NOTE: Okay, here it is. The third installation of my little trilogy of perspectives from the scene with Rogue and Logan on the train in X1. Are you psyched or what? You are, aren't you? Oh, you are. I can *tell*.

--

Here's something about me that nobody else knows: I have a memory. A shred, a whisper. A fragment of a much larger picture. It's not much, really, but it's something, and for me it's huge. It's all I have in the world.

I'm lying in a bed by far too big for me, bundled in clothes and quilts and sheets. It's twilight, the sun milky and copper as it sinks below the hills. I'm small, slender and pale; a young child swallowed up by all my blankets. There's a window to my left, an endless expanse of trees and mountains. I remember the scent of sweet syrup and freshly washed linens, of acorns split open after falling high up from the trees above and melted candle wax. There's no lights, only the flicker of orange flame, and no warmth. There's a dog stretched out in front of the fire panting, huge and hulking. It's a long, long time ago. Of that I'm certain.

I'm aware of wanting somebody. I'm so terribly, horribly alone. I'm shivering through the thick hand-sewn quilt and flannel pajamas. I need someone to hold me. And finally, an answer to my prayers -- a woman I know instantly as my Mama, gliding over to me like a poem. She's got a robe on that slides against her like silk, a bright ruby red. She sits at the edge of my bed and presses her hand to my forehead, impossibly cool.

She speaks to me, but I don't remember what she says. Her voice is low and soft and wonderfully comforting. She wraps me in her arms and holds me safe and small.

Then, an infinity later, she tilts up my chin with her icy cold hands and smiles at me, all the good and beautiful things in the world. "You'll be well by tomorrow morning, won't you, baby boy?"

I smile back. My body already feels better, the thrum and pulse of her love flowing through me like a tonic. "Yes."

"You promise?"

I laugh hoarsely, wriggle in delight as she squeezes me and rocks me back and forth. "Yeah. Yeah, I promise."

The scene fades, grows imprecise and I try so fucking hard to focus in on it, hone it. I grip it so tight it explodes out of my consciousness like squeezing a bar of soap. Shit. Shit. Lost it again.

And with a jolt the scents change, grow sharper and more putrid. People, lots of them. Men and women and little ones. Piss and blood and vomit. Bags, clothes, cell phones, sandwiches. Spilled coca-colas. Salty tears.

My arms are longer, lightly haired, webbed with thin snake-trail veins. My body is large and lean and powerful, and I feel vitally alive; infallible, untouchable.

This time, I recall, it's me doing the saving.

She's solid and warm and soft, and I can't even remember the last time somebody's rested against me. "Come on," I murmur, not even aware of whatever it is I plan on saying, not aware of what I have been saying the last minute and a half. "I'll take care of you."

The thing that really compels me about this girl is the fact that she trusted me -- that after she saw the growling and the claws and the Wolverine in all his wild, beastly glory, she still wasn't afraid. And she wasn't some gnarly thing, either, some hardened warrior who's used to running into assholes; no, she was just a sweet young kid who knew a good guy when she saw one. Or at least that's what I tell myself.

I wanna protect her, which is something I've never felt before in my life. I wanna look after her. I want her to bury herself against me and let me bring her home. More than anything, I want to take her away from all the badness in the world. Because she trusts me to do that.

Christ, she trusts me.

The girl looks up at me with the sweetest, brownest eyes I've ever seen. Her face is vision, her presence beside me is a fucking religious experience. That trust, that adoration, is coming offa her so thick I can smell it. "You promise?"

And there's a surge, a strength; my mama's face, clearer than it's ever been. The impulse to grab at it, though, to cling to it, is gone: because suddenly that's not all I have in the world, because suddenly my mama's not the only person I've ever loved.

"Yeah. Yeah, I promise."

FIN.