I'll be Home for Christmas
by
Misty
Disclaimer: He's Marvel's, and the universe belongs to Twentieth Century Fox (I think). I'm just renting them for my own twisted purposes. My knowledge of Canada is pretty limited, so bear with me on the details.
AUTHOR'S Note: This is my first x-movie fan fic, so be kind. It was written without my betareader checking it, so any mistakes are on my part, not hers.
The wind blew in from the west, carrying with it the sound of carols playing, the muted jangle of stringed lights clinking together, and the faintest hint of snow. It passed by whole streets of houses, filled to brimming with smiling families opening gifts and singing songs of love and togetherness, and the home it finally settled by was no different. These thoughts were foreign to it however; it had begun as a thundering gall high in the mountain peaks barely visible above the suburban rooftops, but had diminished over the many miles of hard travel to present itself as a gentle breeze to the man standing alone on the grubby curb just beyond the glow of the lighted window.
He inhaled the wind deeply, his eyes slipping closed in concentration as he let it speak to him. He knew that smell. It was his earliest memory, waking to the feel of a forest breeze caressing his face and body, tickling him back to reality. He could clearly recall the lingering scent of pine, and feel the gentle grass under him.
{Come away,} the wind whispered now, softly rustling his clothes and hair. {Come away from this place. Come home.}
Home.
This was it. This was his home, what he'd been searching for for over fifteen years.
He stood looking into the large bay window of the house in front of him, straining his ears to pick up a hint of conversation from inside, and put voices to the faces as he stared. They seemed so happy and alive, surely he would remember something about them...
The man shivered in the chill breeze and drew his jacket closer around his shoulders, careful not to jostle the manila folder cradled in his arms. It held his life.
The wreckage of the lake base had led him to a man, and that man had given him a name, and that name had been enough for him to contact someone on the black market for information. The greasy dealer had stunk of moldy sheets and stale sweat, and the man had no idea how *he* had managed to find information when he had failed so many times before, but the price was high enough that it convinced him not to ask.
The dealer's hands had been shaking as he passed him a plain folder.
Later, in his dirty hotel room, he had poured over its contents until the sun turned the horizon the color of old blood. Inside was a brief biography, several yellowed newspaper clippings, pictures, x-rays, and a rather detailed account of several surgeries and experiments.
The pictures had stopped the beating of his heart for what seemed like an eternity. They were all of the same man, taken in various places and with different people. In one picture, he had an arm around a blonde woman, a little boy on his lap and a baby girl on hers. He was smiling broadly in each one, eyes twinkling with merry happiness, rough features smoothed into gentleness.
The face in the pictures was his own, and he had no memory of ever smiling like that.
The man on the curb's feet began to move without his conscious approval, and he began up the porch stairs to the house.
The biography was about a man named Matthew David Turner, born in 1942 to Dr. Tom and Diane Turner, both deceased. Mutants were few and far between then, so his "abilities" went unnoticed, as long as his parents were careful to keep him out of any doctor's office other than his father's. He graduated college with a degree in biology, and seemed to have a flare for the outdoors, spending hours at a time in the woods studying the forest and wildlife. He began working with the government forestry service, and it was there that he met Anne Bowen. After a long courtship, the two were married, and eventually had two children, William and Mary.
After the birth of his son, he began doing odd jobs for the forestry, consulting with various government and commercial companies to make sure that they met with environmental regulations. It was this branching out that would be the death of him.
On Christmas Day, 1976, Matt was driving home from a return meeting with a government-funded project when his car slipped on a patch of black ice and crashed into a half frozen river to the right of the raised highway. The body was never found, and after two weeks of dredging the waters, Matthew Turner was declared legally dead. A newspaper clipping showed the bereaved widow holding a crying child to her chest, tears pouring from her eyes at the news.
*But...that's impossible! I'm not dead,* the man had thought.
His boots scuffed on the wood of the porch now. He could hear a woman laughing inside.
And then he had looked at the x-rays, and read the lab reports, and finally understood the cause of all those nightmares. The last operation Matt had investigated was merely a front, a lie covering a he was inspecting them, their scientists, under the guise of Logan Industries employees, were inspecting *him*. They must have liked what they saw, and arranged for him to have an "accident", insuring that no one would come looking for him. The last experiment date was nearly twenty-six years ago, leaving a gap of eleven years from his first memory. Logan Industries. *My God,* he had thought. *I named myself after the bastards who did this to me?! What did I do for them in those missing years?* He could feel the claws itching just below the surface of his skin, and was almost glad that he did not remember.
The man's hand rested on the doorknob, feeling the cold metal leech the warmth from him. He could smell them know. His son and daughter, returned home for the holidays. His widow, his *wife*. They were gathered together in the room beyond the door, celebrating this night, the anniversary of his death, as every other family across the continent was. He could hear a woman giving a stirring rendition of "You're a mean one, Mister Grinch" and smiled slightly despite himself.
To him, a person's scent was sometimes more memorable than their face. He could remember what the greasy dealer had smelled, could remember the way the Professor's scent was a mix of ink and hot tea, could recall any thousand combinations of people and things he had seen before...but did not recognize any of the people behind the door. He had no memory, conscious or otherwise, of his family. The wind blew again, masking the quiet sob escaping his lips. {Come away, Logan.}
It had been thirty years since they had last seen him. His wife would be an old woman now, his children grown without him. Thirty years was a long time. Enough time for her to remarry, or for his children to forget he even existed. What would it do to them to see him now, thirty years dead and looking as he had that very morning? A Christmas Lazarus, wanting to begin his life anew.
How could he do that, when he didn't even remember it himself? {come away}
Hours later, when Anne walked her children to their cars, none of them would notice the plain folder laying abandoned in the street. But as the snow began to fall, they each turned their faces to the slight breeze, letting the white flakes dance on their eyelashes and the wind whisper its story.
All references to characters belonging to the X-Men Universe are (c) and TM the Marvel Comics Group, 20th Century Fox and all related entities. All rights reserved. Any reproduction, duplication or distribution of these materials in any form is expressly prohibited. No money is being made from this archive. All images are also (c) and TM the Marvel Comics Group, 20th Century Fox and all related entities; they are not mine. This website, its operators and any content used on this site relating to the X-Men are not authorized by Marvel, Fox, etc. I am not, nor do I claim to be affiliated with any of these entities in any way.