Canadian Nights: The Story of the Guardian and the Wolverine Chapter 8 by Mo
Disclaimer: The X-Men and Alpha Flight belong to Marvel. The movie belongs to Fox. I do feel like Scott and Logan are a little bit mine since I've been borrowing them for so long.
After Scott came, Logan pulled out of him and spun him around so they were facing each other. Scott put his arms around Logan and they clung to each other for a moment. "I'm sorry," Logan said again. "I don't know what happened to me."
"Me, neither. I was really scared, Logan. I wasn't sure you could even hear me."
"I almost couldn't. It was like you were so far away, like I was seeing and hearing you through this long tunnel of rage. Like I didn't even know it was you at first." He held Scott at arm's length for a minute, looking at him. "I don't get it. And I even like it when you wear my stuff - you give my things back and they still have your scent on them."
There was a knock on the door and Jean-Paul announced that dinner would be served in a few minutes. "We'll be right down," Scott called through the closed door, pulling up his pants.
Logan went over and picked the belt up off the floor, bringing it over to Scott, threading it through the belt loops in Scott's pants, kissing him again while he did. "I'm sorry," he said again. "I feel like a jerk, just saying that again and again, but I don't know what else to say."
"We'll talk more later. I'll go downstairs now, okay? I'll tell them you'll be down shortly."
Discussion over dinner was mostly about the new center. Logan had strong feelings that one of the two sites under consideration would be easier to defend and he made a pitch for choosing that one. He seemed back to normal, but Scott was still worried and confused. He found himself wishing that he could talk with Logan through a telepathic link like he did with Jean, so that he could know if he was really okay without clueing the rest of the group into the fact that there had been any problem. It struck Scott that what he was really wishing for was the degree of closeness with Logan that he had had with Jean. He filed that idea away for another time; he would mull over the implications, when he had a chance.
Logan was saying more about how to develop his preferred site in a way that would keep it inconspicuous. "Most of the building and expansion should be doneunderground," he was saying. "You don't want anyone going by there to know how big an operation you have."
"That's what you've done at Xavier's, isn't it?" Heather asked Scott. "Expanded underground?"
"No, not really, but I think Logan's right and we probably should have. We do have the Danger Room and a lot of our other, secured areas, underground. But we've expanded on the surface, too. And I don't think we have done a really good job of being inconspicuous. For all that we have this veneer of being some sort of prep school," he said, with a significant glance towards Logan, "I doubt that we are fooling much of anyone. I'm sure there isn't anyone in Salem Center - the town we're closest to - that doesn't know the Xavier mansion is full of mutants. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if we're listed as a Scenic Mutant Viewing Spot in guides to the area. Certainly, nobody ranging from Magneto to Senator Kelly to evil aliens from other galaxies has ever had trouble finding us."
Mac chuckled a little at that. "Well, if we want to make sure that doesn't happen in Saskatchewan we need to convince this guy to stay with the project," he said, pointing at Logan with his fork. "Did he ever tell you what he did with my hunting lodge in Huntsville, Scott?"
"Logan and I don't talk about his past much," Scott said, thinking that sounded very strange but not knowing what else to say.
Mac didn't seem to notice. "Well, you should see it. It's pretty amazing - a huge, extensive, hi-tech fortress, but it still looks like a remote cabin, with absolutely no clue what's inside and underground. Really, describing it doesn't do it justice. I wouldn't have thought it possible if I hadn't seen it myself."
Conversation continued in that vein throughout dinner. Logan had a number of inventive ideas for ways to get supplies to the site and actually do the construction without calling attention to what was going on there. He stressed the importance of secrecy, even if it had to be at the expense of speed or efficiency in the building and renovations. Scott was impressed - he had no idea Logan knew so much about design or construction. He also felt good just hearing Logan sounding comfortable in this venue and among these people. He hoped Heather's doubts were being assuaged by the tenor of the conversation and noted that Mac's confidence in Logan seemed undiminished.
After dinner was over, Mac suggested that he and Heather meet with Scott and Logan to continue discussions about the next steps needed to go ahead with theSaskatchewan project. Scott said that was fine, but he wanted to speak to Logan for a minute privately. Mac said they'd join them in the study in a few minutes.
"Logan, I think you should tell him the truth," Scott said, as soon as they were in the study with the door closed.
"The truth about what?"
