It was supposed to be a simple mission, in and out reconnaissance. It was so simple that Cyke broke his usual rule about allowing lovers out on the same mission when it appeared that everyone else on the team had more pressing business for the day.
It was a small group, just five of them, Remy, Storm, Logan, Rogue and Scott. The target was one of Sinister�s new labs, he wasn�t even there. Sources had him put somewhere in Asia.
They had the building specs. Remy was easily able to disable the alarm that wired the place. They made their way towards the center of the compound, trying to figure out what Essex was up to.
Whatever it was, it was big. The central lab was the size of an airplane hanger. It was strung with wires, connecting to tanks that were mercifully empty. Neither Remy nor Logan were comfortable, too many bad memories. It looked like they would be able to shut this place down in time though.
They were halfway through the room when Remy saw a tell tale hole, barely visible in the wall they were passing.
�Stop.� He yelled. It was too late. Rogue stepped through the beam of the laser, triggering the secondary alarm system�the one that hadn�t been in the specs. All hell broke lose.
Metal doors slammed across the entry way they had just come through. A siren began to wail, and the lights went down. The room was only illuminated by crazy flashing red strobes.
�Everyone, fall back!� Cyclops yelled.
�Where?� asked Rogue.
�I�m working on it.� He trained his visor on the door and let lose a blast. The door didn�t even shiver on its hinges. A second and third, with no results.
�Rogue, I could use some help.�
Rogue had just put her hand to the door, when it flew backwards, catching her in the jaw and slamming her into the wall hard. She rubbed her head dazed.
A familiar figure stalked into the room. �Hello runt. Miss me?�
�I miss your blood on my claws.� Logan ejected his blades and charged at the larger man.
�Logan! We have to fall back. There�s no time to make this personal.� But Logan was already lost in his battle with his old enemy.
�Shit! Storm, get Logan. Everyone else, cover the door.�
But they had more trouble, Vertigo and Mystique ran in, hard on Sabertooth�s heels followed by a team of human�s with rifles.
Scott stunned two of the rifle men before they were through the door, and Remy knocked a third back against the wall with a charge. The others dove for cover behind the various boxes, but this turned out to be a mistake. Remy managed to take out two more by knocking the piles over.
Things were getting worse for the team. Storm was knocked out of her flight by Vertigo. She dropped heavily to the ground, sliding across the floor to crumple next to the wall. She regained her feet quickly but by that time Vertigo was practically on top of her and the two were exchanging blows.
On the other side of the room Logan and Sabertooth were covered in blood, though neither seemed to be slowing up any. Logan�s teeth were pulled back, his breath was coming in short pants. <This time we�re gonna to finish it.>
He chose his moment carefully, waiting until Sabertooth, rocked back from a blow, left himself temporarily open. He bunched himself and prepared for one final spring.
His foot slipped in a pool of blood on the concrete floor. He regained his footing quickly, but Sabertooth was quicker. His clawed hand shot out embedding itself in Logan�s chest.
Logan threw his head back to roar, and as he did Sabertooth brought his other hand into Logan�s back, striking deep and then slicing the skin as he slowly closed his fist and crushed the other man�s spine.
Logan stopped screaming. He hung limp in Sabertooth�s arms until the bigger man casually shook him off, throwing him against a wall.
�Game point, runt.� Creed said. �I win.� Already the cuts that Logan had inflicted on his body were fading.
Logan looked up at him through cracked eyes. He couldn�t breath, he couldn�t move. He saw Creed lift an oxygen tank over his head. <Not like this. Oh God, not like this. I�m sorry kid.> Funny, he always thought he�d die outside.
Remy stepped in front of Sabertooth. A card struck the hand that held the tank and Sabertooth dropped it, howling. He reached out to strike Remy across his face but Remy dodged the blow and hit Creed hard in the side of the face as the claws swept by.
�Uh-uh. Hands to yourself, cher.�
Sabertooth screamed a curse and swept the blood from his eye. Then he straightened, turning his gaze on Remy with deadly intent.
�Runt,� he said. �I�ve changed my mind. I�m gonna have dessert first.�
They were the last words Logan heard before he tumbled into the surrounding darkness.
Remy and Sabertooth fought directly over Logan�s body. Remy kept trying to draw Sabertooth away, hoping to give Rogue or Storm the opportunity to drag Logan under cover. Sabertooth expected this, he refused to be moved, knowing that Remy�s greatest weakness was the one under his feet.
