To Dream Again

09. Thin Air

Summary: The X-Men learn more about their guest and Ororo’s fears come forth.

That evening,

Charles was tired, tired with a capital-T. With over forty-eight hours since his last proper sleep, he was infinitely thankful to the meditation techniques he had learned in his youth, for it was only due to that that he was able to exercise his fatigued mind as well as ‘tweak’ his cerebral sensors to help him stay awake and alert. Well, that and the seventh cup of tea he had had since morning.

However, even with all that meditation and all that tea, he was finding it increasingly difficult to maintain his balance and more importantly, keep powers and more importantly, his temper, reined in. It would be so easy, easier than taking candy from a child. Not even a couple of seconds, just one simple psychic burst and he could…

“I don’t give a damn who she thinks he is.”

…make Scott shut up.

Unfortunately, or rather fortunately (for Scott), his mentor’s patience, especially with him, was almost limitless. In the decade and a half that he had spent under his roof, under his care, Charles had grown to think of the boy, the man, as his son. It was by virtue of that relation an the privileges it brought with it that Scott was able to behave…well, currently he was behaving less like a man and more than an obstinate child, one in severe need of a ‘time out’.

--

“I don’t give a damn who she thinks he is.”

Scott yelled as he paced in the office. His face, flush with anger borne from equal parts worry and equal parts wounded pride, was as red as his eyes. Worry for Ororo. Wounded pride over the way Wolverine cleaned the floor with them…with him, and that too on their home ground.

Among those present in the room, other than Charles and Scott himself, no one ventured an answer. Hank was busy, or at least making himself appear as such, poring over the printouts from the information that Forge and Gambit had ‘procured’ for the Professor. Gambit was sitting ramrod straight his arms crossed at his chest, a deep frown etched on his face. He knew why he was here. It wasn’t because he was one of the senior X-Men, (which he wasn’t) or because he was doctor, (no luck there either). He was here just for one simple reason - to keep him from going after Ororo, after Wolverine. In fact, he was still sulking over Xavier’s sending in Kitty to Ororo’s room in the morning.

“Scott-” her fingertips kneading her forehead, Jean started to interjected in an effort to placate her boyfriend, stopping short at the knock at the doors. A quick ‘glance’ and both she and Xavier identified the person on the other side.

‘What is she doing here?’ Jean’s brow furrowed in worried confusion. Even though she knew about the kick that Warren’s transfused blood would give to Storm’s healing, the doctor as well the friend in her worried about Ororo.

“Come in please,” a bit surprised and equally worried, Xavier replied aloud, giving Henry a quick tap on the forearm to draw his attention to the new entrant.

“Wuh-Huh…” Lost in the data he had been perusing, and with each new page hoping that most of it was false and more importantly unsubstantiated, the blue furred Beast look up. “Oh.” As soon as he saw who it was, he plastered a smile on his face, a smile so wide that it threatened to split his face in face. A smile that for those who knew him would be a clear give away of his efforts at hiding something, something that would most probably not be nice.

“Good evening everyone.” Pushing one-half of the double doors open, Ororo hesitantly made her way into the room. Even though her bandages were visible sticking out from under her covered shoulder and bare arms, the returning glow on her face clearly reflected her recovery. The new clothes and the absence of dried blood, both on her face and her look all that much better, healthier.

“Ororo.” Pushing her chair back, Jean started towards her friend and teammate, only to have to lean aside to avoid getting bowled over by the trench coat garbed Cajun that barreled past her.

“Stormy.” Covering the distance in three long steps, Remy all but threw his arms around Ororo, stopping at the last second as the light bulb of commonsense lit up within him. Even though she looked better, Storm was still to be handled with care. ‘Not like how de beastie was behaving towards her.’

Pushing the jibe down he stepped to Ororo’s side and let an arm slide around her waist, drawing her closer while assisting her in traverse the remainder of the distance to the plush sofa he had been occupying prior to her arrival.


As soon as she was seated, Ororo found herself mobbed by the twin mother geese in the room, namely Jean and Hank. Always ready with a stethoscope, Henry started with the preliminary physical inspection while Jean retrieved the emergency med-kit from its storage space. Seemingly, not to be left behind, Xavier conducted his own psychic read. In the hub-hub, no one noticed the still sulking Scott or his staring at the sheath of pages on Xavier’s desk

‘She left him alone.’ Even though he too worried about Ororo’s wellbeing, Scott was, at the moment, about her having left Wolverine unguarded and for all purposes, free. Free to roam about. In the school. Amongst the students. ‘She left him alone.’

Even before he could stop himself, “Where is Wolverine?” the semi-accusatory question was out of his mouth.

