Not Until We Are Lost

From her room Diana made her way back down the hallway. She had been there before and it seemed she was but re-tracing her previous steps. Now, though, the journey was different. She now had her tiara and bracelets, and most of all her lariat. She had left the rope within her quarters lest it be misplaced. There was no use for it here, not yet. They weren't fighting any enemy that she knew and so she had left it behind. It was secure in a place where only she would know and none could find unless they knew her thoughts. A gentle secret, though really any use of the rope would have proven futile. Only she held the key to its power. As did the rest of her gear. Her tiara and bracelets were coveted pieces, they held much of the gifts she had been given. She could exist without them but she wouldn't deny the comfort of the weight of the metal against her skin.

Her feet carried her quickly past the front desk. Instead of veering through the doorway that would take her to the beach, Diana took a different path. A few steps more and she was pushing through the door that offered food and beverage for a weary traveller. She wasn't sure what a 'bar' was, other than a tool one could use to measure or fight with, but it happened upon her the definition as she moved slowly towards it.

There was a man sitting upon a stool, a gruff but good looking man that was muscular. Diana slipped on to the vacant stool next to the one the strange man occupied and instantly a smoky smell overtook her. She coughed. Her head tilted and her eyes found the source of the aroma. She had no idea what that was called. It didn't matter.

The bartender wandered up with a smile and Diana offered her attention. Instantly the man was smitten with her and it was easy to get a drink from him, a water. She knew not what the rest of those bottles held and she was convinced that knowing might not be worth the trouble.

"What is it there that you drink?" She inquired of the muscular man with the smoky smell. It was some strange liquid. A strange brown liquid that she knew no origins of.

Logan opened one eye, sunlight from the window making him squint immediately. He grumbled and rolled over, taking a moment to process that the window was different than the last window he'd seen.

The one with the jungle outside and the rumbling ground. The one with the packs of dinosaurs.

His jaw muscles jumped slightly under his skin as he sat up. His expression was surprisingly calm, considering what he'd just pieced together. Then again, disemboweling a down pillow was not going to help anything for anyone.

There was a digital alarm clock next to the bed, with a lamp and a note on fancy hotel paper. Logan opened it and read.

Apologies.
Companions may be gone...

He immediately thought of Mary, after registering that he'd been unconscious for a very, very long time, and things could have been done to him--no matter what that note said. "I'm not a fucking Transport," he muttered.

It didn't take Logan long to get out of his room and explore. He had a permanent scowl on his face when he realized that the attire in his closet was more than just a suggestion. At least they'd left him his dogtags, and his trademark white undershirt. Once he was outside, his scowl was partially hidden behind sunglasses. He asked a waitress with a cocktail tray where they were and she was dismissive. He asked a lifeguard on the beach and he was even less help, and then he said something very interesting.

Enjoy your swim. Remember the wall is for your protection! Do you have sunblock?

Logan turned away from the kid almost immediately and continued on his quest for more information about the wall.

If he knew Mary, she'd be on the other side of it. He had to find her. And if not her, then Eleni. He'd take any Stark he could find.

Anyone he knew.

Mary woke up in clothes that were a little more modern. She had pants again. That alone was cause for celebration. She also had her go box of weapons, and she'd woken up in a small cabin that she appeared to have to herself. Those were all good things. No forced roommates, a seemingly more current time period. There had to be a catch. There always was, wasn't there?

She explored he cabin first. It wasn't huge, but it was a good size for one person. And she was getting to a point where that didn't feel as lonely as it used to. She still missed Johnny, but she was capable of existing without him. The less people she had that she cared about, the less she had to lose. Right? And with her family around her, she still had so very much to lose. That might be why she refused to look for anyone at first. Instead, she took to exploring the new plane by herself.

There was a wall around the village that she'd woken up in. There were also lizard-people guarding the wall who didn't outright stop her from leaving, though they did issue some warnings. Mary mostly ignored those. Oh, she was armed all right. But she wasn't going to let fear stop her from exploring. She didn't like he idea of spending the next few weeks or months confined within a wall.

In hindsight, she probably should have heeded the warnings of the lizard-people. Instead, she'd found herself in the midst of a prehistoric-type jungle. She didn't run into any wildlife until she was too far to simply sprint for the safety of the wall. And when she did? She found herself on the business end of a pair of velociraptors who had a whole lot more teeth than she could ever have imagined. She didn't scream, but she definitely backed up and started shooting in the hopes that it would scare them off.

Logan hadn't killed anybody. Yet.

He heard the idiot who barged into Mary's room was being watched night and day by doctors. Something about them thinking he'd been hit too hard. Well, that'd teach him to knock, wouldn't it?

It'd only been a few hours since he'd arrived, and since he'd parted ways with Mary. She seemed like she wanted to be on her own to find her family. Logan didn't push. He wasn't a people person, and he liked Mary--a lot--but the idea of meeting her dad was a bit much.

Everyone gave him a wide berth, which was good, because Logan was a heartbeat away from snapping at almost every moment. He busied himself looking for these aliens that Mary mentioned, and all he succeeded in finding were people who looked like mutants.

One guy had blue skin. Things like that.

When the sun started to set, he had to think about where he'd stay, or at least hole up. The inn was out after what he'd done this morning, but there had to be somewhere else. The place wasn't that big, but there were houses, there were shops, and he'd heard somebody saying there was a new girl living above the general store so there had to be apartments, and he'd bet that was one of the "us" Mary talked about. Around the time Logan considered getting a tent together and living outside the actual town limits, he noticed there was a girl staring at him.

Actively staring. She was about ten feet away.

Logan turned his head toward her and flared his nostrils.

"What?" he asked. The word was partially growled.

When he slept, Logan always dreamt.

Normal people would probably consider his dreams nightmares. But, really... since they were simply re-enactments of actual events, playing over and over in his subconscious, there was no nightmare about it.

Sometimes, it was the wars. It was watching the bomb go off, and shielding his friend's body as the blast reached them both. Other times, it was Jean.

It was the memory of Jean, of sliding his claws into her abdomen because she asked him to. It was telling her that he would die for her, and meaning it.

It was feeling her die.

Tonight, it was that. But it was that and more.

Since he'd been... back... or caught up, as Xavier had put it, Logan had struggled with what had happened, his version of it, and what everyone said happened. His version of the past wasn't the same as theirs.

Jean was still alive. And so was Scott. And he'd seen them both, and they'd been happy, and...

And still he had the memory of feeling the muscles in her body resist his claws, then part and give up.

He was shaking his head, gently, in his sleep. And, later, when he looked back on his abduction, Logan would recognize his captors as cowards for taking him when he was asleep--because it was probably the only time they COULD take him without ending up a bloody mess. He muttered 'no' here and there, and 'no, Jean.'

When he woke up, he sighed, eyes still closed. He shifted, and the mattress under him felt strange. It poked him. Logan sniffed and recognized it for straw. He drew both eyebrows toward each other and arched one, scowling with his eyes still closed.

He also heard the sound of a horse whinnying outside. At least, he figured it was outside. He couldn't smell the horse.

But he could smell a person. He could smell soap and hair and knew it was a woman before he opened his eyes. A large part of him hoped it was Jean, but he knew it probably wasn't.

Logan opened his eyes, turned his head toward the woman in the chair--a young, pretty blond girl he didn't recognize, and felt his claws start their movement to the surface of his skin.

"Talk," he said.

He didn't raise a hand to her. Yet. But his claws were just below the surface, and itching to make her talk. "Where the Hell am I? Who're you?"