In a way his plan backfired. Remy, realizing that Logan was in danger, found within himself levels of endurance he wouldn�t have thought he possessed. He fought savagely. Sabertooth knew it too. He wasn�t giving any ground, but he stopped making jokes, a strange look came into his eyes. Sabertooth was afraid.
On the other side of the room, Cyclops finally won his fight with Mystique. He turned his blast on Vertigo, still battling Storm. From the corner, Rogue sat up rubbing her head. The door was finally clear.
�Alright people, let�s go. Gambit! We�re moving out. Rogue, get Wolverine.�
Then one of the gunmen Cyclops had put down earlier, raised himself from the box he�d been hiding behind.
The shot hit Remy in the shoulder. The impact knocked him off his feet and sent him sliding towards the wall. The card he had charged skittered from his limp hand.
�No!� Scott blasted the shooter and began to run towards Remy, knowing with sickening certainty that he would be too late.
Sabertooth was over the young man instantly. With a cry of rage he brought his claws down deep into Remy�s chest. Remy arched up into the blow, blood was flowing from his mouth. Then, he fell back limply.
The card he had dropped exploded where it had landed, under the gas tanks that lined the corner of the room.
The force of the explosion slammed Rogue out of her flight path and back towards the door. Scott screamed, as he felt the skin burn. Shrapnel blasted into him.
Storm caught him as he fell, wheeling in her flight back towards the door.
�Stop.� Scott�s voice was cracked. �We have to get Remy.�
Storm didn�t answer, Scott doubted if she even heard him. Her face, lit by the wall of fire behind her was blank and unblinking.
Logan awoke in the med-lab, with the familiar silhouette of Jean above him.
�Hey.� She said. She tried to smile.
�What happened?�
�Victor Creed broke your back in three places. He tore up your abdomen pretty well too. How do you feel?�
�Shitty.� Logan sat up quickly, then leaned back, trying to get his memories in order. �I bet One-Eye is pissed.�
�No, Scott isn�t angry.� She had turned away from him, checking the monitors.
Something in her voice made him look up. �What�s wrong?�
�There was a fire, at the lab. He was hurt pretty badly. Logan, the mission-�
�Where�s the kid?� asked Logan, suddenly, looking around.
Jean turned back to face him. Her eyes were very gentle. �Logan-�
�No.� It was a whisper
�Logan, you fell fighting Creed. Remy stepped in front of you, do you remember?�
�No.� He whispered. It was a lie. He remembered the card hitting Sabertooth. Sabertooth�s scream�..
�Logan, Remy got shot while he was fighting Creed, he fell-�
�Don�t say it.� He meant to shout, but it came out a whisper.
�I�m sorry Logan. He�s gone. Creed killed him, a blow to the chest.�
Something in Logan died.
�You�re lying.� He said flatly.
�Logan I�m sorry-�
�This is a joke isn�t it? Something Scott cooked up to convince me to obey orders.�
�Logan, you know that isn�t true.�
But he didn�t know. The sound of his own blood rushing in his ears blocked out the rest of her words. He could hear the kid�s name in his heart beat. Remy. Remy. Remy. Remy.
�Say it again.� He had a hard time getting the words out. Jean didn�t speak.
�Tell me again.� He repeated. But she just stood there looking at him in that awful knowing way.
It was her stillness that convinced him. If Remy had been captured, if he had been hurt, she would have been moving, telling him about the plan, the treatment, the options. She wouldn�t have been standing there with that terrible quietness.
Everything inside Logan stopped. Then it started again. It sped up until basic sensations, seemed brighter, harder, ready to overpower him.
He stood and crossed to the window that looked onto the other beds. Scott was lying in a bed near the wall. He was hooked up to a ventilator. What skin was not covered by bandages was marred by dark red burns. Scott would never leave a man in the field if he were capable of standing. Looking at the still form in the bed Logan felt something inside of him give.
�How long?�
�It�s been three days.�
Three days. How funny. He could have laughed. Three days, he�d continued to breathe in and out. His heart had gone on beating, his body had healed. Three days since his life had ended and he hadn�t even known.
He looked down at his body, it was smooth, there was no trace burns, no trace of Creed�s claws. There was no scar that would be a reminder of the fight. He hated his body suddenly. Remy was gone and there was no trace of him on Logan. A week or a year later, no one looking at him would see any sign of the kid.
Remy was dead. Remy was dead because Logan was alive. It was a pain so deep that he couldn�t retreat into his madness. It was a pain so deep it was not a pain at all. He was very cold. In his ears the blood kept roaring. Remy. Remy. Remy.
