Reminisce: Chapter Eight
The Not So Distant Future:
“What’s happened? What’s wrong? Is it The Professor?”
“No, Charles is alright. The same. We’re--”
“Is it Magneto? What has he done now?”
Against the serrated edge of Ororo’s worry, Logan felt embarrassed to have no crisis to hold up. Still, it was good to hear her voice. He’d forgotten how much he enjoyed her accent. “We’re alright,” he told her. “Things are quiet. Y’know, as much as they ever are.”
“You are not to scare me like that, Wolverine.”
“Don’t mean we couldn’t use you here. The kids miss you. Had to hire a bunch of substitute teachers. Jean’s juggling a lot.”
“Well, I am sorry to hear that.”
He could hear Storm breathing through the phone, the sound as clear as if her cheek were pressed to his. “I still don’t get why you left. Especially after Scott had just--”
The breaths stopped briefly and returned in a more uneven pattern. “There are other places to save the world from than Westchester, Logan. My work in Wakanda--”
“You seemed real upset when you went. That’s all.”
“Look, Logan, I left this number for emergencies, and if there is nothing--”
“No, hold on--”
“I really must return to--”
“I need to ask you something. Please, Storm.” She’d hung up. That’s what he thought. But then Logan realized that she was just holding her breath. “Liberty Island,” he managed to say and heard something clatter on the other end of the line.
“What about Liberty Island?”
“Who else was there with us?”
“Excuse me?”
“There was me an’ Magneto, up with the machine. And there was you with Scott and Jean. And Toad and Sabertooth and Mystique. Right? But who else? Help me, Storm. Who was on the torch?”
He waited, his free hand balled into a fist.
“I am very sorry,” she said, slowly, each word distinct. Silence fell again, but this time it was legitimate, solid all the way through. He swore, tapped in the number again, and listened until the rings became a dial tone. Somehow he knew that she wasn’t going to answer--not only not soon, but ever again.
______________________________________________________________________
It was probably for the best that Logan stuffed the phone into his back pocket instead of throwing it; he’d already cursed, several times and colorfully. Passerby ducked shoulders and gaze; a freshman skirted Logan with her keys between her fingers. The tips poked out from her knuckles, inch-long parodies of adamantium. He let her get a generous distance before making his own way out of the parking garage, not wanting to threaten her but aware that he couldn’t help looking threatening. Not now, with this baking anger, as if something set close to heat had begun to blacken.
He walked across the campus, keeping half a mind on his fingers because they wanted to curl. Back on the night of the campaign event, the fine arts center had seemed regal, trimmed in lights, an expectation of free champagne and everyone’s best or second-best dinner jacket. It looked different on a school-day. Young men and women tramped in and out, eating on the steps, lugging satchels, talking to and over each other, scrolling through their phones, doodling in notebooks and on their own skin. The elegant architecture, glass, and brick, didn’t impress them--he liked them better for it. Up the steps and inside, Logan moved past the guard station and the information desk with such assurance that neither attendant looked up.
He took strides that knocked on the marble floor, found his pace quickening as he passed the seminar room and went through the gallery. He worried that it wouldn’t be there. He worried that he would lose his mind if it wasn’t. Even when that turned out not to be the case, even when the painting was right in front of him as it had been those weeks ago, he would not have called its disappearance an altogether foolish idea.
It felt just like last time--a boulder had rolled atop him, pressing the air from Logan’s lungs and pinning him in place. At the same time, something unfixable seemed cut free, seemed to take its first breath, the emotions such a contrast it was hard to trap the sensation and tag it. He thought that he’d felt that way before, and without any evidence to suppose so, that it might have something to do with looking in a woman’s eyes.
It was, he thought, a painting anybody else would consider subjective--what that the right word? Subjective? When had he learned that?-- if hadn’t been on Statue of Liberty on the night Magneto tried to mutate the leaders of the world. But, if they had been on the torch--the torch, not the crown--they might have seen something like this, something like this electric, incandescent light crawling across the water. It concentrated at the base of the painting, exploding from it. As if it came from whoever stood before the frame. He compared that to his memories of the night on the torch. They were choppy, slivered in pain. It had been so long ago, and he’d been injured by the device, the one Magneto had built and used him to power.
