HEARTS IN HIS HAND

"I saw you dying, with your heart in your hand."

Yukio said that to Logan many years ago, and it was a prediction. Like all of Yukio's visions of death, it came true. Logan did indeed have his actual heart in his hand as he fumbled around within his split-open chest, tearing loose a device that had been implanted inside his body. That device was negating his ability to heal.

And then Logan died. The trauma - what was done to him and what he did to himself - was simply too great.

But within seconds, his remarkable regeneration ability had returned.

And then Logan rose from the dead.

Yukio saw Logan's death in a dream. She saw him come back from the dead with her own eyes.

"Hello, Wade," Yukio said quietly.

Wade Wilson glanced up from his dinner - some unrepentantly greasy barbeque - and gave his visitor a surprised look. He wasn't used to having someone sneak up on him, but it wasn't every day that he ran into a ninja.

Wade wasn't in his red-and-black costume. Instead he was wearing jeans, sneakers, and his habitual hoody. Wade looked terrible, but then again that was how he always looked.

On the other hand, time had been kind to Yukio. She was still as lean as a sword-blade, and her triangular face was unlined. However, she'd long ago abandoned the purple-red hair-dye and black-leather Tokyo-punk clothing and boots. At the moment, she was dressed in khaki trousers, a subdued blouse, and a practical-looking pair of low-heeled shoes.

Wade noticed a few strands of silver in Yukio's hair as he tried to remember how many years had passed since he'd last seen her.

"Yukio... babe... what are you doing here?" Wade asked carefully. After Lady Mariko's death, Yukio took up a profession at which she naturally excelled. That made her one of Wade's few real competitors. She was also one of the small number of people in the world who might actually be able to kill Wade if she tried. After all, she knew a lot more about how regeneration worked than most people.

They were in Kansas City. Wade had just finished dealing with somebody who was really no loss to the world. Wade generally restricted his brand of murder-for-hire to bad-guys. That reduced the need for a moral reappraisal of his actions. From what he had heard, Yukio followed a similar policy.

"I had a dream," Yukio said simply.

Wade paused for several seconds before replying. Wade knew about Yukio's power - her ability to predict death - and the implication of what she'd just said was obvious.

"Yeah. Yeah, I guess you would."

"Is it true?" Yukio asked.

Wade made an indeterminate gesture with his hands. "He's gone."

"Where is he buried? There were trees in my dream - a forest. And a small lake. Also, mountains in the distance."

Wade nodded his head. "The Dakota Badlands. It's in the middle-of-nowhere. I didn't see any reason to move Logan's body, since he was a middle-of-nowhere kind of guy."

Yukio just looked at Wade, waiting for him to continue.

"Logan's really gone, Yukio," Wade added quietly. "This time, the dirt nap isn't just a nap. It's the real thing. Sorry."

"Take me there."

"His grave is just a pile of rocks," Wade objected. "It isn't even a particularly interesting pile of rocks."

"Take me there."

"Can I finish my dinner?"

"No."

Wade sighed, put down his fork, and got to his feet. He really didn't want to fight.

And besides, he'd always liked Yukio.

Wade was driving a van that was painted to resemble the 'Mystery Machine' from the old 'Scooby Doo' cartoons. The story of how he'd acquired that particular vehicle was complicated and involved a movie studio, HYDRA, and the Church of Scientology. Wade had long since given up trying to explain it to anyone. Nobody believed him.

Wade was pretty sure that Yukio wouldn't catch the 'Scooby Doo' reference, and he was right. Yukio climbed into the van without so much as a blink of an eye.

They left Kansas City, north-bound on Interstate 29.

"So what was the deal with you and Logan?" Wade asked. He was winding his van in and out of traffic, at a good twenty miles per hour over the speed limit. "I know you spent a lot of time together. People used to wonder about that."

"I was his bodyguard," Yukio answered distantly.

That caused Wade to smile. "When you say that, you sound crazier than me."