�Where is he?�
Jean hesitated.
�Where is he?�
�Logan, there was a fire. His�his body was almost completely destroyed.�
�Where is what�s left?� He couldn�t afford to be sensitive right now. He couldn�t even remember how. The kid was gone. The kid was gone. The kid was gone. Images of Remy blinded him, the smile, the laugh, the way he cocked his head to the side. These things were ephemeral, take them away, who was to know they had even existed? Not even Logan�s body, which betrayed him in its scar less perfection
�Logan, I don�t think that now-�
�Where is what�s left?�
Everything swam inside him, colors, sound, bits of memories. He felt trapped in a vortex, and in the middle of it was pain he couldn�t feel. He didn�t even believe in the pain, and yet he knew it was there, sitting where whatever had been Logan used to be. The rushing inside him drowned everything else out.
She led him into one of the other lab rooms. On the exam table, draped in a small piece of cloth was a cardboard box, the kind that files are kept him.
�He�s in there?�
�There wasn�t much to find.� She hung in the doorway, near enough to Logan to help him if he needed, but far enough to distance herself. She had no desire to see the body again. Jean had the heart of a warrior, she didn�t flinch easily. Whatever the box contained must be very bad.
Logan approached the box slowly. He pulled away the covering and lifted the lid.
What was in the box bore no resemblance to Remy. Dark eye holes, a few scattered teeth, fragments of bone, with skin black and thin as tissue paper. Flakes of it scattered across the cardboard under his breath.
He shut the box quickly. He stepped back. Jean watched him carefully. This would be the time for a person to fall apart, to throw up, to tear their hair, or scream or cry. Any human would react that way. But he couldn�t. He wasn�t human anymore. Whatever it was in the box, the blackened fragments of his kid had burned that out of him.
The rushing in him stopped. There was only stillness now.
�Thank you for showing me.� He turned. He walked out of the room. He stopped. Where was he supposed to go? Where did a person go when their life stopped?
He went outside, sat under a tree. He stared at his hands. He didn�t think. He didn�t want to think about anything.
Supper time came. He went inside. He cooked dinner. Members of the team shuffled in, hollow eyed and vacant. He knew they were sad because of Remy. He didn�t think about it any further. They left. He did the dishes. The television in the den was on. He sat and stared at it for a few hours. He didn�t see the screen. At eleven he went upstairs. His body betrayed him, turning left at the top of the stairs, though his room was to the right. He corrected himself, went into his room, undressed, lay down. He closed his eyes and opened them, eight hours later.
It was his life for the next month.
They had a memorial service, buried the blackened thing that was no longer Remy out in the garden. Logan went to the service and stood by the grave. He listened to the others speak, the words seeming remote. They didn�t seem to have anything to do with his kid in any real way. Nothing did anymore.
When Mariko had died he had gone crazy. He had destroyed rooms, buildings practically. Now there was nothing left of him. He stood over the grave, watching as they dumped dirt on the small wooden box. Everything left of him had gone into that box.
His friends watched him closely, waiting for him to go crazy, to fight or to run away. He did nothing. He got up in the morning, went to practice, went to meetings, did his work, went to bed. He spoke when he was spoken to, didn�t growl, he didn�t smile or laugh, but he never had much anyway. He went on missions. There was nothing else to do.
They wanted him to cry, to show grief, like the rest of them, like Storm especially. She of all of them had seen Remy die in the warehouse. She was the one who had made the decision to leave his body behind to save Scott�s life. Her grief could be seen now, in the new lines on her skin, and in the haunted look in her eyes.
She tried to tell Logan about the way Remy had died. She talked about his bravery and how beautiful he had been, matching Creed blow for blow. Her voice cracked when she spoke about such things.
Logan listened to her silently. He felt it was the only thing he could do. He didn�t really hear her though, not actually, not at all. What were these words to him now? He reached out, put his hand on her shoulder, as he knew Remy would have wanted him to. He held her while she cried a little. None of it touched him.
He had found Sabertooth of course, and killed him. It was grisly and unsatisfying, but he hadn�t really expected any satisfaction from it. The purposes of his life were beyond satisfaction now. He kept himself alive for two promises. The first he made to himself and had dispatched with Creed�s death. The second he would not be released from.
A month after Remy�s funeral Jean caught up with him sitting on the back porch. She said hello and he answered her, then went back at gazing into the darkness.
She watched him silently for awhile, her heart aching. He had grown thinner, not malnourished by any means�his body resisted that, but worn all the same. He moved more slowly now. In the past weeks he seemed to have aged a lifetime.