Sectioning the view of the light on the water were broken strips of tin and copper as if they were falling away. And there was a darker patch, almost a shadow, human-like only if one had a flexible sense of the human. He squinted and supposed that those were arms, reaching for the viewer. Logan frowned. It didn’t fit. The light, the water, the city distant had lain in his peripheral. He hadn’t seen it like this. (But why hadn’t he?) Had he been preoccupied with the pain?
Loath though he was to close his eyes on the painting, looking made him dizzy, as if it were a reflection upside down. So he did and ignored the relief because he didn’t want to ask why they’d been burning.
He hailed the first person to walk by, an adjunct in an oversized sweater. With wide eyes and exaggerated courtesy, he pulled the mechanical cigarette from his mouth and stepped back. “Can I help you, sir?”
“Yeah. I wanna buy a painting.”
“Painting?” Slack-mouthed, he looked from Logan to the wall.
“Who do I talk to?”
“I guess the instructor?” He shrugged. “I don’t really know. The department head?”
“Right, and where’s he?”
“She is on the second floor. Dr. Hallemeier? Her office is up there. But--”
Logan was already striding away.
“--I don’t think you can buy this stuff. It’s homework, you know? It belongs to someone. You have to find them. Sir? I said you have to find them.”
____________________________________________________________________________
It was her.
“Dr. Hallemeier?”
“That’s me. Lowes?”
“What?”
“Are you from the hardware store?”
“I’m not with Lowes. We’ve actually--
“I thought you were delivering our new lathe. So sorry. How can I help you?”
“Do you know who I am?”
The instructor cringed. “Have we met? Are you a parent? This time of the semester, I’m hopeless.”
“You came to my school. Xavier’s. Couple ‘months back?”
The woman wrinkled her nose, tilting her head. “I don’t think--”
He felt as if he’d found something--not an answer, but something solid, something he could point to and say, This is wrong. I remember. This is wrong. “You were looking for somebody.” The words came too rough, too fast. “You knew me. You asked about a girl. In your class? You called said she lived at Xavier’s. You called her--”
“Sir, are you okay?”
“What did you call her?”
“I think you may have mistaken me--”
“I haven’t.”
She started shuffling papers nervously. “Well--I’m not sure what to say. I just, well, I have a class starting in a few minutes. Perhaps you could come back some--”
He uncurled his fists.“No, actually, I came about one of the paintings you’ve got downstairs.”
“Which one?” She handled the shift in gears with grace and only the faintest sound of grinding teeth. She still glanced from him to the clock, the reminder that there were people expecting her held up like a shield.
“View from Liberty Torch.”
“Oh. One of my favorites. So imaginative.”
“I’d like to buy it off you..”
“We’re not a commercial gallery. Those were the final projects from my 3000 level workshops.”
“But I could purchase it from the artist?”
“Ye-es. But--”
“Can you tell me where to find her?” Find her. It just slipped out of his mouth. Comfortably, as if it had always been there.
“No.”
“Excuse me?”
Her eyes had gone hard as if the conversation had tripped over a thin, protective wire she’d laid down. “I’m sorry, I can’t divulge that. FERPA, you know? If you work in a school--did you say you work for a school?--then you must. The policy is to protect student privacy.”
“So she’s still a student here?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“Well, you could check the system, couldn’t you? Contact her, let her know she has a buyer?”
“I suppose so. Yes. The artist can decide whether or not to respond. If you leave your name and--”
“Can you do it now?”
“I--yes, alright. Please, just--sit down. I can send an email. But there’s no guarantee when they’ll respond. This is a little unorthodox.”
“Thank you, Dr. Hallemeier.” He watched her wake up her computer monitor with an impatient shake of the mouse, click across a succession of screens and freeze, fingers hovered above her keyboard and a furrowed brow. Before, it had been him, throwing her off, making her nervous with his urgency. But now she seemed side swept by some fresh peculiarity. “What’s wrong?”