"That's not possible."

"Ow. That hurt, fox-face. For years after Logan came back from his little visit to Japan, you were his constant companion. So, I'll ask the question inquiring minds have always wanted to know: were you his girlfriend?"

"We were friends. I'm a girl. So, I suppose I was his girlfriend."

"Ooh! Tricky word play! Cut it out, Yukio. You know what I mean."

Yukio took her eyes off the passing scenery and gave Wade an irritable look. "If you are asking if I provided him with sex, then the answer is yes."

"That's a depressingly clinical way of putting it," Wade noted sadly. "So you two were an item? And just where the hell did Mariko fit into that?"

"My mistress - Lady Mariko Yashida - told me to keep Logan satisfied. Like any man, he would inevitably seek companionship if he didn't have it. And there would always be some woman eager to open her legs for the Wolverine. One of my tasks was to keep trollops away from him."

A mildly astounded look appeared on what was left of Wade's face. "Wait a minute... are you saying that Logan's noble, filthy-rich, lady-friend from Tokyo ordered you to do the wild-thing with Logan?"

"Yes. And there was a great deal of wild-thinging."

"That's weird. And kind of hot."

"It was a practical solution to an obvious problem."

"What did you think about it?" Wake asked.

Yukio didn't answer at first. A good minute passed before she finally replied.

"Logan was good to me. I enjoyed being with him," she finally said.

Wade gave Yukio a long look. "Did you fall in love with him?"

"No."

"So when you and Logan were bumping uglies, you just closed your eyes and thought about Japan?"

A tiny smile crossed Yukio's lips. "Of course not. Why do you Americans always think that sex must be about love?"

Wade laughed. "Okay, for one thing, I'm Canadian, not American. And we - both Canadians and those arch-demons from the hellish south - really don't believe that."

"I couldn't allow myself to care too much for Logan."

"Why?"

"He was Mariko's beloved."

Wade frowned. "What about after Mariko died?"

Something infinitely sad entered Yukio's eyes. "He was still Mariko's beloved."

By sunset, they were on the outskirts of Saint Joseph. It was summer, so the days were long.

"How did Logan die?" Yukio asked after a long silence.

"I wasn't there," Wade said.

"What have you heard?"

Wade grimaced. "It was bad. Some remnant of fucking Weapon X was taken over by a science-dweeb who used to work for the original. His name was Alexander Rice. He re-branded Weapon X as a biological research company called Transigen, but that was just a cover for getting back into the super-soldier business. And it involved a scheme to eliminate the mutant population. Rice wanted to control the supply."

Obviously surprised, Yukio shook her head. "I've heard nothing of either Transigen or this Rice person."

"I'm not surprised. So tell me, how's the mutant situation in Japan?"

By then, Yukio was staring at Wade. "The same as everywhere. No new mutants have been born for years. Many of the existing ones are weakened or ill. We seem to be dying out."

Wade smiled bitterly. "That's Rice's doing. He came up with a way of contaminating the food supply. There's something in your Ramen - and just about everything else - that specifically targets us. It looks like every government in the world is using the same trick. It's enough to make a man consider voting Libertarian."

Yukio wasn't sure if she could believe what she was hearing. "And what did Logan do?"

"He was like the rest of us - he didn't have a fucking clue what was going on. None of us did. A lot of the X-Men died when... uh... they were killed in an accident, so they were out of the picture. After that, Logan got wrapped up in taking care of Professor Xavier, who'd gone bonkers and was only barely in control. That was a big distraction. Honestly, I don't know if Logan ever really figured out what was happening, but he did eventually get crosswise with Transigen and Rice."

"And?"

Wade's smile became more feral. "And then a lot of walking-talking assholes died. That included Rice."

Then Wade's smile faded away. "But Rice was making his own mutants. That included a duplicate of Logan. It was a clone, and Rice raised it to be a fucking monster. It killed Logan."

Yukio suddenly looked away.

"What's wrong?" Wade asked.

