Secrets. Seemed like the entire foundation of the friggin' school was built on them. Logan didn't mind secrets--hell, he knew he had enough of them rattling around in his own damned head, even if he didn't know what most of them were. Until that afternoon, however, he hadn't realized just how many secrets existed among the X-men.

“How do we know she's missing?” he asked the Professor “She took off four years ago. What makes you think she's just not out and about, getting' a life?”

“Because her housemates reported her missing. And because neither Ororo nor Kurt have been able to contact her.”

These words hit Logan in a way that Piotr's punches never could. “The hell you talkin' about? Why would the kid be talkin' to the Snowflake or Blue Balls?”

“Because we talked to her several times a year, Logan.” This came from Storm, whose defiant gaze dared Logan to so much even think of popping a claw. “Just because she isn't a mutant anymore doesn't mean we don't have an obligation to look out for her. We were her only family, by the time she left.”

“You knew where she was?” Logan was too surprised to be pissed off, but he wasn't sure how long that would last.

“Of course we did.” Storm didn't even look abashed. “We were the ones that helped place her in a university. She had agreed to become one of our mutant-human liaisons, and she was in touch with Kurt pretty regularly.” Her eyes met Logan's, and he could practically hear the words she hadn't said. If you had wanted to find her, it wouldn't have been that hard. She was right, of course. But Marie had wanted to live a different life, and Logan had never been one to get in someone's way, not even hers. Especially not hers.

“To return to the main point,” Xavier said sharply, “Rogue–Marie–is missing. She was due to begin a post-college internship this summer, and she never showed up. Her housemates are deeply concerned.”

“Of course we should go and find her, ja?” Kurt said. Clearly, he was ready to bampf to wherever Marie had last been and start sniffing around.

Hank cleared his throat. “I certainly think we should,” he agreed. “But I have to ask–isn't this something that is best left to the Baseline authorities? Marie did choose to...unchoose her mutation, after all.”

Almost against his will, Logan turned to look at Xavier, only to see the Xavier looking at him. “Ah, yes,” the Professor said softly, “About that mutation...”

Storm frowned. “What do you mean?” She glanced back and forth between the Professor and Logan. “What's going on? What do you know?”

Something clicked in Logan's brain. “You knew her mutation came back?” he demanded of Xavier. Ominously, his knuckles began to itch.

“Her mutation came back?” Both Hank and Storm repeated this, in shock. Kurt lost his balance and nearly toppled off the credenza, and even Piotr looked unnerved.

Storm was the first to recover, and predictably, she decided to blame Logan. “Rogue's mutation came back? And you didn't tell us?”

“It wasn't my place to tell. And it only was starting to show, just before she left.” Another memory, of another time, darker and more painful, came drifting back into Logan's head. Before Cue-Ball could latch onto it, Logan slammed it back down to another place, where he kept his most private thoughts. Xavier knew to stay out of there. “You knew Marie's mutation returned?”

“I did. I suspected that it might–the 'vaccine' has had a very high failure rate that only increases as the years go on. Quite inadvertently, I located her via Cerebro. But I never intruded on her life. I agree with you, Logan–it wasn't our place to tell, nor our place to interfere. And with Storm and Kurt keeping tabs on her, I knew she was safe.”

“Looks like you guys dropped the ball on that.” Logan had the grace to refrain from adding, “Again.”

“Rogue never told you, Kurt?” Storm turned her fury onto her unfortunate colleague. “Four years, you met with her, and you never noticed? She never said anything?”

“Never a thing.” Kurt shook his head. “She kept her distance, but then, she always had. But...” he frowned as he remembered something. “I saw her back in the springtime, and she touched me then. It was right after when I had accidentally teleported onto one of Logan's claws, in the Danger Room, remember? And it had left a scar. She touched it then.”

Even Logan knew what this could mean. “So she was learning to control her powers...”

“...Which could make her a very valuable weapon, in the wrong hands.” Storm's expression darkened, and outside, thunder rumbled from a previously clear sky. “So who has her?”

“What makes you think she'd be used as a weapon?” Hank asked. By his frown, it was clear to them all that another, equally unhappy, thought had occurred to him. “As the Professor said, the mutant cure hasn't really worked. She'd be a highly useful test subject.”

Neither of these possibilities appealed to Logan, and he felt a telltale pressure join the itch in his knuckles. “Sittin' here and yappin' about it ain't going to make a lick of difference. How do we find her? Why don't you just use Cerebro, or pop into her head or something?”