Perhaps it was Scott’s tone, or the feet apart arms crossed at his chest pose he was standing in, or that as soon as he spoke, everyone else strained to attention, or maybe just a mixture of the three, it took Ororo all of two seconds to grasp the tension in the room. Draped away on her entering the room, Scott’s words had yanked the covers off it.

Taking in everything, Ororo took her time with her response. “Who?” She deliberately chose not to answer to the name Wolverine.

“Where is Wolverine?” Scott repeated himself, stressing on the codename.

“Logan…” Ororo corrected him. “…is asleep.”

“Where?” Having straightened up to facing Scott, Jean frowned at the interrogative feel.

“In my room.”

“Alone?”

“Yes.”

“You left him…alone?”

Tensing by the second, Ororo’s eyes widened and then narrowed at the disbelief in Scott’s last return. What was wrong with him? What was going on her before her arrival? Were they talking about Logan?

Taking her eyes off Scott, she looked to the pensive Xavier. “What is going on here?”

“Ororo-” Xavier began.

“You left him free?” Even Remy flinched at that.

“Scott!” Jean exclaimed, both at Scott’s words and at the sudden weather change visible outside the window. Although Ororo seemed outwardly calm, both telepaths as well as Remy had sensed the unsettled nature of her thoughts and emotions, all tied into Wolverine. The evening sky, clear a few seconds ago had grown more unpleasant and foreboding with each passing comment from Scott, something he wasn’t paying attention to.

“No Jean.” He still wasn’t paying attention. “She needs to answer for her actions. You saw what he did to Forge. He won’t be able to stand let alone walk for at least a week. That anima-”

KKRRAKA-BOOM!!

This time he did react, jerking back startled at the loud boom of thunder.

“He. Is. Not. An. Animal.” Ororo’s eyes turned milky, as if as a conduit to the anger brimming over from inside her. “He is a mutant…just like you and me.”

Scott tried to speak again but this time around, Jean telekinetically clamped his mouth shut.

“Ororo.” Xavier’s deep soothing voice sounded again. He had sensed Ororo’s emotional mood and did not want to do anything to that would ruffle her further. Her acting this way was something new for him too.

At the professor’s voice, Ororo seemed to draw back and even though her eyes retained the barest hint of white, her face did regain its stoic look. The storm outside continued to rage, a clear sign of the storm brewing inside the weather goddess.

“Scott.” Charles turned towards the under duress Cyclops. “Please. Sit. Down.”

A tight nod and Scott sat down next to Jean, scowling at her as his furrowed brow mirroring his crossed arms.

“Ororo” the professor smiled at her. “From what we have seen, you know Wolv…Logan personally.”
“Very.”
“He is someone…” he paused. ‘Better stop beating around the bush and get it out in the open.’ “Am I correct in assuming that Logan is the same one in your…that is the logan from your past.”
“Yes.”

Jean sensed that talking to the Professor was helping her friend regain control of her emotions. She too had never seen Ororo put forth so many and so intense emotions. The only time she came even close to these levels was during her nightmares and even that could not match her responses to the real person. It was unnerving to see her like this.

--

“I know this is a part of your life that…” Xavier was treading cautiously, so as not to alarm his erstwhile student and present team leader. “Would you mind telling us about your experience with Logan?”

“NO!” Ororo’s first reaction, a blunt as brick one, was in the negative. “Not all of it.” She amended her second response. “Not yet. I need time…” the ‘to talk it over with Logan,’ remained unsaid.

“Very well.” Xavier smiled at her. “I understand it has been a taxing few days for all of us, especially you and you need time to recover. However, there are a few questions…it would be helpful if you would answer them.”

At Ororo’s nod, Charles asked his first question. “When did you first meet Logan?” he took care of using Logan and not Wolverine.
“Eight years, three months…” Ororo answered. “…and eleven days.”

‘Eight years?’ A quick mental calculation and Xavier asked his second question. “How old were you when you first met him?”
“Seventeen years and a few odd months old.”

“How old was he then?” This question has a hidden purpose, that to confirm the information in the classified files lying a few feet away.
“I don’t know.” Ororo asked frankly.

“He didn’t tell-” Scott started to interrupt. ‘Ugh,’ he winced as Jean elbowed his ribs and gave him a ‘one more word and you’re dead’ look.
“No, he did not tell me how old he was,” Ororo answered without looking at him. “He did not remember it…” time around, ‘because of his previous tortures,’ trailed silently.


Perceptively, Charles did not pursue that line of questioning. Instead, he asked, “Approximately how old did he look?”
“Almost as old as he looks now.” By now both Ororo’s voice and the weather conditions had simmered down to normal “Exactly the same.”

“How can that be?” Unable to contain her own curiosity, Jean piped up. “How can he look the same? He must have aged?”

Ororo seemed unwilling to answer her question, seemingly arguing with herself about if and how to respond. “He…doesn’t age,” she finally came out. “Not like us.”