Yukio was staring straight ahead, her face impassive.

"I saw that," she said softly. "It was a part of my vision. There were two Logans. One was old and sick. The other was young and vicious. I didn't understand that until now."

Wade shrugged disgustedly. "And they say dreams don't come true..."

Yukio gave Wade a sharp look. "The other Logan... the imitation. What happened to it?"

"It's dead. I found the body and burned it until it was just a metal skeleton. Then I tossed the bones into a tub of sulfuric acid to make sure no flesh was left. After that, I buried the bones in different spots scattered across four states. That motherfucker is not coming back."

More miles passed. By the time they drove past the Hamburg exit, it was full evening and a sliver of a moon was poking over the horizon.

Then Yukio spoke again. "What about the rest of Weapon X? Rice is dead, but the organization must still exist."

"There's a little less of it every day," Wade responded dryly.

Yukio cocked her head at Wade, but said nothing.

"I got their chief financial officer back in Kansas City," Wade explained. "Most of their top researchers were in Montreal and New York. The director of operations and the company vice presidents were in Chicago. The board of directors are next, but they're scattered all over the world. It looks like I'll be picking up a lot of frequent-flyer miles."

Yukio raised an eyebrow. That was an impressive amount of murder in a short period of time.

"Who's helping you?" Yukio asked.

"Some civic-minded people who think that maybe attempted genocide should have a stiff price tag."

"Are any of the X-Men involved?"

Wade gave Yukio a sideways glance. "They aren't too many of them around any more. And besides, this isn't exactly an X-Men sort of thing. There are too many double-taps to the back of the head. They were never into that sort of thing."

Yukio shook her head. "You don't have the resources to track down the senior hierarchy and key employees of a major corporation. You also know details about what happened to Logan and why - even though you weren't there. Who's helping you, Wade?"

Wade considered what Yukio had said. Then he let out a sigh. "Shit. You'll figure it out eventually. It's Marie."

"Rogue?" Yukio said in obvious surprise. "She's involved?"

Wade nodded. "She has some contacts - mostly with an organization of mutant and human do-gooders. Some of them are in the U.S. and Canadian governments. Others are scientific and medical types. A few are just people who're addicted to doing what they figure is the right thing. They got us started on tracking down Transigen, but I'm pretty sure they don't know where we're going with that. They probably wouldn't approve."

"What is Marie's part in this?" Yukio asked slowly. She obviously didn't like the idea that Marie was killing people.

Wade laughed. "She sometimes gets into their heads before I finish them. That's how we've been tracking down the big-shots in Transigen. They all knew each other."

"Is there anyone else?" Yukio asked

"Well... she's not exactly involved, but there is someone else. She's Logan's daughter. Her name's Laura."

Wade expected an outburst after he mentioned Laura.

It didn't happen. Instead, Yukio just went silent again.

That lasted about thirty miles.

"This Laura is a little girl?" Yukio eventually asked. "About ten years old and with dark hair?"

"Yep. She's gonna be a looker when she grows up. Psycho-lunatic-crazy, but a looker. You saw her in your vision?"

"Yes. She doesn't look like Logan. I didn't recognize her."

Wade considered that for a moment. "So... in your vision, what was she doing?"

Yukio was still looking at the road and her face was expressionless.

"She was holding Logan's hand," Yukio finally said. "She was his heart."

Wade looked puzzled. He obviously didn't understand what Yukio was trying to say.

"My visions are not always clear," Yukio finished distantly, "but they seem to have a certain wisdom of their own."

"Who's Laura's mother?" Yukio asked just before they got to Omaha. Her voice was completely casual.

Wade suddenly realized that he was standing on the edge of a rather tall cliff.

"Laura is some kind of clone - part Logan's DNA and part from someone else," Wade responded carefully. "A Mexican girl carried Laura, but she's probably dead since Transigen isn't really big on witnesses. A nurse helped Laura and a bunch of other kids break out of the facility where they were locked. Laura was close to the nurse, but she also ended up dead. Laura's mother is a wide open question, but it always seems to end with a corpse. I make a point of remembering that every time some asshole from Transigen is begging me not to kill them."

