A World Not My Own: Chapter 1
An X-Men Fanfic
Something strange was going on with Logan.
No, that wasn’t quite right. Something was always going on with Logan, but this time it was more concerning than usual.
He had requested some time off from teaching (a sick day, he called it, though he never got sick), and the professor, for some reason known only to himself, agreed without comment. Even stranger, Hank had cheerfully offered to cover those classes until Logan was feeling better and invited Logan to sit in on them, in case he “needed a refresher”. Logan accepted both offers.
Ororo knew something was wrong, but as none of them had told her anything, she knew it couldn’t be too important and decided not to worry.
She didn’t worry when he stopped making snarky comments at everyone else’s expense and grew quieter. He had even traded in some of his usual solo training for watching the kids play and do their homework.
She didn’t worry when Jean confided that he had started avoiding her, or when Scott worried about whatever trick lay behind his awkwardly friendly greetings. (None came.)
She didn’t worry when Hank convinced him that the ice cream scoop had always been kept under the sink, even though Logan had pulled it from its proper drawer just a few weeks before. When questioned, she had backed Hank up, of course. She always would, whether in a fight or a prank, even if she didn’t understand it.
She didn’t worry when she found Logan pacing around, searching for something in the dumpster he called an office. She wouldn’t have thought anything of it, except that when she asked what he was looking for, he said, “a pen.”
“A pen?” She wondered if whatever illness had kept him from teaching those few days had affected his memory again.
He slammed a drawer shut that had been offensively short on pens. “I’m sure they’re here somewhere. I need pens to teach, don’t I? I just don’t know where–” She crouched down beside him, opened the bottom drawer of his desk, and found a pen. She held it up, and he took it, staring as though she were some mystical spirit bringing wishes instead of pens.
“Well why the hell did I put them down there?”
She sighed and stood up. She had been asking him the same question since he started teaching. “I don’t know. I’m not in your head.”
“Thank goodness for that,” he muttered, turning around and looking for something else–presumably a piece of paper.
“Need anything else?”
He waved her away without turning around. “No. Figure I’d better get it figured out on my own. Thanks.”
She left the room then, wondering if she should take her concerns to the professor, but he had spoken with Logan many times in the past few weeks–long, private conversations neither of them mentioned again–and he wasn’t worried. So neither was she.
She tried to remind herself of that, several nights later when she lay awake listening to his cries through their shared wall, wishing she knew some way to wake him without risking stabbing. The cries stopped suddenly, and she breathed a little easier. The old, wood floors told her when he left his room–and when he stopped in front of hers. He stood there, a slight shadow under her door, for a full minute. She had just made up her mind to go open the door herself when he left.
She didn’t know why he would come to her. If he needed help, surely he would go to the professor. If he needed her, he would tell her.
So she didn’t worry. Not until the day of Rogue’s accident.
The day started normal enough–classes, lunch, kids asking questions about homework. Ororo slipped into the kitchen between classes to fix another cup of tea. Logan was already there, digging through the fridge. He raised an eyebrow when she set her now-empty mug on the counter and started the kettle.
“How many of those have you had?” he asked.
“Three.” She pulled out another teabag and made the mistake of looking at him. He didn’t believe her, which was fair. She had only used three bags, but he didn’t need to know how many times she refilled her cup.
“Right. Don’t you think that’s a little unhealthy?”
She dropped her teabag in the cup and put her hand on her hip as she turned to face him. “You stop smoking your cigars, and then we can talk about what’s ‘healthy’.”
He laughed. She hadn’t heard him laugh in weeks. He shut the fridge and leaned against the counter, opening his mouth to say something.
Someone screamed.
Kitty ran through the kitchen wall. “Storm! Help, please, it’s Rogue! We were in the danger room–it was an accident–”
Ororo didn’t hear the rest. She was already running, Logan hard on her heels.
When they got to the danger room, Rogue’s friends, along with several children, stood in the middle of the room.
“Move!” Logan shouted, and the group parted down the middle, revealing Rogue lying, pale, in a pool of blood.
Ororo knelt beside her. A brief inspection showed that she had been impaled through the abdomen. It looked bad, but she couldn’t panic. Everyone else was doing plenty of that.
The first concern was to stop the bleeding. She glanced up at the kids surrounding her. “Bobby, get me a couple clean towels. Piotr, go upstairs and start boiling water. Logan, find Hank. We’ll need some way to stitch her up without touching her skin.” As the boys ran off, she shrugged out of her jacket and balled it up to press against the wound.
Logan didn’t move.
“Logan, go get Hank!”
“I’ll do it,” a younger student said, running off.
Ororo adjusted her hands to make sure she was putting as much pressure as possible on the wound, then looked over her shoulder at Logan. He was as pale as Rogue, staring down at her limp body. Now that she was paying attention, she could hear his breath coming short and fast.
She couldn’t take care of them both, and several of the younger students were growing more and more agitated.
“Logan, Logan listen to me.” She tried to keep her voice low, soothing. “Rogue is okay for now, she’s alive, but I need you to help me.”