“Her mind is inaccessible to me...off the grid, if you will.” From the reluctance in his voice, Xavier hadn't wanted to say this, and the next words that Storm spoke showed why.

“Couldn't this mean she's already dead”

This time, the knuckles didn't even itch. The snikt of Logan's claws startled everyone except for himself and the Professor. “Maybe you should stop talkin' now, Storm.”

“Maybe you should face up to some unhappy possibilities, Logan.” Storm did not rise from her seat–she had too much respect for Xavier to start a brawl in his office–but her sharp tone commanded respect, even from Logan. Thunder rumbled again.

The Professor interrupted before his two most valuable X-men could come to blows. “I know she's not dead. But I can't find her. Every now and then, I'm picking up some of her brain waves on Cerebro. Very erratic, I might add. And don't forget, Magneto managed to make his mind inaccessible to me. So there are ways to keep her hidden, even from me.” Enigmatically, he nodded to Kurt, who promptly teleported from the room. “Right now, we have very little to go on. So we need to start with Marie's last known location, her college town in Wisconsin. Tomorrow morning, Storm, you and your team will take the Blackbird and head west to Wisconsin. And that's where you'll start investigating.”

“Who goes?” Storm had already moved on from her run-in with Logan. A wise decision, as Logan was essential to most missions...but it didn't mean she wouldn't be on his case later.

“You, of course. Logan and Piotr, too...” there was a knock on the door, and the Professor added, “and two more people. It's time some of our newer recruits got some field experience. Bring them in, Kurt,” he added in a louder voice, presumably for the benefit of those standing outside the door.

More kids. Dandy. Logan had time to think this before Kurt re-entered the room. Just when I think I'm gonna be turned loose from the runts–this thought sputtered and died as he caught sight of the two females who accompanied Kurt. Okay, maybe 'kids' ain't the right term here. He didn't bother not to stare.

The new teammates definitely were not kids; that much was evident enough by the first female who stepped forward. She was young, no more than 20, judging by her flawless skin–and was so impossibly beautiful that Logan found himself seriously wondering if that beauty was her mutation. She was tall and leggy; with honey skin and platinum-blonde hair that had everything to do with nature and nothing to do with a bottle of peroxide. Her face had the perfect proportions that Logan had seen models sporting on covers of magazines the kids left lying around the manor. She had a ready smile–okay, so that wasn't particularly appealing, Logan didn't trust people who smiled too easily–with dainty lips and perfect white teeth.

It was fortunate that she entered the room first, for all the room's attention was naturally attracted to her, and thus diverted away from the female who followed behind. When Logan finally tore his eyes away from Legs and contemplated her companion, he found himself still staring, but for exactly the opposite reason.

Calling the other girl ugly wouldn't have been quite accurate, he realized, and sternly forced the word from his mind. If he had put the stunning Storm next to Legs, Logan was pretty sure that Storm would be reduced to a mere cloud, trying to obscure the radiant sun.

So stick a plain girl next to Legs, and the poor kid just didn't stand a chance.

Even so, the kid didn't have much by way of looks going for her. She was at least a foot shorter than Legs–hell, she was probably at least a foot shorter than Logan, even, and he didn't have a lot going on by way of height, himself. It also didn't help that she hunched over, as though she knew how she appeared to the world, and wanted to save them all from the trouble of having to look at her. And where Legs was practically luminous, the plain kid was swarthy in complexion. Whereas Legs dressed in flattering, fashionable clothes, this kid was covered from head to toe. She even wore gloves, Her unremarkably brown hair was long and coarse and hung down her back; her nose large and flat, her eyes widely-spaced. Her eyes. They were really what caught Logan's attention; on anyone else, they would have been beautiful, but on this kid, they were just friggin' weird. They were large eyes, unblinking, and such a pale shade of silver they were almost white.

Instinct told Logan that the plain kid was young, probably even younger than Legs, but those eyes told him something different. While her face seemed curiously devoid of expression, her eyes betrayed no gleam of wariness or even hostility. There was curiosity in those eyes, and hunger, and maybe even wisdom. Who the hell was she? Logan found himself wishing that someone would say her name; somehow Plain Kid just didn't sit well with him.

Come to think of it, it probably wouldn't sit well with her, either.

Hank cleared his throat, and Logan figured it might be time to stop staring.

“Logan, I'd like you to meet Charisma Cleaves,” the Professor nodded to Legs, “and her sister Clio.”

