To Forgive is to Forget
Chapter 8
by
Hunter
DISCLAIMER: When my plot for world domination comes into effect, I will buy Marvel comics, 20th Century Fox, and all characters attached thereto, but until then, nothing is mine, only the lame characters I make up to play with the X-Gang.
DEDICATION: With major hugs to Leylue, All Great and Powerful Wolverine Lore Protector and Guide. . . without whom, this little South African wouldn't of even have gotten this far. And to Barbara, Tyger, and whoever gets this site next. . . excellent job grrrrls.
Moving silently through a mist created by Storm, the X-Men reached the main building with no trouble.
"This place is rather quiet for a base, don't you think?" Beast remarked as Cyclops melted a nearby door.
"Like a tomb," said Gambit who was edgy and not appreciating the fact that they were out in the open even though there appeared to be no troops on duty.
Beast helped Cyclops to remove the door.
"No need to get morbid, Gambit," commented Cyclops. "It must be just an old base they're reusing." "No need for troops if what the Professor says they are doing is true," Cyclops mentally added to himself.
Walking inside after Cyclops and Beast had placed the door to one side, the X-Men followed Jean in.
"Well, that suit Gambit just fine," the Cajun replied with less enthusiasm than his words implied. His echo moved quickly down the passage. "Empty as a tomb."
The group encountered only two guards who were quickly dispatched before they could announce the presence of the X-Men.
Jean had been walking slowly ahead when she abruptly put her hands on her head and gasped.
"What's wrong?" Cyclops asked urgently.
"The emotions! It's overpowering." Jean began to move faster towards a door that opened into a room. "He was here!" she cried. "My God! Scott! He was so afraid."
The team moved around inside the room, and in a side room, they found a restraining table.
"What is this place?" asked Storm. She lifted the straps that dangled lifelessly from the side of the table.
"Look here, chere!" Gambit turned Storm around and pointed to the floor. Next to a red stain lay a familiar shirt and jeans.
"Gambit t'ink ol' Wolverine gutted someone, non?" Gambit looked around for reassurance as Cyclops bent down and studied the stain.
"It's blood alright." He looked at Beast and asked, "Could it be his?"
"I've never seen that much blood come out of Wolverine," answered the large blue mutant. "He always healed before it could flow in that amount."
As the team left the room and followed Jean through the maze of corridors and passages, they were all thinking the same thing. If that red pool did belong to Logan, there could only be one reason why he couldn't heal in time. Walking past the table, Gambit grabbed the pair of jeans and hurried after the others.
* * * * *
Logan's mind reeled into unconsciousness, and as his screams died down, the Doctor pushed a wheeled metal tray towards the tank. Light reflected through the gel in the tank casting a faint blue tinge in the room. Calling Lloyd forward to assist him in the removal of the adamantium, the Doctor fiddled with the tray. It gave Lloyd a moment to peer into the tank. Logan's body was suspended midway in it. He actually looked quite peaceful, all things considering.
"Lloyd!"
Doctor Cruin snapped Lloyd out of his reverie. "As I make the incisions, you will have to apply the clamps before it heals. After which you need to apply the spray in an even motion. As soon as the adamantium becomes malleable, I will remove it. You must then remove the clamps as I make the next incision. You must work fast and precisely."
Lloyd blinked and looked back into the tank.
"Do you understand?" snapped Cruin.
"Yes, Doctor."
Turning to Heather, the Doctor said, "Captain, you may watch, or you may join your men outside."
"It's quite all right, Doctor. I'll stay." Heather felt quite sick. "Or should I go and try and find help?" she thought.
She watched as Lloyd stepped back for the Doctor to make the first incision. He ran his scalpel along a black line on Logan's calf, and Lloyd quickly attached clamps to hold back the flesh. The incision released a cloud of pink blood.
Heather's mind snapped. From the deepest realms of her mind, where nature had evolved the greatest thinking machine on earth, something stirred. The Captain Wallace haze disappeared, and Heather stood there instead. Lloyd's eyes went huge as he noticed the change in his sister. The Doctor did not notice a foreign presence picking through his mind searching for something, anything. He was too busy reaching for the spray, which Lloyd had failed to do.
Heather found what she was looking for.
Doctor Cruin instantly straightened up and he looked towards his machines. His senses were alerting him to something odd. There, in front of him, stood Wolverine from 16 years ago. His claws were out and he was looking for blood. The Doctor swirled in an attempt to flee, but the intense pain of three razor sharp claws in his back, that his own mind had helped to create, froze him in mid-step.
Cruin stumbled and ran a bloodied hand across the tank. "How was this possible? That animal was still inside! But his claws are inside my chest!"
The Doctor's mind imploded as the Wolverine from his past slit him from his belly up. As Cruin's internal organs spilled out of his body cavity, the claws reached his heart and silenced his mind forever.
Heather collapsed into a shaking heap at the same moment the Doctor screamed and fell.
"Heather!" Lloyd ran to his sister, almost tripping over the doctor in his panic. "Heather. . . are you alright? Heather!?"
She opened her eyes. "I'm fine, I think."
"What happened?" Lloyd looked into his sister's eyes, and checked her pulse. "Was. . . was that you?"
"I don't know. I think so. What did I do?" Heather couldn't think. Somehow, her mind had reached inside of the Doctor's. She had plucked out his worst nightmare and made it real. She had seen what Cruin had seen through his own eyes and thoughts. How had she done it?
* * * * *
The X-Men reached the double doors as a scream ripped through it. After barging in, they froze at the sight that met them.