Wade took a moment to examine Yukio's profile. "A lot of what we know about what happened to Logan and the Professor comes from Laura. She was with them when they were on the run from Mexico to Canada. That was a real blood-bath."

"The Professor... is he alive?"

Wade just shook his head.

Yukio sighed. "You said they were running to Canada. Why Canada? That has always been Weapon X's stronghold."

Wade nodded. "That bugged me, too. When I finally ran into Marie, she didn't like the sound of it. Laura told us that a voice on a radio had promised the kids sanctuary."

Yukio muttered a short word in Japanese that Wade made a mental note to learn. It sounded entertaining and useful.

"Marie and I checked it out," Wade continued. "The folks waiting for the kids on the Canadian side of the border were decent, caring, and honest people. You know - morons. They went to the government and were told that the kids would be accepted without a hitch. It never occurred to them to wonder why Canada was also running out of mutants. It turns out that the Canadian government was in on the plan to get rid of inconvenient people like us."

"Japan, Canada, the United States... is there any country that isn't a part of it?"

Wade pursed his lips thoughtfully. "Maybe Luxemburg. The jury's still out on them."

Yukio sighed in exasperation. "So what did you and Marie do?"

"We violently extracted the rug-rats. Right now, they're with families who're hiding them. Marie used some of the Professor's old connections to set that up."

"What about Laura?"

"She's with Marie."

"Where are they?"

"Marie has a cabin about fifty miles from where Logan died. That's where they're hiding out right now. You wanna talk to them?"

Yukio nodded.

Omaha came and went. It was after midnight by the time they passed Sioux City.

Wade didn't seem tired. That reminded Yukio of Logan. When he had to, Logan could go incredible lengths of time without sleeping.

Yukio settled back, closed her eyes, and drifted off.

Wade listened to her soft breathing, barely audible over the noise of the road. Not too many people in the world would have been comfortable going to sleep with Wade Wilson within arm's reach. Wade was oddly pleased that Yukio didn't consider that to be a problem.

After an hour or so - they were nearing Sioux Falls - Yukio woke up. There were tears trailing down her face. Yukio quickly wiped them away.

"Hey, you okay?" Wade asked awkwardly.

Yukio rubbed her eyes. "There were things I should have told Logan. I never did. I thought... I thought I had a duty."

"To Mariko?" Wade asked.

"Yes."

"Like how you couldn't fall in love with Logan?"

"Among other things, yes. And I couldn't let him fall in love with me."

Wade thought about that. "Is that why you left him?"

Yukio didn't reply. Wade decided not to pursue the subject.

Just before dawn, they reached Fargo. Then they turned off Interstate 29 and proceeded west on Interstate 94.

"How long?" Yukio asked.

Wade didn't hesitate. "Maybe five more hours on the Interstate. Another couple of hours on local roads. Then some hiking. Are you hungry?"

"No."

"Do you want to see Logan's grave first? Or do you want to stop and see Marie?"

"The grave first."

Then, after a moment, Yukio added, "Has Laura hurt anyone yet?"

Wade managed not to laugh out loud. "She killed more than a few Transigen guys, but I'd say that they had it coming."

Yukio pursed her lips, and then nodded slowly.

Wade frowned. "Y'know, you seem pretty comfortable with the idea that Laura is so dangerous."

Yukio actually snorted. "She's Logan's daughter. And she was raised by uncaring monsters. What else would she be? I just hope we can help her."

Wade noticed the 'we', but didn't say anything.

They had to stop for gas, so they had a meal just before they got to Bismark. Wade ate like a horse. Yukio ate half of a grilled-cheese sandwich and maybe a half-dozen fries.

"You gonna finish that?" Wade asked, pointing at Yukio's meal.