Sisters? Shit. Logan goggled. Still, he remembered his manners enough to reach out a hand for them to shake. Charisma gave him a hearty one, but Clio–after glancing uncertainly at the Professor–quietly folded her hands behind her back and actually stepped backwards.

Maybe she thinks I'm ugly too. Maybe she's got a thing against hairy people. Logan actually grinned at her, but her face didn't alter a bit. “So why haven't I seen you kids around?”

“Probably because we haven't been training with you, Professor Logan.” It was Legs–Charisma, dammit–who answered, and although her voice was friendly, there was a knowing, sharp look in her eye that made Logan wonder just how transparent he had been.

Logan ignored this, and turned to Xavier “You want us to take a couple of untrained kids on a mission? The hell you say.”

“My sister didn't say we were untrained.” Finally, Plain Jane–Clio, he reminded himself–spoke up. “We have been training, every day. Just not with you.”

Logan cocked an eyebrow at Piotr, who shrugged, his face the picture of innocence. “I just do what the Professor tells me to.”

Xavier smiled at the group at large. “You needn't worry about their ability to hold their own in a fight. And they will be accompanying you strictly in an investigative capacity. Charisma and Clio came to the school a little more than six months ago, Logan. Both of them have unique talents that I feared would be detrimental to you; that's why I had them receive their combat training elsewhere.”

Logan popped one claw, and drawled, “Unless these chicks can melt adamantium, I think I can hold my own.”

Clio's flat expression didn't change, but Charisma suddenly frowned, as though she was concentrating quite hard. And suddenly, Logan didn't much care any more, not about any of it; not about Marie's disappearance, or these strange women who had seemed to appear out of nowhere, or the fact that everyone in the room was looking at him rather curiously right now.

“Charisma!” The Professor said this sharply, and then Charisma's expression cleared, and Logan's previous concerns resurfaced. But now there was anger, too.

“What the hell did you just do to me?” he demanded. Suddenly, Charisma looked a lot less appealing.

“Showing off, same as you.” Charisma smiled sweetly, then turned to the Professor. “I'm sorry, sir. I'll try harder, next time. He's just such an easy target.”

These words didn't sit well with Logan, not a bit. Xavier sensed this, and smoothly continued to explain the presence of the two females. “Charisma is nineteen, and Clio is about to turn seventeen. They were wards of the state of Colorado, and incarcerated in a mental institution when I found them...you don't mind that I am telling Logan this, do you, my dears? If you're to be working together, you should know about each other.”

Clio shrugged and spoke for both of them. “It's just facts, anyway.”

“You mean we got two nutcases on the team?” Logan glanced around at Storm, and then Hank, and then, finally, the Professor. “Jesus, your recruiters really suck.”

Oddly, Clio actually smiled at this, but it was the Professor who answered. “There's nothing wrong with either of them, mentally. Rather, their mental ability and agility is something entirely new...mutations I had yet to even hear of. Charisma demonstrated one of her skills just now...”

“I can sense emotions,” Charisma told Logan. “I can feel them, hell, I can practically see them. And I can manipulate and influence emotions, too. At first it was just when I spoke, but now the Professor is working with me to do it mentally. And I can tell when someone is being honest or untruthful.”

Lame, Logan thought, and told her so. “What the hell use is that?”

That look of concentration was back. “Tell me about Marie. When you last saw her before she left, was she upset?”

“Yes.”

To the Professor, she said, “He's telling the truth.” To Logan: “Did you keep in touch with her after she left?”

Logan visibly hesitated; how best to answer this? Finally... “No.”

Charisma's brow furrowed as she stared at him. “That's true...somewhat. When was the last time you saw Marie?”

“Four years ago, right before she took off for...wherever.”

“He's lying,” Charisma told them all.

Logan felt it, the moment Xavier started sifting through his brain. “Stop it!” he snarled at him. “It's not your goddamned business!” To forestall any further snooping or questioning from the world's most annoying mutant, Logan turned to the world's weirdest. “What's your power? Livin' in your sister's shadow?”

Still no change in facial expression, but Clio stepped closer to him. When she stood right in front of him, she then began to draw off one of the gloves that she had been wearing.

“Clio...” Logan heard the Professor say. “Be careful.”

Of what, the Professor didn't extrapolate, but Clio must have understood him. She nodded, and then reached out to Logan. Slowly, she ran a hand over his sleeve–it was one of his numerous flannel shirts, nothing remarkable about it. Still, she seemed absolutely transfixed with it, staring at it through those fucking unnerving eyes. And then, thankfully, she closed them, and a look of concentration, almost painful, came across her face.

