Instincts Pt. 1
Chapter 1
by
Dala



DISCLAIMER: Everyone belongs to Marvel, except for Thorn.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This takes place several years after the movie, and is not on the same storyline as my other fics. It also incorporates a few strictly comicverse characters, namely Beast and Gambit, and I hope I didn't get them too wrong.

Dedicated to my cousins Mary Paige and Lauren, on whom Thorn's personality (if not her mutation ;) are based.




"Logan?"

He looked up, about to shoot the six ball into the corner pocket. Stretched halfway over the pool table, a cigar dangling from his lips, glaring at the intruder . . . he was quite intimidating.

But Jean was Jean, and she paid no attention to his irritated reaction. "We need you to help us track something outside."

Now he was interested. "Something?"

"A mutant; Professor Xavier sensed it," she explained. "You're the best member of the team when it comes to tracking, and you know the woods around the mansion."

He stretched, reluctantly placing the cue back on its rack. "Don't we have some sort of fancy tracking equipment that . . . well, that ain't me?"

"Yes, and we know the stranger's location, but since it's hiding, it must not want to be found. And it's moved twice in the last half-hour."

Logan sighed and stubbed out his cigar. "This thing better not be dangerous. How the hell did it get inside the grounds?"

Jean shrugged, tugging on a lock of bright hair. "I don't know. But it's probably frightened, hiding out there in the woods.

"If it's scared, it'll be even more dangerous," he grumbled, but grabbed his jacket and followed her out of the rec room.

~~~~~~~~


"She's here."

Scott stopped and looked over at Logan. The other man stood very still, only his eyes moving as they scanned the clearing. He appeared to be sniffing the air, though Scott couldn't smell anything except dead leaves in the early autumn air. He wondered at Logan's use of the feminine pronoun, but didn't raise a question.

"Where?" was all he said.

Logan shook his head slowly, puzzled. "I don't know. I can smell someone nearby, but-"

His words were cut off as he fell through the ground.

"Logan!" Scott shouted, and froze. He couldn't see any irregularities in the forest floor; the leaves and plants were undisturbed.

For his part, Logan was just as surprised. He found himself dazed and dusty but otherwise unharmed, in a tiny underground cavern. There was barely enough room to turn his head, but he knew that the person he was tracking was with him.

Peering across the dark tunnel, he saw a small child. How had she gotten down here?

"Hey kid," he said, coughing. "It's okay now." He extended a hand toward the quailing child.

She gazed back at him, apparently forming an opinion and taking her time about it. He waited patiently, ignoring Scott's calls.

Finally the child decided that Logan was worthy of her trust, and scrambled into his arms. She was remarkably light; her bones felt as weightless as any bird's. He stood up, his head poking back out of the hole, which was only five or so feet deep. The child settled herself against his shoulder, and he could feel her little heart beating furiously.

"Don't come any closer," he said to Scott, "this area's all dug out." Logan put the child on the ground and let Scott pull him out, much as he considered it an indignity. The second she was released, the girl scampered away, and he caught her by the arm. "Hey!"

She turned and sank her small, sharp teeth into his hand. Logan cried out and let go, stumbling back. Drawing his hand close to his face to examine the wound, he kept moving backwards and tripped over a fallen branch, landed headfirst in a pile of thorny bushes.

Meanwhile, Scott was running after the child. He braced himself and scooped her up, but she didn't attack him as she had Logan. She swung quite unresisting from his arms.

He turned to regard his companion, and stifled laughter. Logan growled from his seat on the log, and continued picking thorns out of his face and neck.

"That kid is more trouble than she's worth."

Scott couldn't resist the opportunity for a lame joke. "Yeah, she certainly has a thorny personality," he chortled.

If looks could kill--or at least, looks other than Scott's own--he wouldn't have had a prayer. But as it was, Logan decided unhappily that cheesy humor wasn't enough of an excuse to skewer his teammate; Jean would be upset with him.

They set off for the mansion's medical ward, Scott carrying the girl. Logan got a good look at her for the first time. She seemed to be about four or five, with skin almost the exact color of the earth they walked on. He also noticed green and bronze shimmers that glittered on her body, and wondered idly if she glowed in the dark. Her hair was long and tangled, moss-colored.

She looked up at him then, with the biggest eyes he had ever seen. They were huge in her small face, and mostly brown with streaks of gold and green.

An odd child. He just hoped that she had somewhere relatively normal to be sent back to.

