Empathy
Prologue
by
NYC
This story is based on the X-Men Characters presented by the movie. It nearly completely ignores the comic books, any sense of cannon or continuity with the actual Marvelstory. The canon police should be knocking on my door at any time.
This story goes in and out of flashbacks, so it's two stories being told in parallel. We start fifteen years before the prologue for the first two parts.
All of EMPATHY was written while listening to the new CD by Vertical Horizon: Everything You Want, and the X-Men Sountrack.
In typical fashion, Logan sipped at his beer and chewed on the end of his cigar as he watched the world around him, even if that world was yet another seedy dive bar. A hundred places like this, all the same. He did not understand why he persisted, and he did not understand why he continued to ask himself the same question over and over, when he knew perfectly well that the answer was that he just had to know. *He had to.*
Logan had managed to find a few answers at the military complex that the Professor had shown to him. Good old Chuck...the man had a compassionate heart, but he seemed to think that what he could offer was somehow different that the other hundreds--maybe thousands--of leads Logan had had over the years. The day would come, he knew, when he would simply have to accept his fate, his path, and just go on with his life. If he hadn't already.
This wandering...deep inside, he knew it was ridiculous to want the past again. Because he knew that that was exactly what he wanted, what he was looking for, in hopes of...somehow...in some insane way...*having* it again. That was insanity. He knew better than anyone the joys of moving on. He was always moving on, always jumping from one place to the next, always wandering.
For the sake of his past, he had foresaken his present...and at this rate, his future as well. But what was he, if he wasn't searching for who he was? It seemed unfair to him, that these people, even the lowlifes that sometimes tried to take him on--always to their regret--all had their pasts. They knew their parents, families, they had childhood friends, lovers, ex-boyfriends and girlfriends (sometimes both), they knew their hometown, the day they were born, their age.
Why was it so wrong for him to have those things, too? Yet, that is what Lady Fate kept telling him over and over. *Forget it. Move on. No sense in continuing this charade.*
He'd heard once that insanity was performing the same action over and over and expecting a different result. Perhaps he was insane. It wasn't like if he decided to stop wandering, stop searching, that he wouldn't have a place to go. He had friends. He had a few who cared about him very much, even if one of them didn't feel about him the way he wished she would. He could live with that. It wasn't like longing was an alien feeling to him. And the tension between him and Scott--he rather liked it. It kept him sharp, on his toes, reassured him that living in that mutant compound estate wouldn't make him soft. He never wanted to be soft.
Never again.
The cigar was down to its very last embers, and didn't really taste all that good anymore, so he put it out and pulled out a few tens and left them on the bar. He stood up, taking just a moment to let his leg muscles uncoil from where they had been frozen for the last few hours. He grabbed at the stool next to him where he had slung his coat and threw it over one shoulder. It was rather warm in this place, warmer than even he liked, even though he had an extremely high tolerance for all kinds of weather, hot or cold.
Part of his mutant charm, he was sure.
Then, as he made his way toward the door, something wafted in from a far corner and floated across his sensitive nostrils.
He froze in mid step. The scent was not strong, but distinct. Very distinct. He knew it...he knew he did. It made his heart start to pound more rapidly, so loudly that it blocked out the clanging of the cheap liquor bottles, the sizzling of the beer, the clomping of the regulars as they headed for their respective tables, and the sound of the waitress who asked him, "You okay, honey?"
Logan turned his head. It had come from a far corner, hidden in shadow. There was a woman there, her head turned away from him. She was staring down at her drink, gently swirling it, leaving large wet rings on the cheap wood. She was dressed in jeans, a pair of old, worn sneakers, and a button-down shirt that looked like it had seen better days. Her hair was all colors, from blond to red to brown, and hung down her back in a long braid. Sweaty strands of it clung forward to her cheeks.
He stepped toward her. She didn't move, although Logan could sense a distinct shift in her scent. Tension. His presence made her nervous. Why in the world would he do that? Well, it was a stupid question--not many women liked being approached by someone of his rough appearance, but this just felt different.
He didn't know how. He just knew he knew her. He knew her smell. It was stronger as he got closer, and the memories hovered just out of his reach, maddeningly out of his reach. He made it all the way over to her side when his body started to shake with emotions he didn't understand, couldn't even fully register. He had to sit down--he practically fell into the booth in front of her.
She continued to stare at her drink.
He examined her features. She wasn't young-looking, or extremely pretty, but she was hardly old or ugly. He couldn't get the color of her eyes, because she wouldn't look at him.
Why wouldn't she look at him?
He set his jacket down on the table, and it brushed her arm, but that did not succeed in getting her gaze to meet his. Instead, she seemed to shy away from it, away from him, her face contorting uncomfortably.
She was ashamed.
All right, so she wouldn't look at him. Which obviously meant that she knew him, as he knew her. And since she wasn't going to tell him, he was just going to have to figure it out on his own. And since she wouldn't look at him, he was going to have to use his first and most reliable sense to identify her.
He shut his eyes and breathed in deeply. It was a rich, beautiful scent...not so much in itself, but because it made him feel...happy. He remembered being happy with her. He remembered tenderness, he remembered---
*The picture.*
He opened his eyes. The picture of the woman. This was the woman. Even though she wouldn't look him in the face, he knew it was her. He wanted to slap himself for not recognizing it instantly, but that would do him little good. And as he stared at her, he took another wave of her scent into himself---
And almost passed out under the onslaught that his own mind suddenly unleashed upon him. Like an avalanche, it all came tumbling out...the lost years...the past he had been looking for...the friends, lovers, the very origin of his being.
He blinked and stared at her. Finally unable to bear it any longer, he reached forward and slid his fingers under her chin, making her lift her head to look at him.
The eyes were blue.
"Mel?" he whispered.
All she said in reply was, "Hey, Ferro."
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