Finally, she opened her eyes, and when she spoke, everyone could hear her. But as she fixed her silver eyes onto Logan, he realized that everyone else didn't matter at that moment. She only cared that he heard.

“The last time you wore this shirt to the cages, it was back in late April. You fought a guy who was only a few inches taller than you, and he tried to bite you. You felt bad for him, because he obviously wasn't all there. You won close to four hundred bucks that night, but you had one of the barmaids give half to him. It was raining pretty heavy that night, and you thought about staying in a motel until the weather cleared up. And you started to hook up with a red-headed chick.”

Logan was actually feeling a little nauseous. And threatened. And because sometimes he could be a little less than bright when knowing when to retreat, he shot off at the mouth instead. “It's no secret I got a thing for red-heads. You coulda guessed a lot of that. What are you gonna tell me next–that the woman wasn't a natural redhead?”

Finally, Clio showed an actual emotion: she smiled. “She wasn't a woman.”

Midsummer nights in Westchester, New York, were truly beautiful. The cloying, oppressive humidity of late summer had not yet set in, so there was still a fresh feel to the air, supplemented by a gentle breeze. The fireflies would come out in full force, and gently illuminate the gardens with their flickering golden light. It was a setting perfect for romance and lust-filled dalliances in the shadows … or at least it would have been, had Logan not been patrolling it.

Long ago he had drawn “curfew duty”, as Storm had delicately called it. She should have called it “Make sure the kids aren't breeding little mutant babies in the garden duty”, because that was exactly what it was. God knew, the combination of hormonal teenagers and a soft summer night could no doubt result in some truly curious creations on the evolutionary scale. So several evenings a week, right up until about midnight, Logan had to keep a watchful eye on the kids old enough to be out, as he stalked through the grounds and looked discouraging and fearsome. Fortunately, this was not difficult.

Even though he and the rest of the team were due to head out at the ass-crack of dawn, Logan still did his duty that evening. In fact, he went above and beyond, roaming the grounds till nearly two in the morning. He wasn't tired, and even if he had tried to sleep, it only would have resulted in a spate of nightmares. And he wasn't in the mood to endure whatever his creative subconscious could produce by way of worst-case scenarios involving Marie.

Finally, he decided to give up; there were no horny kids out tonight. Probably waiting till I leave, Logan thought, and had to give them credit for patience. Still, he was not yet sleepy, so he headed down to the one place where he knew someone else would be burning the midnight oil.

Down in the hangar, all the lights were ablaze, and the tell-tale clanks and clatters confirmed what Logan had suspected. Storm was hard at work in the Blackbird, checking and re-checking every possible instrument.

“Don't you think it's about time to hit the hay, darlin'?” he asked as she emerged from the cockpit. “You ain't going to do much good findin' Marie if you're asleep at the wheel.”

“I don't want to hear you crying throughout the flight,” Storm answered, and gave him a small smile. Logan's distaste for flying was a well-known fact, and it was a rare day when his team-mates didn't give him some sort of grief about it. “Crazy day, huh?”

“You could say that. The new kids are somethin' else.”

“That's a mild way to put it.” Storm momentarily gave him her full attention. “To be assaulted with all sorts of emotions, or else all sorts of memories, from everything you touch … and not know how to handle it. No wonder they were locked away in an institution. Baselines wouldn't have had any idea how to handle it. They're lucky the Professor tapped into them when he did. Clio, in particular, has strong, potentially tremendous powers.” She snuck a glance at Logan as she said this.

The loaded silence stretched between them, and just as Storm returned to the control panel in the cockpit, Logan spoke up.

“Once I figured out she was a he, I backed off! I ain't a poof!” Logan stopped short, remembering almost too late several students who were of the poofster persuasion. “Not that I got a problem with that. It's just not me.”

Storm didn't bother to restrain herself from rolling her eyes. “Of all that went down in the Professor's office today, that's what you decided to focus on? God, Logan, Charisma was right. You are an easy target. Maybe one of the most transparent men I've ever met.”

“Whatcha see is whatcha get,” Logan answered. “Anything I can help with in here?”

Storm smiled her gratitude; in point of fact, Logan's transparency was one of the most endearing things about him, whether or not he realized it. “Check the supplies. Make sure there's enough by way of first aid, and emergency rations … you know the drill. And check to make sure we have enough spare uniforms.”