~~~~~~~~


The X-Men, minus Logan, stared down at the sleeping child.

"She had substantial amounts of soil under her fingernails," Beast said. "I would imagine that she was digging."

Scott nodded. "She was in a sort of tunnel system. I thought it had belonged to some animal, but you're saying she did it herself?"

"Yes. Her mutation appears to be tied to the earth itself; it is difficult to explain. Scott, when you picked her up, she stopped struggling?"

"That's right, she didn't try anything on me."

The immense blue doctor adjusted his spectacles. "And when Logan tried to catch her, her feet were still on the ground."

"I see," Charles Xavier interrupted. "She loses strength when she is out of contact with the earth."

"Damned convenient power to have." No one had noticed Logan enter, but he was among them now, dressed in clean clothes after his encounter with the thorn bush.

Beast nodded. "That is my assumption, Professor. And since she dug the tunnels Logan fell into, it makes sense that she dug a tunnel underground to come here."

"I wonder how she knew to come here," Rogue mused aloud. "Hopefully she'll tell us when she wakes up."

The doctor looked saddened. "I'm afraid she can't. The child is mute."

"Could we probe her mind, Professor?" Jean asked.

He frowned. "I don't know. I don't have much experience with mutants so young; I'm not sure if I would harm her."

Rogue gazed at the little girl with sympathy. She was sleeping peacefully, but every now and then would purse her lips in a cross expression, as if telling the rest of them to go away. Poor little thing. If she had made her way here alone, she must not have people in the world who loved her and looked after her.

She opened her eyes suddenly, and they darted around fearfully at the strange-looking people. Xavier said quietly, "Please, let's give the child some room." Everyone backed off, letting him wheel up to her bedside.

*I'm not going to hurt you,* he said telepathically to the girl. Even so, he could feel her fear and confusion, and even a haughty little sense of rage. He kept up his mental reassurances until she relaxed, and then he opened himself to her mind.

She was enjoying being underground; she could feel the earth in a comforting grip around her. But she was frightened by the mutants.

*Who are you? Your name?*

She didn't seem to get the concept of name at first, and he realized that she didn't have one. Putting aside his anger at the sort of people who would neglect to give a child a name, Xavier probed deeper. *Where do you come from?*

Bad place. Fear, pain, badbadbadbad!

He broke contact immediately, pressing his hands to his head. Jean rushed to his side, having followed the "conversation", though not immersed in it so deeply.

"She is . . . incredibly strong-willed and minded, for one so young," the Professor managed to get out. "I will continue this later, but for now I think all she needs is some care, some food and some rest."

"We'll take care of her," Storm said quickly.

Xavier smiled. "I know you will, my X-Men. I'll leave her in your hands until tomorrow." He left the medical ward, and the team again turned to the mutant child.

She had left her bed and was crouched against the wall, feeling the metal with curious fingers.

Logan shook his head. Definitely a strange child. And he was beginning to tire of thinking of her as the child.

"Does this kid have a name?"

"No," Jean answered. "I guess . . . no one's ever given her one."

"Well, we have to call her something," Jubilee reasoned.

Scott crossed his arms. "What does she look like?" He began running through names in his head. "Sarah? Tiffany? Lisa? Or maybe Jean . . ." He grinned at his wife, and she shook her head in mock exasperation.

Logan looked elsewhere, although the stab of pain he used to feel at such exchanges had mostly faded away. He and Jean were not meant to be, and he was content to leave it at that. He didn't really have anything against the team's leader, anyway.

Gambit, though, was someone he had a problem with. Always hanging around Rogue, saying some stupid quaint French phrase. And she basked in the attention, which he wasn't going to begrudge her-she certainly deserved it, and more. But he knew without having to ask that the relationship would never progress further than flirtation, not only because of her mutation, but because of the fact that Rogue didn't seem to have a desire to try at a romance with Gambit. He had no idea why, but he was certain of it.