“Doesn’t age?” Hank spoke up for the first time. He had read about it in the files, but to have it actually confirmed by Ororo, by someone who had experienced it first hand…the scientist in leapt up.

“His healing factor?” Charles murmured.

Ororo merely nodded her head.

“Healing Factor?” questioned Jean. She had seen Wolverine’s healing factor working, but did not know about its strength or to what extent it healed him. Had she had enough time to read the files, she too would have learned about Wolverine’s healing capabilities and how far had his captors had gone in finding its limits.

“Yes Jean,” flipping open one of the files, one that only he and Hank had read so far, Xavier slid it across the table. Jean picked and opened it.

Silence reigned in the room as both Jean and Scott went through the page that the Professor had opened the file to. Their eyes widened as they looked towards each other, both equally astonished and sickened by the data and pictures before him.

“Professor, according to this…” Jean began.

“Yes Jean. Wolverine…Logan’s age is unknown, even to those who had captured him. As you might see, one of the photographs is from the Second World War. Look to the person in the top right corner.” He waited as Jean fingered through the various photographs to arrive at the correct one.

“H-How…” her green eyes further widened as she recognized the person in the black and white photograph.

“As you can see, the soldier in the picture is the same person we have under our roof. Even though he appears to be a few years younger, it is Logan. Not even a father-son could have this close a resemblance, no one except for twins.” A quick glance to gauge Ororo’s reaction, or in her case, the lack there of, and he continued. “I suspected it earlier, but Ororo’s words just confirmed my suspicions. Mr. Logan fought in the Second World War as a soldier in the Canadian Army, Special Forces.”

The room’s occupants were silent as the information sunk in. If the professor was correct, which it seemed he was, that would mean that Wolverine was at least eighty-five years old, maybe older.

“Professor,” a visibly calmed Scott wondered. “Do we know how old he exactly is?”

“No Scott.” Xavier shook his head. “Even the oldest records, both from the lab and from the files that Gambit and Forge obtained, they only go back to the Second World War. Anything before that, including Logan’s complete name and age, it was all a mystery, even to the people at the-.”

“Not complete, his real name,” Ororo’s soft words silenced everyone present.

“His real name?” Thankfully, by now Scott had calmed enough to restrain himself from cutting in on Xavier’s query. “Isn’t Logan is real name?”

“No. No, he…” Ororo shook her head. “He is not sure.”

“What do you mean?” This time Scott did speak, though, unlike before, his words here were more of a real concerned question and less of an accusation.

“Th-This…” Ororo sighed suddenly feeling very tired. Years old memories, ones those she had tried her best to both bury and cherish, were being pulled out now and even though speaking about it would help her lessening the plain, this therapeutic session was anything but easy.

A deep breath and she spoke. “This is-this wasn’t the first time that Logan was captured…tortured.”

Instead of a blunt, ‘we know that,’ Xavier answered her revelation with a simple ‘yes’. The files and records, the sheer detail in them as how back into the past they went, it was clear that the Wolverine was a much-valued commodity. “But the name? How does that tie into this?” After all, nowhere in any of the records was there a mention of any other name, or parents or any other family. For all purposes, the man named Logan had popped up fully-grown, seemingly out of thin air.

“The first-,” did she even know whether the previous time had been the first, when even Logan wasn’t sure about how many times this had happened to him. “The last time he was captured and then broke free, Logan lost all of his memories. He lost everything, even his name.” All present noticed that once again the weather outside had taken a turn for the ominous. “Even the one he remembered, Logan, he wasn’t sure whether it was his or…”

“Or?” Jean urged fearfully, unsure if she wanted to know the answer to it.

“Or…if it was the name of one of his captors.” A subdued sniffle and Ororo’s finger rose to wipe against her eyes.

“’Roro,” In an instant Gambit was at her side. “Stormy.”


“They hurt him so much,” Ororo looked up, her eyes bloodshot but defiant. “They did such unspeakable things to him…they even took away who he was. He had to relearn everything. Every single thing that makes us who we are, that we take for granted, speaking, reading, living as a society, even knowing ourselves as mutant or human, he had to relearn everything. He lost everything. I-I fear…” her voice broke again.

Even though both telepaths had already caught her projections, they patiently waited for Ororo to speak them aloud on her own.

“I fear that-that it may have happened to him again. He could have forgotten…” me.

‘Forgotten us.’

Note: Whew. Finished finally. I had gotten so fed up of this one that I was just going to leave it as what I had written for the comic-verse story. However, seeing as movie Logan isn’t the same as his 616 MU version, there had to be quite a few changes. Took a little from the Ultimate-verse and then stirred in a lot of my own craziness. Hope it worked out.

Next…So, does he remembering anything, or is it Mr. Clean-Slate Logan?

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