Yukio unhesitatingly pushed the plate over to Wade.

"We aren't letting Laura do any more killing," Wade said just before he took a bite out of the sandwich.

"Of course not," Yukio replied.

Wade looked at Yukio thoughtfully, tapping the remnants of the sandwich on the plate as he chewed and swallowed.

Then he spoke again. "I mean... Laura is a real piece of work. She and Logan did a fuck-ton of killing when they were on the run. Transigen had some contractor-type douchebags and a pro named Pierce chasing them. Between them, Logan and Laura wiped out dozens of those pricks. And Laura might have killed more of them than Logan. And she was the one who killed Logan's clone. She blew half of his skull off with an adamantium bullet."

Yukio just nodded.

Wade sighed and continued. "We're keeping Laura away from the wet-work. But you gotta understand..."

"She's incredibly dangerous," Yukio interrupted. "You don't want me underestimating her. And you don't want me to think that you and Marie are using her as a weapon."

Wade nodded.

"I understand," Yukio said. "I understand more than you might think."

They got off the Interstate at Bismark. Then they took a two-lane highway towards Minot.

At Minot, they turned to the northwest, eventually skirting past Minot Air Force Base. Within an hour or so they turned off the paved roads and began following a series of old trails. Yukio was a little surprised at how well Wade's eccentric van was able to handle the rough terrain.

Eventually, the trails became so rough that they could go no further. Wade got out of the van and squinted up at the sky.

"We've got maybe an hour of hiking," he said, "but we should be able to get there before sundown."

Yukio reached into the back of the van and grabbed a pair of canteens. She'd made a point of making sure they were full when they stopped previously. Then she tossed one of the canteens towards Wade.

Wade caught the canteen in midair. Then he opened up the back of the van and pulled out some load-bearing gear, an assault rifle, and a pair of carbon-black katanas in crossed back-sheaths.

Yukio pulled a less high-tech, but much older, katana out of a sports bag. She slung it over her shoulder.

They began working their way uphill.

The grave was undisturbed, but the cross had been knocked down again. Wade carefully reset it. Not for the first time, he considered getting something more permanent, but somehow that just didn't seem right for Logan.

Yukio knelt next to the crude grave for some time. She didn't cry and she didn't appear to be praying. She just seemed to contemplate the piled-up stones.

"I'm surprised the animals haven't got to his body," she eventually said to Wade. Her voice had that distant quality that had been worrying Wade ever since they'd met in Kansas City.

"That bugged me too," Wade replied. "But Logan was dying of heavy metal poisoning - since his healing factor was shot, his body couldn't deal with the adamantium covering his bones. I figure the local critters don't like the smell."

Yukio nodded.

"Y'know, that's just like Logan," Wade added after a brief pause. "Even dead, he manages to be a disagreeable bastard."

Yukio didn't react to Wade's words. Instead, she pulled a small photograph out of a jacket pocket. It was a small reproduction of a full formal portrait of Lady Mariko Yashida, and it was sealed in a coat of plastic.

Yukio shifted some of the rocks covering what was left of Logan, tucked the picture into a cavity, and then replaced the rocks. After that, she climbed to her feet.

"I'm finished," she told Wade.

"You came a long way just for that," Wade observed.

"It had to be done."

It was dark by the time they got back to the van. By unspoken agreement, they camped for the night.

The next day, they visited Marie. She was living in a small cabin on the edge of a state park. The property was abandoned until Marie bought it. The cabin had needed repairs when Marie moved in, but she was handy enough with tools to deal with the basics. The cabin was looking better every time Wade stopped by.

Wade sat in the van, uncomfortable and not really sure why, as Marie and Yukio stood on the front porch and hugged fiercely. They obviously knew each other.

Marie was also aging gracefully - Wade wondered if that was a characteristic of at least some mutants. She had a lot more gray in her hair than Yukio, but the crow's feet at the corners of her mouth and eyes were actually more than a little charming. Wade didn't allow himself to think 'MILF' when he was around Marie, but he had to admit that it applied.

