********Chapter 2************************
Scott dropped boneless into the nearest chair, and I suppose I should have expected that.
“His past? Wh-what the heck do you mean, Rogue?”
I began to gather all the papers and notes that lay out on the table in front of me. “I mean that, while I may not be able to tell Logan how or who is responsible for the adamantium coating his bones, I’m pretty sure I can tell him who he was before that.”
Scott leaned forward, elbows on knees, head in hands. “That’s a pretty big bomb to drop, there Rogue. Are you sure you’re right?”
Hell! Did Scott think I didn’t already know that?? I hadn’t even told Logan yet. I’m not so stupid as to go dropping shit like this on a who-knows-how-old amnesiac with nine-inch claws in his hands without some sort of positive proof.
“Yes Scott, I’m sure.”
I wasn’t prepared to go sharing Logan’s origins with anyone, it wasn’t my place. And I think Scott could tell by my tone and body posture that he wasn’t gonna get anything else outta me. He also knew, just as well as I did, that Logan had only stayed about three weeks after the library fight. Two of those weeks were when I was at the library with the other seniors. He’s off on another trip with another of Professor Xavier’s leads, and it don’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that I haven’t had a chance to talk with him.
“I know you haven’t had a chance to talk with him,” Scott said, “he sure as heck wouldn’t be gone NOW if you had.” Yeah, I knew Scott was a smart cookie. “And it’s none of my business, but can you tell me if what you’ve found is good? I’d like at least a tiny heads up if I’m gonna have to totally rebuild the DR.”
That got a smile out of me, “I don’t think the DR is in any danger, Scott. Like I said, I don’t have all the answers, but I really think it’s a better place to start from than he’s got now.”
Scott rose from the chair, clasped me by the shoulder, pressed a kiss to my hair and said, “You’re something else, Rogue! Logan’s lucky to have you! Wish him luck for me with this new starting point you found for him, huh?”
My smile expanded, “Sure Scott, sure.”
-------------------------
I flopped down on my bed, the mound of info a loose mess, barely holding together as a pile, on the chair at my desk. I knew what all was there, but I also knew I’d have to put it all together to make some sense before I talked to Logan. Like I had said, I’m not so stupid as to go dropping shit like this without positive proof.
As I stand up and start to lay the stuff out once again across my bed, determined to make it make sense to somebody looking at it for the first time. I realize how surprised and shocked I still am at all of this. I’ve got copies of forms and papers and even a few pictures! But it’s still so weird to look at it all and know it’s about Logan.
I pick up a photo of a young man, its patina is classically brownish, more than showing it’s age. His hair is cut short, but unruly waves are still cascading over his forehead. The high, starched collar and over ‘poofed’ neckwear, ~is that thing really supposed to be a ‘tie’?~ Only add to the conclusion that it is an old photo.
That’s the only thing I’m worried about, Logan has always been sorta obsessively anal about the difference in our ages. The perceived difference. It’s easier to get him to calm down about it because he doesn’t know how old he really is. That’s going to change with what I’ve found and I don’t know if that will ease his mind about us, or make it worse.
*****************
“AH-ha………Ah-HA………AH-CHOO!!!” Rogue sneezed for the umpteenth time. All the dust in this place was driving her nuts. Who would have thought that a world-renowned place like the Kominski actually had such a dirty, dusty, cluttered room within its halls?
Once Rogue decided she had to listen to the fates, or her karma, or whatever it was that convinced her these rings could tell Logan something about his past, she had sought out Mr. Chazzinoff. He was to the Kominski what Professor Xavier was to the school. If he didn’t know it, nobody knew it!
So after she had, as vaguely as possible, explained that she wanted to look up something on aged high schools, Mr. Chazzinoff had directed her to this smelly, musty, basement room. Dust particles floated through shafts of sunlight that streamed in from the ground level windows up near the ceiling. The room may have been an awful mess, housekeeping wise, but the amount of books and information it held was almost unfathomable. Floor to ceiling book cases ran completely around the room and as each row of book cases came further and further toward the middle, they got shorter than the last by about two feet. Standing in the exact middle of the room, at a waist level book case, Rogue thought the other cases looked like a stairway to nowhere.
She still didn’t understand how Mr. Chazzinoff got her to this particular place; there could be a hundred ‘Lake Brantley High School’s across the country, but at the moment she didn’t care about any but this one. She’d been poking around for only about an hour when she came upon a shelf labeled “Alabama High Schools – 1900-1950”.