Pulling his mind back to the present, Logan found the others still name-debating.

"I think that since Logan found her, he should name her," Jean said. "And," she added, laughing, "because she seems to have a fondness for him."

He looked down, and there was the child, clinging to his leg and gazing raptly up at him.

Scott smirked. "You seem to have an admirer, Logan." Shooting him a glare, Logan gingerly took the child's arm and tried to pry her off. She snapped at his hand and held on tighter.

"I think he should name her, too." He met Rogue's eyes, twinkling with mirth, and vowed to have a very long talk with her about what it was appropriate for a man to endure. A kid hanging onto his jeans and everyone finding him funny was not on that list.

"Fine," he barked. "I'll name her. Uh . . . have any more ideas?"

"How 'bout Thorn? For de bush and all." Damned Cajun. The man was grinning in that devilish way which made the girls at the school flutter their eyelashes when he walked down the halls.

Logan sighed. The sooner he could be out of the spotlight of ridicule, the better. "That okay with you, kid? Thorn?" He directed his question down to the hanger-on, and she blinked. Those watching didn't know how, but Logan read something in those enormous eyes and nodded. "Okay. Now let go."

But the newly-christened Thorn refused to release her grip, and he refused to pick her up, so the X-Men were treated to the rather amusing sight of Logan dragging the Thorn-leg behind him, pretending not to hear the giggles.

"You are going to be bad for my reputation," he accused Thorn when they were out of sight around the corner.

She tossed her head as if to say she didn't care, and put on her most insistent pleading stare yet.