"That you don't remember him, that you have these huge gaps in your memory. You still don't remember him, do you? Or did that stuff about his hunting lodge trigger anything for you?"
"No, not in a memory way, anyway. I mean, when he talked about what was done to the lodge I kept thinking it was the way I would do it, but I don't remember it or anything. I don't even know where Huntsville is."
"But it seemed genuine, don't you think? Like you say, it's how you would have done it. It's how you did do it - you just can't remember. Charles says that he's always found the Hudsons to be reliable and trustworthy. 'Fierce fighters for the rights of mutants,' he said. It's clear Mac trusts you, Logan. I think you should trust him, too. Tell him the truth - find out what happened between you and him thirty years ago. Maybe it will help."
Logan didn't answer for a long time. "You'll stay with me while I talk to him?" he said, finally. Scott nodded, wondering what it had cost him to show that degree of vulnerability.
Mac and Heather came into the study shortly thereafter and they all sat down. Mac started right in on the issue of next steps in the project, but Logan stopped him. "I need you to tell me something first," he said. "I need you to tell me about when you and me were working together, about whatever contact you had with me, whatever you know about me."
Mac looked at Logan quizzically. "What do you mean?"
Logan took a deep breath. "I don't know you. As far as I'm concerned, I never saw you before yesterday when I got here." Mac and Heather both looked astonished. "I'm not going into details - at least not now - but I have a lot of years missing from my memory. There's a lot I don't know about myself. I'm trying to find out. Some of what I'm finding out is pretty bad, but I'm still thinking I'm better off knowing."
"You don't remember working together? Don't even remember coming to my cabin?" Mac asked. Logan shook his head. "Well, I'm shocked. I had no idea. I mean, I noticed a certain reserve in your manner, but I just figured it's been a long time."
"Will you help me?" Logan asked, looking straight into Mac's eyes, gripping Scott's arm tightly.
"Of course I will," Mac replied immediately. "What do you want me to tell you? I don't even know where to begin."
"Begin at the beginning," Logan said. "When did you first see me? Where was it? What happened?"
"Oh, it was awful," Mac said. "You really don't remember? I was at the lodge near Huntsville. I'd just had a big fight with my father, over my career plans, and figured it was a good idea to put some miles between us until we could both cool off. So, I was up there in the woods. And I thought I heard a knock at the door - couldn't believe it - I was all by myself, nobody knew I was there. So, I go open the door and at first I thought I must have imagined the knock because nobody was standing there, but then I look down and there's this man collapsed on the doorway, bleeding all over, it seemed. I had no idea where you'd come from or how you'd gotten hurt. I thought maybe you had been attacked by a bear. I dragged you in and closed the door. I tried to talk to you - asked what happened, asked what I could do. No response. Then I said I was going to call a doctor for you. That was the first time you spoke. God, Logan, I can hear it to this day. 'No doctors' in a voice that sounded like nothing I'd ever heard. And then you extended your claws. I had never been so frightened before in my life!"
"Was I threatening you with them?" Logan asked.
"No, not at all, but I didn't know that. Plus, I'd just never seen anything like it. Here I am all alone with this bleeding wild man and suddenly he's got huge knives or something coming out of his hands! And I was totally unprepared for what you did with them."
Mac paused, eyes closed, clearly lost in the memory. "You turned them around, pointing towards your own chest and then drove them in with such force that Idon't even know how to describe it. There was a sound like a wounded beast coming from your throat. I thought you were killing yourself - if I thought anything. I don't know that I was really capable of coherent thought right then. And then you pulled this thing out of your chest and held it out to me, retracting the claws. 'Take this', you said. I felt transported, felt like I was in the middle of a fairy tale or something. I thought you were handing me your heart."
He said nothing, seeming overcome for a moment. Then he opened his eyes and looked right at Scott. "Heather has heard this story a million times but I still don't even know how to explain it. Maybe you'll understand, Scott, since you know Logan well. There was something about him, even then, that made you just want to do what he told you to." Scott felt his face redden.
Mac continued. "So, I reached out and you handed it to me and I realized that it was some sort of metal box in there, just covered with blood and gore so I hadn't seen it. I stood there holding it on my palm, my hand stretched out in front of you. You were still on the floor. I thought you were dying - I didn't think anyone could survive that kind of injury. But you spoke again. You said, 'Take it. Leave it somewhere away from here. Where it can't be found. Then come back.' I didn't ask any questions - I had plenty of them but the urgency of the command didn't leave room for questioning. I walked out the door with that blood-covered box."
