“We need to talk.” She had tracked him down to his boathouse residence where she found him sitting on the porch, a cigar smoldering in the ash tray, a beer on the other side and a newspaper in his hands. It was their first meeting since she had come/returned to the mansion. It was not that they were trying to avoid each other….at least not deliberately. It was just that she hadn’t left the mansion and he hadn’t step foot in it….and there was a reason for that.

--

“Logan doesn’t live in the mansion anymore,” Jean had informed her. “And any time he is here, it is either for his classes or for a mission.”
“Why?” She has asked innocently, guessing some hidden reason for this monumental change.

“He...uh…he,” the redhead hesitated, trying to get the correct words. “He and Scott, they had a fight.”
“And….” Ororo knew there was more. Scott and Logan, they had been going at it, ever since Logan had set foot in the mansion for the first time.

“Logan…he…” Jean started again. This was very difficult for her. It had been she, who had commanded, threatened, pleaded, whatever, to Logan to leave the mansion. “Scott blasted him point blank, and Logan….he stabbed Scott in both his shoulders.”
“Oh,” was all Ororo could say. She wanted to ask about the reason behind the bloodletting. Something told her that the reason behind it couldn’t have been Jean, at least not the primary reason.

“In a way it was Scott’s fault,” Jean carried on. “Both the Professor and me, we had warned him to keep his distance from Logan, at least until he had had some time too cool down.” Jean went on to reveal Logan’s third condition for his taking over the team. “We had told Scott about it, yet he tried to confront Logan to make things better between them, only it backfired….just the way Logan had said it would.”

“Who stopped them?” Ororo knew about Logan’s berserker rage and was surprised that the Scott had survived it.
“In a way it was Logan himself,” Jean smiled ruefully, her shaking hands conveying her nervousness. “He had…he had made a deal sort of, with the Professor, in the way that he would send a telepathic message if such a situation arose. It was that message of his that allowed us to get to them in time.”

“Oh,” this really sent Ororo for a twist. Logan knew about his rage and what he could and would do to Scott. Yet he made arrangements for a loophole of sorts, not because of anything he felt towards Scott or Jean or even the Professor, but because of Rachel and now her soon to be born brother.

“Yes,” Jean nodded and walked to the window. In the distance was visible the boathouse. “He lives there now. Him and his daughter. She just appeared one day. It seems that Logan had met her during one of his trips and had given her this address, with the instructions that she could come whenever she wanted. So now she spends half her time here and half of her time in Japan.”

‘Japan!’ Ororo exclaimed internally. ‘How? When did he get to Japan?’

Whether Jean caught her thoughts or whether it was the next in her explanation, the weather witch didn’t know. “You should ask Logan about it.”

--

Logan looked up at her, his voice caught in his throat. Finally nodding his head, he stood up and gestured towards the house, opening the door for his *guest*.

Stepping inside, Ororo was momentarily stunned by the Japanese décor. “Its Kirika’s doin’,” Logan informed her.
“Oh,” she nodded, slipped out of her sandals and settled onto one of six the bamboo-cane stools.

An uncomfortable sort of silence prevailed between them, broken by Logan’s, “How’s the kid?” Question.

“Good,” Ororo answered with a smile. “He is resting. Jubilee and Kitty are overseeing him.”
“Hmmm,” another nod and once again silence. “You wanted to talk.”

“Yes,” Ororo cleared her throat, her fingers grasping at the round bamboo. “You found about your family?”
“Yeah,” a single word answer. “She’s all that’s left,” Logan jerked his head to a side. On the mantelpiece was a photograph of him and his daughter.

“Your wife,” Logan’s jaw tightened at being reminded of his lost past, specially by the woman who he wanted to have his future with. It was too late for both.

--

“What did you come to talk about?” He snapped at her, reeling in too late. “You said….I’m sorry. You wanted to talk about something.”
“Us,” was the only thing Ororo could say, almost regretting it at the sudden tensing of Logan’s body. He seemed to be shutting down in front of her.