Grumbling under his breath, Logan picked her up.

~~~~~~~~


For the rest of the day, he wandered around the grounds with his new charge. He showed her the gardens, the stables, the lake: it seemed that all she wanted to do was be outside, and she gathered energy from the walk rather than lost it. Not once did she ask to be picked up. Mostly she pointed to things and he told her what they were, if he knew, and if he didn't he would make up some insane long name for a bird or a flower. Thorn always knew the difference, and would pat the object as if apologizing for her large friend's rudeness. Her way with nature and her tiny size led him to call her Faery or Pixie more often than Thorn.

He would have been surprised at how easily he fit into the mentor role, if he'd noticed. It did occur to him that Thorn's company could be better than any adult's; she was an honest, forthright little thing, without a malevolent bone in her body (having advanced healing ability made it easy to forget her attack on him earlier). And sometimes when she smiled, he thought of Rogue. She must have been like this once, innocent and carefree. When she was Marie. He had never called her by her real name, but it was often on the tip of his tongue. Something had kept him from saying it for all the time he had known her.

Thorn was still a very small child, if active, and she was ready to go back to the mansion before twilight. Even then she didn't want to be carried, though he could tell she was tired. She trotted the whole way back to the mansion, barefoot, taking three strides to his one.

Sprawled out on the couch, Logan yawned. Thorn seemed to have no ill effects from her long day of exploring, but he was exhausted, and paid very little attention to what was on the TV screen. Actually, this was the last place he wanted to be: he would never actually sit by choice and watch the Cajun make sad eyes at his ladylove. Rogue seemed to be dropping off to sleep, anyway. But Thorn was mesmerized by the television, having never seen one before, and he didn't have the heart to tell her it was long past bedtime.

Remy was not too happy with his present company, either. He knew he had no chance with Rouge; he only kept up his pursuit for appearance's sake. And he knew the reason why she wouldn't be happy with him, and this reason was sitting to his left. Rogue was in love with Logan, had been since before he'd met her, even if it was buried beneath layers of protection and self-reliance. The damned fool wasn't even aware of it, and in that Remy thought him a moron; if Logan ever stretched out his hand, she would take it without a second thought. The mansion's entire population seemed to know this except for Logan; too bad for him, in Remy's opinion.

"Hey," he interrupted his own musings. "What's wrong wit de petite?"

Logan started out of a doze. Thorn was making a strange sound in the back of her throat, a sort of mewl. She was pressed up against the screen, her fingers splayed out in distress as she tried to touch the image inside. He hit the pause button, and kneeling beside her, saw what was wrong.

It was an image of bulldozers crushing trees, spoiling the rich soil and habitats. Thorn turned to him, her thin cheeks wet with tears, and tugged on his sleeve.

"I can't make them stop, Pixie." Logan's voice was uncharacteristically gentle.

Her lip quivered, and he said, "Yeah, it's awful for me to watch too."

Rogue watched, astonished, as he carried on a one-sided conversation. Logan seemed to be able to read Thorn's body language, or her eyes, or something about her, as accurately as though she spoke out loud. It was an extraordinary thing to see, as was the tenderness in his face.

*He loves this child,* she realized. She hadn't known he was capable of feeling so deeply, of lifting Thorn in his arms and comforting her as she cried tears of pity and sadness for her friends the trees.

Remy's eyes were on Rogue, and if she had turned to look at him, she would have seen sadness in him as well, though of a different sort. He accepted the fact that she wasn't in love with him, but he wasn't about to sit around and watch her sigh over the ever-oblivious Logan.

"Bonne nuit, chere," he said, touching her shoulder. Rogue looked up at him and smiled.

"'Night, Remy." Then he left, to spend an autumn night pondering just what sort of lunatic pursues a woman he can't even touch.

Logan and Thorn had reached an agreement: the show with the tree-killers had been turned off, and something with blue animated canines had been substituted. Just the thought of Logan watching anything with a big blue dog was enough to make her shake her head at the mysteries of life.

She had dozed off again when she had the uncanny sensation of being watched. Sure enough, she opened her eyes to see a small dark face staring into her own.

"Hi, Thorn," she said sleepily. The child crawled into her lap, and Logan saw the way Rogue tensed at the unexpected contact. She fears touch as much as someone who's been abused, he thought sadly.

Luckily, it wasn't in Thorn's agenda to give Rogue a friendly, dangerous kiss. She pulled something from the pocket of her dress and offered it to Rogue, whose eyes widened. "No," she said, trying to give it back, "these aren't mine." But Thorn was adamant that she take the gift, and Rogue stood up to give it back to its owner herself.

"Here," she said, holding out a hand to Logan. His dogtags dangled from her fingers.

He gave Thorn a disapproving look, but she was hiding behind Rogue's legs. "Dirty little thief." He made no move to take the tags, and Rogue was puzzled.

"They're . . . they're yours," she said, looking down at her feet.

"I never asked for them back," he said quietly. The day he had returned, Rogue had been away on a mission. When she got home a few days later, he had found the tags on his pillow without having even seen her, along with a note that said "Welcome back." She had changed, he realized, and so he took the tags and kept them in his drawer ever since. He had no idea how Thorn had gotten her grubby little hands on them.

She sat down on the couch beside him, uncomfortably close. "Logan." Her voice was as steady as she could make it. "We never talked about these, or about what you found in Canada."

"I didn't find anything," he said sharply. "I told you that."

"Then why did you stay away for nearly a year?" Whispering now, Rogue couldn't quite keep a thread of pain out of her voice.

Thorn, quiet and therefore forgotten by the adults for the time being, stood at the side of the couch and watched this exchange with interest.

"I . . ." He had no answer for her. At least, not one he was preparing to share. *Because I was afraid of what I felt.*

*What you still feel,* a voice seemed to say, a child's voice. He looked at Thorn, but of course she was silent.

Thoroughly unnerved, Logan stood abruptly and folded her gloved hand over the tags. The fact that she didn't shy away from his touch was not lost on him. "Please keep them, Marie."

Her shock at hearing that name from his lips was evident in her face and voice both. "You . . . no one's called me that in a long time."

He looked up, and his eyes were hooded, shadowed. Impossible to read. "I know." And he turned and walked away, Thorn running after him.

"Logan!" she called softly, desperately. *Why can't I talk to him? Why won't he let me in?*

He didn't answer, barely pausing to gather the trailing Thorn into his arms. She peeked over his shoulder as he carried her away, and gazed at Rogue with a mournful expression on her face.



CHAPTERS:   1   2




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