They worked in companionable silence for a bit, until Logan finished his task and joined Storm in the cockpit. He was next to useless there, so he simply sat in one of the seats, trying to keep out of her way. The last thing he wanted was to inadvertently sabotage her work, and cause the Blackbird to crash. He wasn't in the habit of jumping from planes, and he was sure healing from that would hurt like hell.

“You think she's still alive, Logan?”

The question came out of the blue. One minute, Storm had been concentrating on the the panel of controls and gauges, the next minute, she was staring Logan down, looking for ... reassurance? Hope? The truth? Or perhaps simply information she wasn't sure he had, or else that he wasn't yet willing to share?

Logan decided to keep it light. “Hell, I'm still not sure she's not just gone off the radar. She did imprint a bit of the wanderlust from me, you know. And you said she had graduated...maybe she just figured it was time to move on.”

Storm wasn't on board with that explanation. “Kurt doesn't think so. Neither does the Professor. Kurt saw her quite a few times, and she was pretty open with him. And the Professor doesn't like how this has developed, not one bit. He knows there's something wrong, even if he isn't telling us.”

Suddenly, Logan was wishing they'd chosen to have this conversation in his room, or the kitchen. Anywhere, really, that he could ask questions and be able to swallow the answers with a chaser of Jack.

“How was she when she went away?”Logan finally asked.

Storm was better versed in weather patterns than human emotions, but she knew enough to respect the tempest that was Logan's personality. Avoiding his eyes, she began to put various tools back into the case that she had kept at her side for the last three hours.

“Kurt said she seemed to adjust really well...like she needed the normalcy. She was pretty cut up to leave here.”

“You were pretty disapproving when she took the cure,” Logan pointed out.

“I was.” It had to be difficult for Storm to admit it, but Logan knew her to be a woman of honesty, particularly when it came to being truthful with herself. “But I began to understand. It had to have been such a horrible decision to make–to give up the thing which had given her a stable home, here with us. That takes its own kind of courage. But she did it, and she moved to another place she had never been, and according to Kurt, she did okay for herself.”

Was there something Storm wasn't telling him? Logan had no way of knowing for sure. He tried to probe a bit deeper. “She make any friends out there?”

Had he overplayed his hand? Storm looked at him, and her gaze was astute. “She made...some friends out there. She was in a diverse setting, where she was. It suited her. She made good grades. Kurt said she seemed happy, most of the time. Or maybe well-adjusted was a better way to put it. I think she had people she could trust, a support network.”

A support network in which neither of them played a part. Guilt doesn't help anything, Logan told himself. Guilt isn't going to find Marie.

When next Storm spoke, it was in a gentle tone. Non-accusatory. “Hey...” she reached out and placed a hand on Logan's arm. “What was Charisma talking about, earlier, back in the Professor's office? When was the last time you saw Marie?”

Living in a semi-cloistered environment, even one as expansive as the Mansion, it could sometimes be difficult to establish boundaries, or to demand that established boundaries be respected. Logan had more luck than most –a threatening snarl, an extended claw, either of those would do the trick–except for when it came to Storm. The two of them had endured and lost too much together, and so Logan rarely shut her out.

Of course, he rarely invited her in, either.

“Drop it, 'Ro. I don't want to talk about it. It's not going to help anything, I promise you–it's best to let sleepin' wolverines lie, and all that.” He gave her a hard stare. “Besides, sounds like we've all been draggin' around a few secrets.”

Unabashed, Storm shrugged. “Marie was pretty clear on what she wanted. You knew she was regaining her mutation, but you respected her secret. The Professor could have found her and brought her back any time, but he respected her free will. And Kurt and I knew she wanted her own life, apart from us, so we respected her desires.”

Logan snorted. “Sounds like maybe we've all been givin' her a little too much coddlin'. And anyway, talkin' more about secrets, why the hell didn't the Prof want me training the new girls?”

“He wanted to protect them.”

“Protect them? What the hell did he think I was gonna do?” Logan found himself actually feeling a little disgusted. “Jesus, Storm, I may growl, but I ain't a total animal.”

“Oh, stop getting your flannel into a twist.” Storm suddenly felt the urge to smack him, or at least conjure a sudden gust to muss up his hair. “We're still trying to figure out the extent of their powers. What if Clio had touched your bare skin? What kind of memories would she have dredged up? How would she have been able to handle them? And in case you didn't notice, Charisma's pretty protective of her younger sister. If she saw Clio being hurt, she would have gone after you.”

