chest not particularly caring that small flakes of my blood are sticking to her clothes. The smell however once you get past the tears is quite inviting. She and I mixed together in that way makes my body shudder at the notion of what it could really mean.

“Everything will be okay eventually, it’ll all work out one way or another,” I whisper to her as I start to pet her shorter than now hair.

“No it’s never going to be okay Logan, I am a mutant too you know,” She tells me and I notice from this memory how I stiffen and pull her tight against me. I know what this means, she’ll be next. She will be the one sitting in that cell, the one right next to mine. I know that they’ll cut her open, holding the flesh back with tongs as they remove every pit of humanity left within her. And I know I can’t do a damn thing to save her, not like she’s saved me.

“If it wasn’t for this stupid bracelet that they made me I wouldn’t even be able to touch you without killing you,” she tells me as she starts another wave of crying. And I remember thinking to myself about how dangerous we are, how dangerous we would be together. Then shake the thought from my mind because she is just a kid.

“I mean every day I come down here and I see what they are doing to you and Slim and I just hate wondering when it’s going to be my turn, when do I get to have my own little cage to sit in and slowly die each and every day as they poke and prod me,” she says and I am thinking those are my thought’s exactly kid.

“I won’t let them hurt ya kid, no matter what. You’re all I’ve got and I’ll be damned if I will let them bastards hurt you too,” I meant what I said too. Just never thought I wouldn’t be able to keep my promise. A promise I had told her twice without realizing it.

In the memory we’re looking at each, in this type of soul baring kind of way. We know each other better than I have known anyone else in the whole of this world. And I hate myself for it because she’s just a kid.

I trace the outline of her face, my thumb brushing away the last remnants of her tears looking at her with this intensity I have never done before. I can feel my heart pulling at its strings trying to get out, to just touch her if only for a moment. Because deep down I know this is it. We’re all we’ve got. I look down at her lips and stop breathing just by looking at their fullness. I move my hand to the small of her back and every movement the little voice in the back of my head is screaming NO!

I stop to make sure this isn’t just Wolverine doing this that this is in fact Logan, the man and that Rogue, the woman-child is doing this too. She smiles reassuringly up to me and I couldn’t help but kiss her with everything that I had. I stop and hold her to me after that, her lips close to my ear as she whispers to me.

“I love you Logan, always have, and always will.”

“I…I don’t want to tell you I love you, because I want to be able to tell you I love you when you’re not the only one who makes me feel like I am still a person and not some animal. You’re all I’ve got so the ‘I love you’ is going to have to wait until we are both in better conditions than these,” I confess to her, because I am right. She knows it too.

“I understand Logan, I just thought you should know, just in case,” she bows her head then before she continues talking and I am thinking deep down that she’s hiding something from me then.

“I do promise however Logan, that I will get you out of here, because I want you to be able to tell me you love me in that different condition you are talking about,” she tells me and I know in that moment she’s not telling me the whole story. She leans down as she stands up and gives me a quick peck on the cheek as she starts to leave my cell.

“I’ll be back in the morning with breakfast, finish your dinner okay?” she tells me and I nod in understanding.

I watch her walk out of the cell. I look at myself then watching as I don’t eat my dinner like she asked me to and I can’t help but look at myself and ask What in the hell do you think you are thinking here bub? But I know what he was thinking, because I was thinking the exact same thing on the Statue just moments ago…well actually fifteen years into the future really. She’s all we’ve got in this world. She’s the one person who we’ve actually tried to do right by in this sick, twisted world.

But there is one thing that I didn’t know then that I know now. Even if it was for all the right reasons and even if I am some sick, fucked up bastard.

That girl lied to me.

Xavier’s Institute for Gifted Youngsters:

“What do you see Jean?” I ask her the day after my return from the Statue.

“He’s dreaming I guess, or remembering something that happened to the two of you a long time ago,” She tells me as she sits at the top of the bed that they have Logan on. She’s been trying to read his mind for nearly an hour now.

“What?” I ask confused, praying that I hadn’t done any long term damage.

“He’s remembering the first time the two of you kissed back in the lab,” she reports to me, “he is actually watching it like a movie instead of actually watching it from his own perspective.”

“That’s because Logan has a split personality,” I inform her and she stops for a second and looks up at me. I don’t even miss a beat as I tell her a bit of information about our white knight we have laying here in front of us.

“Logan’s mutation is very animalistic. Unlike Victor Creed Logan has not successful incorporated his mutation mentally you could say. The Wolverine, as we like to call him, is just that, a Wolverine, pure animal with animal tendencies. Logan is just the man. When we lived at Sinister’s foundation he didn’t care for Logan only the Wolverine. Because of this Logan lost his ability, like Scott, to full incorporate his mutation into himself,” I conclude without really thinking about what I am saying

Jean nodded in understanding and then continued to observe Logan and his dream.

“He is rather upset with you,” Jean finally said as she finished watching Logan’s dream.

“What do you mean?” I questioned her curiously.

“He thinks you lied to him, are lying to him currently,” she responds.

“Stupid man,” I grumble.

“Man yes, stupid no. I think Rogue that even if Logan doesn’t approve of you, this Wolverine personality has become so deeply ingrained into him that not loving you isn’t an option,” Jean told me as I stood to leave her to finish taking care of her patients. The Professor still hasn’t woken up yet.

“Why don’t you go run a DR session Rogue? You still have quite a bit of both Logan and Magneto in you. Maybe releasing some of that steam will help you assimilate them better,” Jean suggested as she moved towards Xavier’s bed.

I nodded in agreement and left the med lab for a more constructive time consuming activity.


Chapter End Notes:
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