�Logan, I need to talk with you.� He turned to look at her, not saying anything. His eyes weren�t hostile just empty. �Logan, it has been a month. You need to begin to greive.�
Logan looked away. �I honestly don�t even know what that means anymore.� His voice was flat.
�It means starting to come to terms with Remy�s death.�
�I�m fine Jean.�
�You�re lying.�
Once he would have growled, pulled his claws. Now he just turned away. �I don�t want to talk about this.�
�You have. You have to realize-�
�Remy�s dead.� Logan spat. �You see, I�m not in denial. I don�t think he�s going to come through that door any second. Leave me be.�
�Logan you have to let yourself feel.�
�I can�t.� his voice was soft.
�Why not?�
�If I felt anything right now I�d go crazy.� His voice was very soft.
�Don�t you think he was worth that?�
�Going crazy? Several times.� He almost smiled. �I promised him I wouldn�t.�
�Remy?�
�He made me promise, if anything happened, he made me swear I would stay on the team, to carry on. The work, it was very important to him.�
�Logan we all understand-�
�Understanding doesn�t change the fact that I�m needed here, Jean. Storm�s still recovering. Scott-� He broke off abruptly.
Jean nodded. �Scott will get better.�
�Who know how long that may take? Some commanders don�t Jean, after a man dies on their watch. We need experienced TLs now. Don�t send me away for your psychobabble crap.�
She smiled a little. He sounded almost normal. But it wasn�t enough. �You need to begin to let yourself feel some of what�s happened.�
�What do you want me to feel Jean? Despair?�
�That would be a normal reaction.�
�Anger?�
�Yes.�
�Hate?�
�Logan-�
�You want me to hate myself because I disobeyed that order? I there already Jean. Should I hate Remy because he got himself killed? That stupid kid, stepping in front of me. How can I grieve for him Jean, if I don�t hate him for not keeping his own promises, for not being here with me? Where does that end?� He stopped, panting a little. �I could hate him forever, Jean. Don�t ask that of me.�
�Logan these things take time.�
�There is nothing here that can be salvaged, Jeannie. Stop trying to save me.�
She felt a lump in her throat. �I can�t do that.� She whispered.
His eyes were gentle. �I�m not asking.�
She turned away from him and left the porch quickly, afraid that he would see her crying and would know that her tears were not for Remy but for him, for being broken, past her ability to mend. Remy might have been able to help. He was an empath and had a very gentle touch. But Remy was gone now.
Scott found her in their room. �Did you talk to him?�
She nodded. �I can�t reach him, Scott.� She felt tears begin to start again. �I think we�re going to lose them both.�
Scott came up and put his arms around her. �Shhh. Give him time. It�s only been a month.�
She shook her head. �No. It�s deeper than that. In some ways, he�s already gone.�
That night Scott had another nightmare. Jean shared it through their link and found herself running through the warehouse, saw Remy fall, felt the sick certainty of helplessness. The dream exploded in a blinding flash of light and Scott sat upright with a cry.
�I couldn�t get to him.� He whispered into the dark. �I promised myself, after the drug�I promised myself I would always protect him, but I couldn�t reach him.�
Jean held him against herself as the tears rolled silently down his face, tormented on all sides grief she could not comfort.
Logan kept having his session with the professor. He hadn�t thought to, but Xavier had said in passing, �I will see you in my office this afternoon, Logan� and he hadn�t quite had the nerve to point out that there was no point now that Remy was dead.
Ironically the sessions went a lot better now. Logan figured it was because there was less fear in him than before. What did he have to fear anymore? You couldn�t destroy a man�s soul more than once.
Remy�s room sat where it had always sat, undisturbed. Logan never went in there. The clothes and things he had left there stayed where they were. He replaced them or did without.
He still dreamed of the kid, strange, haunting dreams of red and black eyes that left him limp in the morning. He tried to sleep as little as possible. Some nights though his body was too exhausted and he was swept into dreams powerless and out of control He lived the moment of Remy�s death a million times in his dreams, saw Remy fall, saw Sabertooth with blood in his teeth, grinning him, forcing him back to consciousness sweating, more tired than he had been before.
A million dreams couldn�t make it real. He could never get from the point where he had lost consciousness to the moment he awoke in the lab and found Remy a charred thing in a little box. The enormity of it escaped him. It made the rest of life unreal. What else could he do in a world where the thing that held body and soul together could vanish completely in a few seconds of darkness?