He jerked, eyes flying up to meet hers. Good, maybe he had finally heard her. He looked back at Rogue. She was just about to tell him to take the rest of the kids out of the danger room when he reached over. Before she could stop him, he pulled the girl’s glove off and held her hand. He gasped as her powers took hold, and the veins stood out from his skin.
“Logan! Logan, stop!” Rogue’s powers were notoriously unpredictable, and she didn’t want them both to end up dead.
She felt vibrations under her hand and realized Rogue had groaned. Her eyes fluttered open. As ill-advised as she found Logan’s actions, she was relieved that the girl was okay.
“Ow, you’re–you’re hurting me,” Rogue whined. “What happened?”
“You got hurt, but you’re okay now,” Ororo reassured her. Then she realized Logan hadn’t let go of the girl’s hand. “Logan, you can stop. She’s fine now.” He didn’t move. “Logan, let go!” Once again, he seemed unable to hear her.
Panic filled Rogue’s face, and she tried to pull her hand away, but his grip didn’t loosen. “Let go of me! Logan, stop, please!”
Logan didn’t hear either of them. He didn’t react at all, just staring at Rogue. No, not at her, through her, as though he were seeing something else.
“Logan, please!” Rogue sobbed. “I don’t want to hurt you. Please!”
There was more blood on the floor–Logan’s this time, from various wounds taken in training or accidents. Ororo let go of Rogue hesitantly, worried she would start bleeding again as soon as she let up pressure, but she didn’t. Ororo grabbed Logan’s shoulder, trying to pull him back.
“Let me,” a voice said behind her, and she almost cried with relief when she saw Hank. He grabbed Logan’s arm and twisted it, forcing him to let go of Rogue.
“No!” Logan screamed as Hank grabbed him under both arms and dragged him several feet away. He fought and kicked, and if he had been at full strength, he might have beaten Hank, but his movements were too uncoordinated and drained.
Ororo knelt back beside Rogue. “Are you okay?”
“I didn’t want to hurt him,” the girl sobbed. “Why wouldn’t he let go? I didn’t want to hurt him!”
“I know, I know,” Ororo said, wrapping her up in her arms.
She could hear Hank talking to Logan too. She couldn’t hear the words, but the calming tone seemed to be having an effect. Either that, or he had finally worn himself out. Hank led him out of the room, then called, “Come along, children.” The other students filed out, casting glances back at Ororo and Rogue.
“Will he be okay?” Rogue whispered.
Physically, Ororo was sure he would be. He hadn’t knocked himself unconscious this time, and he would heal quickly. Mentally, though . . . something was clearly wrong. She had hoped if she gave him time, he and the professor would be able to work through it themselves, but clearly that wasn’t working.
“I’m sure he will be,” is all she said as she smoothed Rogue’s hair back. “Now, let me see your wound.” She pulled her bloody jacket away and saw that, though still covered in blood, the spot had completely closed up. There was still too much blood to see if it had scarred. “Alright, let’s get you upstairs, and then you need to take a nice, long shower.” Rogue nodded, and Ororo helped her up.
She took Rogue up to her room, helped her find clean clothes, and sat outside the bathroom as she showered in case there were any problems. She encouraged Rogue to rest and left her to take a nap. Then she set off to find Logan.
She stopped at his room on her way downstairs to see if he was there and found Scott and Jean standing outside it.
“He shut me out,” Jean said when she saw Ororo.
That seemed a strange way to put it. “He locked the door?”
Confusion flickered across Jean’s face. “What? Oh, no I meant he shut me out of his mind.”
“I didn’t know he could do that,” Ororo said.
“Neither did I.”
Ororo stepped forward and knocked on the door. “Logan, we need to talk.” He said nothing, but she could hear him moving around inside. “I know you’re in there. Let me in.”
“No.”
She ground her teeth. Whatever this was had gone on long enough.
“Well, any other ideas?” Scott asked.
“Yeah.” Ororo plucked a couple bobby pins out of Jean’s hair. She hadn’t carried lock picks on her in years, but thankfully this type of lock didn’t require normal picks. She bent both pins open, slid one into the large keyhole, and pushed up the lever inside. Then she slid the other one in and twisted it until the lock clicked open. She tossed both pins back to Jean and opened the door.
“What the hell, Storm?” Logan leapt up from his chair by the window. “You breaking into people’s rooms now?”
“When something is clearly wrong with my friends, my teammates, and they won’t let me help them? Yes.”
He waved his hand and fell back in the chair. “Don’t give me that speech about ‘being a team’. I’ve heard it plenty.”
“Well you’re not acting like it. What were you trying to do down there? Get yourself killed?”
He flinched back, and his breathing became shallower. His eyes grew unfocused, and for a moment, she was afraid he could hear her again. “That’s–that’s not what happened.”
“Then what did happen, Logan? We can’t help you unless you tell us what’s wrong.”
“You can’t help anyway. This is something I have to figure out myself.”
“And clearly that’s working.”
He shot to his feet. “Get out!”
Light flashed through the window, then thunder rolled. Ororo hadn’t realized just how much she had let go.
“Get out,” Logan said again, pointing to the door. He hadn’t reacted at all to the shift in weather. She glared, but did as he asked, sending a gust of wind behind her to slam the door shut.