Wade stayed in the van as Marie and Yukio talked. He had the impression that whatever they were saying was private, and he didn't want to intrude.

Eventually, Laura wandered back from one her long rambles. She was given to roaming the local wilderness - sometimes for as much as a day or two. Marie figured she was reacting to so many years locked up in Transigen's Mexico facility. Wade thought she was patrolling her territory.

"Hey, kid," Wade said with a wide grin as he got out of the van. "How's North Dakota's cutest little apex predator?"

Laura remained calm as Wade tousled her hair. She liked him.

Laura was as silent as usual. And her gaze was disturbingly unblinking as she examined this newcomer into her life.

"Laura, this is Yukio. She was a friend of your father," Marie told Laura.

"Hello," Yukio said to Laura.

"Hi," Laura responded. She had a trace of a soft accent that was discernable even in that single word.

"Yukio and I have been talking," Marie continued. "How would you like to go to Japan? There's someone there we think you should meet."

Laura considered that for a moment.

"I like it here," she replied seriously.

"You can come back if you like," Yukio said reassuringly.

"Sugar, nobody is going to make you to do anything," Marie added softly. "But I really think you should go with Yukio."

Then Marie glanced at Wade. "And Wade will be with you."

Wade gave Marie a long look.

"You have a target in Tokyo - remember?" Marie reminded him.

Wade blinked in surprise, and then eagerly nodded. "Oh, yeah! Sure, Laura, I'll go with you. I like working vacations."

"Okay," Laura finally said. "I can help Wade."

Laura apparently hadn't inherited Logan's hatred of flying. She was fascinated by the flight across the Pacific. She also thought that Tokyo was amazing.

Yukio had a tiny apartment on the outskirts of Tokyo. It was unpretentious, but the neighborhood was up-scale.

Wade was standing in the hallway of the apartment building, next to Laura and Yukio, holding their baggage. He was staring at the girl who had just opened the door to greet them.

"Laura, I'd like you to meet Amiko," Yukio said as she stood next to Amiko and put an arm around her shoulders.

Amiko was about Laura's age, but a little taller and with broader shoulders. Like Laura, she was mixed-race. But just as you could see Mexico in Laura's features, you could see Japan in Amiko's.

However, Amiko resembled her father a lot more than Laura did.

"Amiko... Laura... you are sisters. You have the same father," Yukio continued.

Both girls wordlessly stared at each other as their worlds suddenly changed. They were obviously in shock.

Wade wasn't a family kind of person. So he made a hasty excuse, dropped the luggage he was carrying, and fled the scene in their rented car.

Over the next couple of days, Wade saw the sights, tried the local food, experimented with Tokyo nightlife, and killed a member of Transigen's board of directors. One nice thing about Yukio's big surprise: Laura was so amazed to discover that she had a sister that she forgot to insist on coming along with Wade.

Eventually, Wade's phone rang. He picked it up, saw that the call was from Yukio, and winced. However, he still put the phone to his ear.

"Hey, Yukio! How's it going!" he asked brightly.

Wade was in one of the less presentable parts of downtown Tokyo. In fact, he was in a massage parlor - murdering the rich, powerful, and conscienceless always made him horny. The Japanese-Korean masseuse who had her face in Wade's lap made an impatient noise. She hated it when customers took calls while she was doing her job.

"Where are you, Wade?" Yukio asked.

"In an art museum. I'm doing something educational and culturally sensitive."

"Sure," Yukio replied skeptically. "Stop hiding from us and come to dinner."

Wade considered his options, and then decided to tell the truth. "Look, Yukio, I really don't fit into your family reunion."

"Laura is showing Amiko how to make Mexican food."

Wade laughed into his phone. "Laura can burn water. You'll need a lot more than that to get me over to your place."

"Just a moment," Yukio said. Then there was a rustling and clicking sound.