“There ain’t no us Ororo,” his pain was clear in his voice. “Not now. You have a life, a house, a kid, a family. I can’t destroy that….can’t let you do it either. It ain’t right.”
“What do you…?” Snow white brows twisted in confusion. His words making her forget to ask how he knew all this about her.

“I saw yer kid,” Logan hung his head. “I saw how happy you were with him. You have a family now. You are lucky you can see them, your son….your husband…”
“Husband?” The startled exclamation cut him off. “I am not married.”

“Yer not,” Logan’s head shot up, his eyes widening at Ororo’s denial. “But you left with….and the kid….that…”

Ororo knew who Logan was talking about, Davis Cameron. “Davis and I, we were just friends,” she started with her explanation. “We never got intimate. I left him with him because I needed to get away and clear my mind, to decide where to start rebuilding the shambles my life had become. I stayed with him and his sister for about three weeks, after which I moved to Africa, to my first home. I have been there ever since.”

“And the kid…your son,” Logan lifted a finger towards the mansion.

“Mjari is not my biological son,” Ororo’s lips curved at the mention of her son and the way Logan seemed to loosen up. It was clear that he still carried the feeling he had towards her…..the same feelings that grasped her heart. “I helped deliver him. His mother had him out of wedlock and died at childbirth. No one in the village was willing to adopt him, so I did.”

Logan was silent for a few moments, trying to absorb the news. He had not lost her, at least not forever. Maybe there was still a chance for him…for them.

----

“My…my wife, Kirika’s mother, she died a few years back,” He started to talk. “We were married in nineteen seventy three. Kirika was born a year later. I died two years after that.”
“Died?”

“Yeah,” he nodded. His pain at losing his family, his life…his memories; clearly shimmered in his eyes. “That’s what they told Mariko. That was her mother’s name….my wife’s name.”

Standing up, he walked to the mantle piece and opened an ornately sculpted box. From within it, he drew out something, which he handed over to Ororo.

It was a plain gold band, with an inscription on the inside. It was in Japanese.

“What….?”
“It says, to James, with all my love,” Logan answered her incomplete question. “I’m….was James. James Howlett. That’s what the marriage certificate said.”

‘This is the ring Rogue was talking about,’ Ororo remembered the time she had eavesdropped on them. ‘He has known for so long.’

“And Logan….” She began. “That name….where did it come from?’
“Who knows,” Logan shook his head. “Maybe from one of the guards in Weapon X, maybe my gardener, who knows? Whoever it was, its me now. James Howlett died the day he lost his family and was captured to be turned into a weapon.”

“Logan,” Ororo didn’t know how to go forth from here.

-SNIKT-

“My claws are real,” Logan carried on as if he hadn’t heard her, and given the way his flood gates were open maybe he hadn’t. “Under all this metal,” he lifted his fist to his face. “Under all this, there is bone. Kirika told me that…showed it to me.”
“Showed it?” Storm echoed in surprise.

“She’s got them too,” that answered her query. “Three on each hand. Got them when she hit puberty. Lucky fer her, her mother was there to care for her and to explain it to her. She had seem them before….”
“On you,” Ororo completed his sentence.

“Yeah,” Logan nodded. “From what she told Kirika about me, I was in a special Canadian-US task force….in World War II.”
‘World War II,’ Ororo internally calculated the years. If he fought in the second world war, that would make Logan well over seventy years, almost eighty.”

“And from what I told her, I remembered my life for thirty years before that, and had always looked the same,” the revelation effectively made Logan over a hundred years old. “It seems that my healing factor healed me…healed my memory.”
‘Healed his memory,’ Ororo knew what that meant. Logan had lost his memories once before….at least once before. That would explain his intense reactions at Emma and Scott’s actions.

-SNIKT-

The claws back in as Logan flopped back on to the sofa.