"Where did you take it?" Scott asked.
"Algonquin Park. I threw it into Whitefish Lake. I made sure no one saw me with it. It wasn't hard - it was the off-season and the middle of the night. There weren't a lot of people around. I still had no idea what it was or why I was doing this. And I was sure that I'd be coming back to a dead man, that I had fulfilled his last wish. But when I finally got back to the cabin instead of finding Logan dead on the floor, he was up and pacing back and forth, waiting for me. That was my introduction to the healing factor."
"So what was the metal box?" Scott asked.
"The transmitter," Logan answered, surprising Scott. "It's how they knew where I was, how they controlled me." He looked at Mac. "You hid me from them, didn'tyou?"
Mac nodded. "Do you remember now?"
"No. Yes. Just bits and pieces. I remember you coming in the door. You were young, practically a kid. You looked scared out of your mind. But you came back. You stayed with me. Took care of me. Something bad happened, but you stayed with me. What happened?"
"You got sick," Mac replied. Logan started to protest, but Hudson raised his hand. "Yes, I know, you don't get sick. I know it now - I know all about the healing factor. And I had seen it in action then, had seen all your wounds just close up. But, just the same, you got sick. So sick. Fever like I'd never seen before, hallucinations and incoherent speech. You couldn't eat anything. I kept giving you water and broth, so you wouldn't get dehydrated. It was scary, though, caring for you. Sometimes you knew me, sometimes not. Sometimes you thought you were being attacked. I was afraid that you'd mistake me for the people you'd escaped from, the ones who put that transmitter in you. I was scared of you a lot of that time, Logan."
"But you never left me," Logan said, in a voice full of wonder.
"I couldn't."
"What had happened? Why was I sick? How did I get better?"
"That's what I wanted to know. And, bit by bit, you did get better and you could tell me a little bit. You didn't know either, really, but we pieced it together. They had been giving you some sort of injections regularly. We never found out what the substance was, but you had overheard one of them saying that it reacted with the adamantium, producing a chemical that was released in your blood, a chemical that affected your brain. It made you more aggressive, put you into those berserk rages sometimes. It's a wonder they thought they could control you at all, but with extra chemical aggression? I don't get it. But, for whatever reason, they were doing that to you. Was it experimentation? Was it to make you more lethal? You said they sent you to kill sometimes. And I guess they thought since they had the transmitter implanted in you - so near your heart that it couldn't be removed without killing you - they could control you. But it was in one of those rages that you escaped. Killed one of the handlers, smashed the machine that talked to the transmitter, broke through walls and glass, ran off. By the time you got to me they had the machine up and running again, or maybe they had a spare. It was forcing you back; it was all you could do to lie there, to stop yourself from going back to them. And they could have used it to track you, too. Your will was so strong, Logan. I can't imagine what it took to stop that machine from making you go back. It's beyond my conception to understand how you could have stabbed yourself like that to remove the box."
"I needed it out of me. I didn't care if I died. It had to go."
"Yes, I know. And it went. And you didn't die. You never quit. And then the chemical went, too. But with such pain, such misery, I could barely stand to watch you. Like the poem says: 'It's dead easy to die, it's the keeping-on-living that's hard.' Keeping on living was sure as hell hard for you, Logan. That stuff was addictive. You were totally hooked on it. That's what was making you so sick - the withdrawal. It was close to two weeks before it was totally out of your system and you were back to normal. It was a hellish two weeks - the hallucinations, the screaming. You'd beg for an injection and then tell me never ever to give you one, within minutes. I wasn't in a quandary or anything. I couldn't give you the stuff if I'd wanted to - I didn't even know what it was. But it was awful to watch you go through that. And the smell! The stuff was just leaking out of your pores and it had this overpowering smell. I can't stand that smell to this day."
"I first heard about it when we were dating," Heather said. "The first time I cooked dinner for him I made this very elaborate dessert. Lots of Amaretto in it - I thought it was so sophisticated. And then he just turned positively green when I brought it out and said he couldn't bear the smell and to take it away."
"Yeah," said Mac. "That's what it was like. That stuff, whatever it was, that they were shooting you up with - it smelled just like almonds."
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