An unexpected, and not entirely unwelcome, image of Charisma pinned beneath him on the sparring mat popped into Logan's head just then, but gamely, he thrust it back out again. He had a good sniffer for emotional baggage in a woman, and there was no room in his trunk for any more. Instead, he acknowledged Storm's wisdom. “Good point, Snowflake. I'll try to steer clear.”

Storm glanced around the tight quarters of the Blackbird. “Might be a little tricky, that. Anyway, you're the muscle here; you'll do what you need to do to keep them safe. Just...tread carefully around Clio, especially, okay?”

“Ten-four, leader.” Logan grinned; oddly, he had no problems taking orders from Storm. Of course, he'd probably take orders from a beer keg, if it made enough sense and knew what it was doing. The thrill of the mission was starting to come over him, even if the mission meant, at least in part, baby-sitting the Weird Sisters. “You should try to get some rest, you know. But before you konk out, I got somethin' to ask of you.”

___________________________________________________________________________________

Even a mansion with several wings and dozens of bedrooms could begin to burst at the seams when housing sixty some-odd students. This undeniable truth demanded that just about any space that could be used efficiently would be used so. The room originally intended to be the dining hall had been converted to … well, a dining hall, but with much less grand furniture. The long gallery, which had once boasted a Van Eyck, a Sargeant, and two Manets, in addition to a dozen reproductions of classical statues, had been converted into the common room, used by staff and students alike. The statues had remained, much to the chagrin of Storm and the delight of the students; it was a better lesson in anatomy than Professor Xavier had ever offered.

One of the few areas of the mansion which had never been altered were the attics, if only for the obvious reason that the rejected artifacts of the mansion had to go somewhere. Other items had ended up here over the years–mainly the discarded detritus of many mutants' lives. Just as any home, large or small, bore evidence of the children who had lived under its roof, the mansion was no exception.

The attics were rarely visited, and certainly never at night. Not even Storm had had reason to be up there in the wee hours of the morning, and so she found it difficult to navigate her way around the clutter. “I know I put her boxes somewhere up around this area,” she muttered. Further talk was cut short as her boot caught on the edge of a huge crate; only Logan's solid hand kept her from ending up in an ungainly heap on the floor.

“You want me to take the lead, darlin'?” The question merely a courtesy. Logan didn't bother to give Storm a chance to answer; his eyes could make out every item in the room perfectly. To him, the darkness was practically non-existent. “Tell me what I'm lookin' for.”

“Four boxes. Cardboard cartons.” Storm decided to stick close to him. Flying the Blackbird would be a hell of a lot harder with a broken ankle.

“Right. I'm lookin' for four cardboard boxes in an attic full of 'em.” It wasn't nearly as difficult as it would have been for anyone with normal senses. Logan's sense of smell was even keener than his eyesight, and it had just kicked into overdrive. Almost by instinct, he began to move towards the east end of the attic. Marie's scent, never completely forgotten no matter how absent it might be, had captured his attention.

A few moments later, Logan had practically given into a feral frenzy as he began tearing through the four boxes for which they had been searching. All semblance of civility and control had fled, leaving behind only an instinctive drive to hunt down … something. What, he didn't yet know. But then he found the old, discarded pair of gloves. They were black, made of soft, thin material that had nonetheless done their job, protecting a young woman from her own powers, at the same time cutting her off from those she loved the most. And in so doing, the cloth had forever captured the scent of her. It was a scent that had faded from Logan's memory over the years, but one whiff was enough to restore it, and assure him of an absolute truth: Gone, but not forgotten. Not even the smell of dust and mothballs could diminish the scent of Marie: a unique combination of skin and sweat, a slight puff of inexpensive perfume, and the strange mark of her own mutation.

Her scent had disappeared from the mansion, from the room in which she had slept. It had even disappeared from Logan's conscious memory. Any trail around the area was long gone, and one didn't need to be a tracker or a mutant or even a police officer to know that the scent would not be picked up in the land around the Mansion.

“You get anything?” Storm asked. She couldn't see him gripping the glove in his hand, and couldn't know the primal drive which now coursed through him. Find Marie. Don't stop until you find her. Roughly, he shoved the glove in his pocket.

“I've got her scent.” How Logan managed to get these words out, and sound sane, he wasn't sure. He wasn't even sure sanity mattered, anymore. The Wolverine was beginning to emerge, and Storm could hear it in the unrelenting determination of his next words. “And we're going to find her. We're going to find Marie, and we're going to bring her home.”