Blue light emanating from a man-sized tank in the center of the room shone eerily. A body, with blood coming from its ears and nose lay next to the tank. A man and a woman sat huddled together near machines that appeared to be displaying readings from the tank. The sound of breathing, as well as the smell of fear, was all around them.
Jean fell to the floor. Scott caught her and helped her up.
"The tank! Look in the tank," Jean mumbled. "It's his dream. He's in the tank!"
Leaving Scott to help Jean, the other X-Men walked towards to the center of the room.
"He's in pain! God, somebody help him, please!" Jean screamed. Breaking away from Scott, she ran to the tank.
Lloyd and Heather stared on helplessly as the X-Men gathered around.
Logan's prone body swayed gently in the gel. A large metal clasp on his ankles and wrists kept him from moving while a mask provided air. A grotesque pattern of lines covered Logan's entire body. Storm cried out when she saw his leg; the muscle peeled back and held in place by clamps to reveal the shining metal-coated bones beneath. Blood swirled lazily around the incision.
Cyclops wanted to get sick. He then remembered the man and woman. The man was wearing surgical clothing.
"You," he angrily gestured to Lloyd. "Come here! Get these things off him now."
Lloyd didn't have to be a telepath to feel his rage.
"I didn't do this," he said defensively. He moved his body in front of his sister to shield her from this strange group that had just stormed the lab.
Lloyd thought he recognized them from somewhere. "TV? They were the X-Men! What on earth were they doing here?"
Heather peered out from behind Lloyd's back striving to stop her tears. "It was them!"
"You were there!" she choked out pointing at Beast and Storm.
"What?" Storm answered.
"You were there. When we took him," said Heather. "Wolverine. He saved your lives."
Lloyd swung around and stared at his sister. "You took that man from the X-Men!" he exclaimed.
Heather ignored him. She got up and walked over to the group of mutants.
"We will discuss this later. Right now I need you to get him out of there." Cyclops said, his anger dissipating over the urgent need to help Logan. "Can one of you work this. . . this machine?" he asked.
"I can." Lloyd stood up shakily.
The X-Men stepped aside as he pushed the surgical tray full of scalpels away from the tank. The blood from Logan's wound wrapped smoky tendrils around Lloyd's hand as he lowered his arm in the blue gel. He gently removed the clamps one by one. Slowly Logan's muscle moved together and healed itself. Logan's healing factor worked sluggishly, caused apparently by whatever drug the Doctor had been feeding into his oxygen supply.
His leg was still busy knitting itself together as Lloyd removed the final clamp and pushed a button on the side panel of the tank. It tilted forward as it began to move downward. Gambit mumbled under his breath as the blue liquid sloshed forward over the glass's gap near his feet. Beast moved back, but Cyclops waited patiently as the liquid poured out onto the floor. Logan's body leaned forward, pinned in place by his bonds.
Beast stepped over the mess, and gently propped Logan's body against his own. Cyclops melted the metal binders holding Logan. When the final leg was released, Beast slowly lowered Logan to the ground, and removed the mask. Gambit remembered the jeans he had been faithfully carrying around, and tossed them to Beast.
"Here, me t'ink Logan need dis."
After dressing Logan, Beast checked his pulse and listened to his heartbeat.
"Sleeping like a baby," he finally announced. "He's been drugged, and by all means, will be awake soon. I must admit, I don't want to be near him when he does."
He smiled grimly, pleased that his friend was still alive and in one piece.
Heather watched as Beast picked up Logan's body, and start to move out, followed by the rest of the team. Jean looked at Heather and Lloyd. An unspoken moment passed between the three. Slowly both brother and sister began to follow the X-men out. They weren't sure where they would end up, but knowing that they must follow.
Lloyd stopped suddenly causing Scott to look back.
"What about him?" Lloyd pointed to the Doctor's twitching body.
Cyclops ran back and picked up the skinny Doctor. "We'll take him with us. I know somebody who will have a few questions for him."
* * * * *
Scott was initiating take off when Jean announced the presence of two approaching helicopters. When the troops landed, some mentioned hearing a sound like a sonic boom. The men and the noise were ignored as they filed through the entrance of the main buildings to collect Captain Resta and his adamantium.
* * * * *
The Blackbird flew silently through the night disturbing only the clouds it moved through. Lloyd, who stared numbly out a window, sat next to Heather. His mind worked frantically trying to make sense of all he had witnessed in the last 24 hours.
Heather watched the X-Men. She had now picked up on all their code names and their places on the team. Cyclops was obviously the leader. Storm and Beast sat in the front while Cyclops flew the jet. Gambit sat a row behind Heather and kept his eyes on her. She tried to ignore him by concentrating on Jean and Logan.
Logan had still not regained consciousness. He lay across a row of seats with his head resting on Jean's lap.
One of Jean's hands held one of his. With her other hand, she tried to rub the markings off his face. A few lines had smudged. Soap and water would probably take care of it. Logan's hair was drying strangely from the gel, sticking to his scalp, and staining Jean's pants from black to midnight blue. The image of the two of them together like that reminded Heather of Michelangelo's statue, The Pieta.
Remembering the dog tags in her hand, Heather lifted her fingers and stared at them. Holding onto them tightly had embedded an image of the tags into her palm.
Wolverine.
She slowly moved her arm out towards Jean.
"These belong to him."
When Jean stared back at her, Heather added, "I took them off when he was still darted. I don't know why." Heather's voice caught in her throat as Jean took the dog tags from her hand and held them.
"This used to be all he had from his past," said Jean. "These and his nightmares. He will be grateful to have them back." She slipped the tags over Logan's head, and turned back to Heather.
"Thank you."
Heather didn't answer.
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