~Bingo!! Well, maybe not a full bingo, but at least four in a row, I won’t get bingo unless these things have what I’m looking for.~
Rogue sat herself down cross-legged on the floor in front of the Alabama shelves. Digging through her backpack she pulled out a notepad, pencil, flashlight and eye glass. Using the flashlight and eye glass she took a good long look at the class ring that dangled on the chain around her neck. It was worn, but legible. She could read ‘Lake Brantley’ as it arced around the top face of the ring, and ‘High School’ as it arced across the bottom of the face. The words were by no means clear, but they hadn’t completely worn off either. The design that lay between the word arcs was more of a puzzle. To Rogue, it almost looked like a family crest of some type. A coat of arms divided into four equal squares, the top left square looked to be just a smooth gold field. It didn’t look to have any picture or depiction at all. The top right square had a simple background of red with black lines running across horizontally. It may have at one time been sort of three-D, so you could feel the lines, but not so much now. The bottom left square looked like it was another coat of arms within the coat of arms; a gold shield on a background of the same red as the upper right. The bottom right square looked to have the number twelve in it. (A/N: this is exactly what I dreamt!!! I swear!)
Rogue tucked the chain back inside her shirt and set about reading the spines of the books shelved before her. They were apparently filed alphabetically by school name, then by year within the names. She quickly found the ‘L’s’ and came to the ‘Lake’s.
~OK! Lemme see here…Lake Amarouck, Lake Ardice, Lake Balifort, c’mon!! Lake Bellview; Lake Billings, fer cryin’ out loud!! I’m in Alabama, not “the land of ten thousand lakes” Minnesota!! A-HA!!~ Rogue clapped her hands excitedly, ~NOW! For the year…..1900, uh-huh; 1906, yeah, yeah; 1910, ok ……YES!!~ With a triumphant flourish, and a sizeable cloud of dust, Rogue withdrew the 1912 edition of the Lake Brantley yearbook.
She stood and shook out the cramps in her legs. All the while brushing dust off the cover of the book. It was old, without a doubt, but in impressively good condition. Glancing around Rogue noticed a book stand at the end of the isle. Gently laying the book open in the “V” support of the stand, she began to page through the school year 1911-1912.
The book was modest in both its design and information. It became abundantly clear to Rogue that in 1912, Lake Brantley was not just the high school, it was the school. Rogue turned page after page of pictures of students either at their desks hands folded respectively or lined up at the blackboard – tall in back, shorter in front. The photos did not list each student individually, but the teacher and grade were noted.
~Hmmmmm, Ms. Brown’s third grade class, Ms. Porter’s fourth grade class,~ page turn, ~Ms. Green’s fourth grade. Hmmm, these kids look pretty good. Knickers and jackets on the boys, ankle length skirts and petticoats on the girls; this must’ve been maybe a private school, or a very well funded public school.~
Rogue kept on perusing the book, class photos were interrupted once in a while by a picture of a social group of some sort. Not many, but the social pictures seemed to break the whole school up much like today’s schools: elementary, middle, and high school. But the more Rogue saw, the more she feared that the senior class photo was going to be like all the rest she’d seen so far; just a large group photo, with little or no detail noticeable for individual faces. Even using her eye glass, she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to tell one boy from another.
~I don’t care!~ Rogue groused to herself, ~If I don’t find him here, I’ll go through all fifty states, DC and all the provinces of Canada if I have to!~ Determination showed through every fiber of her body.
Finally, Rogue came to the section of the yearbook that contained the information on its senior class. She was pleased to read that the section was jubilantly announced with a full-page layout.
~Well, well,~ she smiled to herself,~ this looks to bode well for me! Why would they do up the senior section with this big, fancy design only to have you turn the page and find one big group photo?~ Rogue was surprised to notice her hand was trembling, to no one in particular she said aloud, “Well, here goes…”
She turned the page and was greeted by the seriously calm visages of only six students. Three on the left hand page and three on the right. The photos were about 2x3, and the detail was faultless.
“YES!! WOO-HOO!!” Rogue jumped up and punched the air in victory. The celebration was short lived as a realization hit her, ~Aw! But, if this isn’t the right school, I could be looking at this victory dance gettin’ pretty old after the next twenty or thirty books.~ She calmed quickly and picked up her eye glass to examine every male face she came to.
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