"Hi, Wade," Laura said into his phone.

Wade closed his eyes for a long moment. Then he opened them again. Given the circumstance of what the masseuse was currently doing to him, talking to Laura was so wildly inappropriate that it bothered even him.

"Hey, kid. How's it going?" Wade asked as he tried to think of a fast way to end the conversation.

"Not well. I'm not a very good cook. Could you come help?"

She's trying to manipulate me and there's no way I'm falling for that, Wade thought. I'm too old, clever, cold, and heartless. I am a rock. I am an island.

"I'll see you in a little while," Wade heard himself say.

Once Laura had hung up, Wade stared at the phone in his hand.

"Well... fuck," he muttered.

The masseuse could speak some English. She interpreted that as a request and quickly shifted positions.

Yukio greeted Wade at the door of her apartment with an almost-full glass of whiskey. Wade suspected it was an apology from a woman who wasn't good at apologies and accepted the drink. That was when Wade learned that the Japanese actually made pretty good whiskey.

Amiko and Yukio poked their heads out of the apartment's tiny kitchen. They were both splattered with what looked like refried beans - it was even in their hair. Wade stared at them as he tried to imagine a culinary catastrophe that could have produced that kind of result.

"Help," Laura said urgently. Amiko nodded her head in earnest agreement.

"Chef Deadpool is here and in charge," Wade announced grandly. The girls looked relieved. Yukio was trying not to smile.

Finishing his whiskey, Wade stalked into the kitchen. Inside, he winced at the disaster. Then he handed his empty glass to Laura.

"Take a shower, little minions," Wade growled as he gingerly poked at a bubbling mass that was extruding from a scorched pot. "And then fetch me more whiskey. A lot more whiskey."

The girls bolted from the kitchen.

Dinner turned out to be surprisingly good.

It was just after ten. The girls were asleep on the apartment's small couch, tangled up in a jumble of limbs that seemed too long for their bodies, and a wild mixture of clothing themed around unicorns, rainbows, and 'Hello Kitty'.

Wade and Yukio were killing the whiskey bottle. It was dying a slow, but graceful, death.

"You left Logan after he got you pregnant?" Wade eventually asked Yukio.

Yukio nodded.

"He never knew about Amiko?" Wade continued.

Yukio nodded again.

Wade couldn't think of anything else to say that didn't have a very good chance of being interpreted as a mortal insult, so he did something that was pretty difficult for him. He shut up.

But Yukio desperately needed to say something.

"That was a mistake," she told Wade. She was gazing deep into her whiskey glass. "He should have known about Amiko. And I should have told Logan how I felt about him."

"But you figured you had to be responsible," Wade said with a shrug.

"Yes, but I should have understood where responsibility ended."

They were back from Japan. Amiko was visiting Marie and Laura, and was absolutely thrilled with the sheer amount of territory she would have the opportunity to explore.

Amiko was interested in paleontology and Laura was going to show her a fossil bed. She and Laura took off right after sunrise, chattering in a hodgepodge mixture of English, Spanish, and Japanese as they headed towards a distant ridge-line.

"They're inventing a new language," Wade told Marie. "I say we call it Enspanese."

Marie smiled in response. She and Yukio had agreed to let the two girls take turns living in Japan and America. That would present some logistical problems, but Wade was pretty sure it would be good for both girls.

Marie kissed Wade's cheek just before he left the cabin. There was somebody he had to see in Paris.

"Wade, you're a better man than you like to admit," Marie said.

Wade shook his head wearily. "Sometimes you seem pretty smart, Marie. Then you haul off and say stuff like that."

"Git," Marie said with a surprisingly strong slap to Wade's posterior.

Rubbing his ass, Wade walked out the door.

Instead of heading straight to the airport near Bismark, Wade took the long detour to Logan's grave.

Just before he got to the grave, Wade stopped and took a long and healthy piss on the scattered and gnawed bones that were all that the local scavengers had left of Dr. Alexander Rice. That was becoming a bit of a tradition.