----

“Ororo,” it was Logan who broke the silence, his voice hesitant and almost pleading. “I-you….I want…gimmie another chance.”
“Logan…” Ororo wanted to say yes. In fact that was the thing she had come to talk about. Her conversation with Rogue had strengthened her own resolve. During the time from when she got the invitation to when she reached the mansion, she had thought about the past five years of her life and had reached a decision. If she was still willing, which she knew she was, and if Logan was still willing, which he appeared to be, she would take a chance….try it once more, a fresh start.

“Please ‘Ro,” Logan fell back to his petname for her. “I told you I can wait forever, and I can, but I don’t want to lose the time we can have….I don’t want to lose us. Please, just once, just say yes. You can have yer time to think, at least say that you’ll think it over.”

The pleading look on his face and the blaze in her own heart did not leave much room for thought for Ororo.

“Yes,” she said softly.
“Yes?” Logan repeated her answer, almost not believing what he had heard. Falling to his knees, he grasped her slender hands within his.

“Yes,” Ororo freed one hand and gently caressed his mutton-chopped whiskers. “Yes, I’ll give you…give us a chance.”

----

A few months later,

“Dearly beloved,” the priest, Kurt Wagner began, his eyes roving over the couple standing in front of him, the bride, Ororo Monroe and the groom, Logan. “We are gathered here to join this man and this woman in holy matrimony…..”++

Ororo had looked glorious in her off-shoulder wedding gown, its lacy whiteness matching her hair. Logan too, had been formally dressed, for him. Although he had foregone the whole tuxedo and bow ensemble, he had worn a matching coat and pant, with a plain white shirt underneath.

In a perfect matching, Remy and Rogue had swapped family, with Remy acting as the best man and Rogue as his female counterpart in the bridesmaids. The other bridesmaids were Kitty, Jubilee and Kirika.

The ceremony had been a relatively small affair, as neither the bride, nor the groom had much of family, except of his daughter and her son.

------

Present,

“What are ya thinkin’?” His gruff voice draws her out of her thoughts as he settles at her feet, his hands automatically reaching for her midsection, her thirty week old rounded pregnant midsection.

“Nothing,” she smiled down at him, her slender hand tunneling through his unruly mane. She hopes her son will have one just like him, while he claims his daughter will have long flowing, perfectly white, glowing hair like her mother. They both expect to be surprised. There is even a bet going around in the mansion, with everyone hounding Jean and Henry, the two people who know about the sex of the child. “Just the past, memories…”

“Hn,” he nods and rests his head against her belly, listening to their child’s heartbeat. “I don’t…not any more. Not when I have my present and future right her, you and her.”
“Him, you mean,” she corrects him with a chuckle.

“Say whatever you want,” he sits up. “Its gonna be a girl. See first is Kirika, a girl, then Mjari, a boy, next in line….see. The one after her will be a boy, the one after that a girl, after that….”
“How many children do you want?” She shakes her head in mock exasperation. In truth, she too wants a large family. Its something both of them lacked for many years. She had lost her parents at an early age, while he, his had been snatched from him.

“Kids, hmmm, let me think,” he tilts his head as if in thought. “See, there are six players on each side,” cloud colored eyebrows rose in surprise. ‘He is calculating from ice-hockey.’ “An’ we need two teams to play a game. So I guess….”
“Don’t even think about it,” Ororo emphasized her answer with a thunder boom in the distance.

“Just jokin’ ‘Ro. Yer with me, I don’ need nothin’ more.”
“Me too,” she whispers soft as she leans down, meeting him halfway for a kiss. “Me too.”
 

Note: Well, the ending came out as quite sappy, not too inline with the rest of the story. But, some happiness was needed after all that drama and angst. What dya say?

++ The ending of the previous chapter had been for Ororo and Logan and not for Rogue and Remy. Their marriage was done earlier and as was not of any importance, not included here.

And, the ring thing, that is from Ultimate X-Men, but I modified it to use here.

Hope you liked this chapter and this fic. Review and let me know!!