“Honestly, I can’t think which artist created that piece.”
“You said it was one of your favorites.”
“I know. It’s just the damn--excuse me, the darndest thing. I forget my own nephew’s name all the time, but I always know my students. The good ones, anyway. It’s...it’s on the tip of my tongue. Maybe if I have a good think, look through my notes, my gradebook--”
“Was it ‘Rogue’?” What kind of name is Rogue, anyway?
“Beg your pardon?”
“Someone calling herself ‘Rogue’? That’s who you asked for when you came to Westchester.”
“I wasn’t in Westchester.”
“Goddamnit--”
“Now look here--Sir, please keep behind the desk.”
“To Westchester. You came to the school. To Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters.”
“I did not--”
“Just listen. We spoke. You were looking for a student. You said her name was Rogue. I remember you saying that.”
“I don’t--”
“What happened when you went inside? Who did you talk to? Did you talk to a woman? Redhead?”
“I have no idea what you’re saying and I’d like you to leave. Now. You’re making me uncomfortable. I have a class--”
He pulled the dirty sketchbook out of his jacket pocket, which he’d brought to compare to the work downstairs--he hadn’t needed to then. The sketches of the Statue had seemed too great a coincidence. Crumbs of the old paper shed over the desk as he held it out. His arm was shaking. “Just tell me what happened with the student you were looking for. Did you find her? Was she the same person who did the painting? Did she draw these?”
The teacher, who’d flinched when he’d reached inside his jacket, barely looked at the pages. “I don’t remember, I don’t know, I don’t think I can help you. Please, will you just--”
He took a deep breath. And another. “You’re telling the truth.”
She was half standing in her chair, edging away, cheeks flushed.
He took several steps back, lifting his hands--one of which still gripped the sketchbook. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m gonna go. I won’t bother you again.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t do more,” she said tersely.
“It’s not your fault.”
____________________________________________________________________________
The way Logan saw it, he could make one of two terrible decisions.
He could return to the mansion. It would be the simple to drive home. Wake up tomorrow next to a beautiful woman. Fight bad guys. Yell at the students. Protect them. Watch the baby fat fall from their cheeks. Watch the news, track the mention of mutants, analyze the times when it was shouted and those when it was whispered, or absent. Listen to the radio. Warm bed and blankets. Full belly. Clocks. Charles’ optimism and clean hands. His family. The clinging certainty of being lied to, like walking through a tarpit.
Or he could, for no reason at all and less reward, keep pulling on this thread and unravel his life. Standing in outside the fine arts center, feeling dizzy, feeling old, Logan drew a hand over his face. He needed to shave. Jean didn’t like it when his beard grew too thick. He put his palms against his eyes and pressed until he saw blooms of color, like a kaleidoscope. What was that name again? Rogue? It didn’t sound quite right. But it didn’t sound completely wrong.
Rogue, he thought, fingering the thread. Rogue. Rogue. Rogue.
____________________________________________________________________________
He reached the mansion in time for supper.
Rolling the bike into the garage, parking it where its former owner had, toeing down the kickstand, he considered what Scott’s face might have looked like if he knew Logan was riding it every day. Not to mention if he knew what else Logan had been doing in his stead. He let the image steep until a ghost almost seemed to stand before him on the oil-spotted floor. He would have kept it pristine. Arms folded, back inflexible, and that muscle that always jumped in his cheek when the two of them were in a room together. Logan had imagined this before--mostly for the fun of it--but it had been an incomplete vision. Now, he let himself see the creases in the man’s forehead, the paleness, the little indications of sadness that had been there.
The concrete beneath his boots became oak and rug. He took his time. Past the discretely-paneled elevators. The computer room, where a couple of over-achievers bent over their homework or possibly porn. The offices, meant for persuading investors that this was a legitimate academy. The living room, for persuading parents that this was a legitimate home. Classrooms, some with blackboards that nobody erased in order to preserved Ororo and Scott’s handwriting.