When Wade got to Logan's grave, the cross was still up. Wade reset it just to be sure.

"Hey, Logan, how's it going?" Wade said as he sat down cross-legged.

There was no response. Whether or not Wade expected one was an interesting question.

"I just flew in from Japan," Wade added, "and, boy, are my arms tired!"

Still nothing.

"There's just no appreciation for the classics," Wade muttered as he pulled a bottle of beer out of a pouch in his load bearing gear. Holding it away from his body, he twisted off the cap. Thanks to the jostling from the hike up-slope, a jet of foam launched out of the bottle, splattering over the stones of Logan's grave.

"Okay, that's a lot of homoerotic symbolism," Wade announced thoughtfully. After critically examining the bottle, he poured another third of its contents over the grave. After that, he drained the rest in one long swallow, and then pitched the empty bottle deep into the trees. It shattered next to the remains of the others. Wade made a habit of having a drink with Logan whenever they were alone.

"You know, Logan, sometimes you really fucking piss me off," Wade continued calmly. "Yeah, your life was a train-wreck, but you always had these fantastic ladies. Me? Ever since Vanessa died, all I've got are hookers who want to be paid two or three times the normal rate. It's either that or I spend the rest of my life dating Rosy Palms."

"It really stinks how it worked out for us, huh? I lost Vanessa. You lost Jean and Mariko. Life sucks, but I guess the only alternative sucks even worse."

Then Wade smiled. "By the way, I found a great massage parlor in Tokyo. If you ever decide to get off your dead ass, give me a call and I'll get you the address. Ask for a girl named Suki. No, I'm not joking about the name. Yes, the name's pretty damn accurate."

"Of course, if you actually happen to be in Tokyo, just go ahead and visit Yukio. That woman loves you so damn much it hurts just to think about it. On the other hand, if you ever do show up at her front door, she might just drag you inside, chain you to the bed, and never let you go."

Wade took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "And it turns out that your luck with women has followed you into the ground. I met a daughter you didn't know you had. She's a great kid named Amiko. Yukio's her mom. Amiko and Laura are already BFF's. Seeing them together would make even you smile."

"Don't be mad at Yukio," Wade continued. "Yeah, she didn't tell you about Amiko. And she didn't - couldn't - tell you how she felt about you. She's just too tangled up in all of that duty and honor and fealty bullshit. Hell, she's loyal to Mariko even now. And how fucking long has Mariko been dead?"

Then Wade's eyes seemed to focus off into the distance. "Of course, Yukio isn't the only one who's had problems with telling somebody how they really feel."

After that, Wade went contemplatively silent. Then, after a moment or two, he came back to whatever passed for normal.

"Oh, and I've got something for you," Wade finally said distractedly as he plucked a pair of laminated photos from his shirt pocket. In one photo, Yukio was sitting on her apartment's couch. Amiko and Laura were on either side of her. The other photo was from a different continent, but it was otherwise pretty similar. That was a photo of Marie. She was standing on the front porch of her cabin, with the girls by her side and her arms around them.

In both pictures, Amiko was grinning. Laura had the tiniest of smiles on her face, but it was a smile.

"Here's a few more hearts for your hand," Wade said quietly. "I'll do my best to take care of them."

Shifting a few rocks from Logan's grave, Wade put the two photos next to the one of Mariko. After that, he carefully replaced the stones.

Then Wade got to his feet. "Okay, I've gotta go kill a Frenchman. I'll see you later, Logan. Say hi to Caliban and the Prof for me. And if you see Pete, tell him to fuck off. I'm still not one of the good guys, and I never will be."

That was all he had to say. Turning on his heel, Wade began the hike back to the road.

Note - Hollywood really doesn't know anything about the United States outside of Los Angeles and New York city. The coordinates of 'Eden' in the Logan movie are indeed on North Dakota's border with Canada, but the geography of the area is not even vaguely like what you see in the movie.