“Wrap the cable around the spine just above the pelvis, thread it through a few ribs to keep it from slipping, and hook it back onto itself. Good. Let’s go. You stay to either side of it to direct it, and I’ll follow you out,” Storm was nearly giddy with relief that they would start for the surface now.
The ominous presence of their location weighed as heavily on her as the pressure of the waters flooding the facility. Apparently the dam repair hadn’t gone well and the underground lab was either undiscovered, or written off as a total loss. The occasional large fish swam by, further unnerving Storm by the sudden movements.
“Is there anything else of use down there, Storm?” Mike’s voice spoke over her headset.
“I’m looking now,” she scolded herself for her impatience. They were supposed to bring out anything that could be of use. “Girls, help me give this area the once-over. We’re looking for anything that’s salvageable: pictures, files, papers that aren’t destroyed, computers or discs, brief cases, file cabinets, anything that might have information on the processing of adamantium. How much air have I got left, guys?”
“Twelve minutes, maybe a little more. It’ll take you ten to get back out. Better start now,” Piotr warned in response.
“Damn. Okay,” Storm groused, then turned to the twins, their blueish skin and pale green eyes glowing in the beam of her headlamp, hair drifting like snakes in the murk. “Ladies, can I go ahead with the skeleton, and you can scan the room quickly?”
“Sure!” they both responded.
“Do not take any chances, work quickly, and come straight back out the way we came in, no diversions. Got it?”
“Got it!” they echoed, and gracefully drifted away into the darkness, at home in their element.
“Okay, good...” she breathed to calm herself. Storm was starting to wonder if she was developing claustrophobia. “I’m starting out now, Piotr. Wind the cable up slowly, while I keep it from tangling.”
Storm pushed against the platform with her hands, and felt an abnormality in the concrete’s surface. Swiveling her headlamp to flood the murky spot with light, she gasped at the three claw marks gouged deeply into the concrete. Suddenly the reality of what had happened on this very spot hit her, and nearly made her ill: this was where Stryker and his team had brutally cut Logan open, coated his seared bones with the molten metal, embedded the claws into his forearms, toasted themselves with champagne at their success, and made Logan’s life a living, nightly horror when the memories surfaced in his dreams. She’d heard him scream himself awake enough times. It had all happened right here.
Storm slid her fingers lightly over the three claw marks. He’d cut his way out of here when he’d healed enough to defend himself. He’d probably killed many, if not most or all of them: gutted, slashed, punctured, maybe dismembered some, or decapitated them. Logan’s bloody, berserking rages were infamous, and this would likely have been the worst. Fighting for a cause was one thing: fighting for your own life and sanity was quite another.
Suddenly the weight and the coldness of the water seemed to leech through her wetsuit, and the presence of death seemed to steal away her polished calm. Logan had fought to the death here twice, and survived it. Stryker’s soldiers had died. Deathstryke had died, and her metal bones laid at Storm’s feet. She’d been as much a victim of Stryker’s as Logan. Stryker had controlled her with the serum, just as he’d controlled Magneto and Scott, and Stryker’s own mutant son.
Suddenly the metal-laden skeleton before her started to crawl over her left foot, and Storm’s nerves shattered. She screamed, then checked herself as she realized the cable was towing the bones away.
Mike’s frantic voice came over the headset, “What’s wrong? Storm? Girls? What’s going on?”
“Nothing - sorry, Mike, my fault. I thought I saw something, but it was only a trick of the light.” Storm fought down a wave of nausea. She had to get out of here. “Girls, anything yet?”
“Nope.” “Sorry, no.” “Wait...” Ciji spoke last, and Storm turned her headlamp to where they were looking against a wall. “There are pictures hung here, a few, anyway. They look like x-rays.” “Yeah, see the claws? That’s Logan’s hand, I’ll bet anything.” “There’s the lady’s hand with the big needles.” “That’s a skull.” “Ick.” “Wuss.” “Grab ‘em all.” “There’s nothing else here, Storm.” “Not a damned thing.”
“Okay, we’re all getting out of here, now!”
*
Rogue snuggled her head closer to Logan’s on the pillow, and drifted into a deeper sleep as she sat down on the back porch steps of her childhood home in Meridian. Cherry blossoms drifted over the backyard, making a carpet of pale pink petals strewn over the thick green grass. The wooden steps of the old house creaked as someone sat down on the step behind her, and long legs in faded jeans straddled her waist. Warm, strong arms surrounded her shoulders and pulled her back against his hard chest.
“Let’s go sit under that tree,” Logan’s voice whispered into her ear, and she rose to walk hand in hand beside him as the blossoms drifted slowly down. Beneath the tree, he pulled her down onto his lap, facing him, knelt astride his hips. He leaned back against the tree trunk and tightened his embrace, as she looked directly into his eyes. They were green. She was face to face with the feral Wolverine, but he was calm and speaking softly to her.
“Don’t give up. Promise me.”
“I won’t, I promise,” she whispered, knowing he was the only one who would hear her anyway. “This is a dream, isn’t it? A lucid dream? ‘Cause you’ve never been in my backyard, and I think I’m dreaming.”
“It’s more than a dream, woman. It’s the only way I can talk to you right now. You’re so close and so warm, but the body just ain’t workin’, and I have to get through to you any way I can.”
“Do you really love me?”
“I’m the one that made him realize how much love there is between us. He’s not the sharpest pencil in the box, darlin’, and sometimes I gotta give him a kick in the ass to get things movin’.”
“Is Logan really gonna die?” Rogue knew instantly that it was a dream, because she would never have the courage to ask that question in waking reality. She picked up a cherry blossom petal and let it drift from her hand in the warm breeze.
“Not if you’ll protect him, us... don’t let the geeks give up, because they’ll want to give up. He made a few mistakes since the cure, and right now he can’t undo ‘em, so you gotta stand strong for a while longer. You understand, Marie? You gotta protect me, keep us all alive, you included. You gotta be mean and cunning. You learned that from me. Use it.”
“I will. I’ll do whatever it takes.”
“You promise?”
“I promise.” Rogue felt what seemed like a tremor in the earth at that point; a vibration, a buzzing, that seemed inside herself at the same time. It felt like she used to feel when her mutation would fire up, the sizzle. She laid her bare palm to the Wolverine’s jaw, then slithered her fingers down his throat, and inside his shirt to caress his bare shoulder, “You feel that? Anything?”
“Yeah, but it don’t hurt. We’re okay together now, so don’t sweat it. You can’t hurt me unless you want to. Touch me all you want. Want me to tell you where?” The eyebrow cocked up and the white teeth shone in a lecherous grin.
“I don’t think this is the proper time, nor the proper place,” she admonished him playfully, working her Mississippi accent for all it was worth. “We have to go back now. My arm itches, and it’s making me wake up.”
“Keep your promise, Marie. Protect me. Use every trick in the book, and make up some.”
“I will, whatever it takes.”
Wolverine pulled her against him and fisted his hands through her hair, pulling her head back and nipping her lightly on the throat. A bee buzzed around her head and she swatted it away, brushing a branch of the tree as the motion sent another shower of cherry blossom petals sifting down.
Rogue nuzzled into the pillow, her hand tangled in the sheet that covered Logan. She roused and realized where she was, then wept softly into the pillow as the monitors beeped around them. Pulling her hand free of the sheet, she smoothed it over his chest, checked the tubes that ran to the IV needle in his other arm, and scanned his face again with tear-blurred eyes. There didn’t seem to be any change in his condition. The words in her dream seemed to echo in her head.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Storm gets freaked out, Rogue dreams of cherry blossoms, and the Wolverine lays down the law.