He went up the stairs, past the conservatory, past the branching hallways leading to the dorms, all the way to the second kitchen and the second dining area. The tables were filled and clamorous--Jubilee waved a bread roll at him; he nodded back. They were having that weird French soup again. At the far end of the room, Jean was bending towards Charles, murmuring something urgent about research on memory-strengthening games. The Professor listened indulgently while he scraped butter on a quarter of a dinner roll. “My dear, you don’t really expect--ah, good evening, Logan. We saved you a seat.”
“Hey there, Chuck. Jean.”
“Our Dr. Grey has just prescribed crossword puzzles and flashcards. To enhance my memory.” His eyes twinkled.
“Not the worst thing a doctor could force on you.”
Jean missed her bowl and struck the table with her spoon. A murky red blot appeared on the white cloth. “What is that?”
Logan raised an eyebrow. “I was thinking adamantium. Just a little morbid humor, Jeannie.”
“No,” she said. “What is that?” She nodded at the object under his arm, the one he’d carried in from the garage.
“Well, it’s a gift. I realized I forgot Charles’ birthday.”
The Professor swallowed his bite of bread and coughed. “And you bought me a piece of artwork? How completely generous and how unlikely of you.”
“Well, to be exactly honest I didn’t buy it.” Logan kicked aside one of the chairs. Carefully--some of the metal strips had already fallen off on the drive; strapping it to the bike had been a real bitch--he set the frame's base on the table where the two of them could get a good look. He’d gone back inside the art gallery and plucked the painting off the wall. It wasn’t exactly the Louvre; there’d been alarms, no bullet-proof glass. No screams. True, a few students and teachers had stopped to ask questions. But neither the security guard with that pathetically low-volt taser or anyone else followed Logan off campus. He was sure that university security had been called, if not the real police, and maybe that would have been a problem, but he had bigger ones.
“I hope you’re about to claim you painted it. I could use some comic relief today,” Xavier was saying, buttering a second piece of roll.
“No, actually, this comes from a former student of yours. You like it?”
“Hm. It’s striking. Someone discovered post-impressionism and applique all at once.”
“I don’t like it,” Jean said.
“Does it remind you of something, Jeannie? Something upsetting?”
Xavier was leaning forwards to get a better look, bemused. (Conversely, Jean had leaned back. He heard her chair legs scrunch on the carpet). “Did you say a former student, Logan?”
He spoke without looking at his mentor. “Yes I did, Charles.” Jean’s eyes were wet and angry, and growing more of both. He watched as she spun a glance over the room, noted that she was noting which students seemed curious and which continued to eat and chatter. “Have you ever taught a ‘Rogue’?”
“Is this really all that important right now?”
“It’s just a question, Jean.”
“You drag this dirty painting in here when we’re trying to eat, see, look, you’re getting paint chips on the table.”
“I was asking if Charles knew the artist. Or you? This one seems like the type to leave an impression.
“No.”
“No? I think you know.”
“Logan, please--”
He could hardly hear over the pounding in his chest. He wasn’t sure if that was his heart; it felt like an animal had woken to find itself caged behind his ribs. His vision blurred and pulsed; the frame was splintering in his hands but he couldn’t gentle his grip. He didn’t care about the rest of the room; everyone else had melted out of his regard, like tissues soaked in water. There was nothing but the Jean and the things he needed to ask her. The way she was looking back at him was almost an answer.
But then her head snapped to the side, in a distracted jerk.
She twisted, half-stood in her seat. “Professor?”
She wasn’t the only one saying it. The noise in the room had transformed. Kids were calling out--not in exuberance, but fear, not to their friends, but to Xavier, who, open-mouthed, eyes glossy, twin bubbles of blood popping in his nostrils, had begun to shake.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Okay, so clearly we can agree that promises about updates from writers are like the points on Whose Line Is It Anyway. As always, I appreciate your patience. Editing this chapter was a bit tricky, but I'm really pleased with the result. I hope you guys like it too!
Chapter End Notes:
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Thank you so much for coming and reading! I really appreciate it. Let me know your thoughts down below.
Thank you so much for coming and reading! I really appreciate it. Let me know your thoughts down below.