Title: "Dreams of a Better Tomorrow"
Author: Pirate Turner
Rating: PG
Summary: They share a dream of a better tomorrow, the dream that first saved their lives and brought them together, the true dream of the X-Men, and it is for that dream that they will stand and fight, or persist in living peacefully, until their deaths.
Warnings: Slash and Het References
Word Count: 2,596
Date Written: 12 October, 2011
Challenge: For the XDisneyDreamers LJ comm's weekly challenge
Disclaimer: Logan/Wolverine, Katheryne "Kitty" "Shadowcat" Pryde, Lockheed, Idie, Jean Grey-Summers, Scott "Cyclops" Summers, Piotr "Colossus" Rasputian, Rachel Summers, Pete Wisdom, Victor "Sabertooth" Creed, Mariko, Robert "Bobby" "Iceman" Drake, Henry "Hank" "Beast" McCoy, all other characters mentioned, Excalibur, and the X-Men are ﾩ & TM Marvel comics and Disney, neither of which are the author, and are used without permission. Oprah is ﾩ & TM herself, if any one, and is used without permission. Everything else is ﾩ & TM the author. The author makes absolutely no profit off of this work of fan fiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.
Author's Note: I wrote this fic after Schism #5, long before it was revealed that Logan was actually recruiting.

He stood, staring at his sign being erected and wondering if he was the idiot he'd been called so many times in past years. Scott had done and said everything he could to spook him away from doing this, from changing his life so drastically and completely, but Logan had never been one to back away from a challenge or to shy away into the dark with his proverbial tail tucked between his legs when he understood, though no one had dared to tell him, that he was needed.

He sucked hard on his cigar as the construction crew he'd hired, a group he himself had once worked with for a brief time, leveled the sign where once another had stood. His dark eyes focused on the name on the sign, and the woman who'd been talking to him shut her mouth and moved away. There had been an understanding between them since they'd first met. She'd been Logan's boss for a short time while he'd been on the crew, but she'd never tried to push him too hard.

Not like Scott, Charles, or Ororo. Not like the woman whose name was on the sign. They'd all pushed him too hard at various times, but he'd always risen to meet the challenge. The former three had all helped him to find a part of himself that he'd thought buried and destroyed long ago, whereas Scott had always made him want to rip his heart out of his chest which he could have done as easily as ripping apart his convertibles and making him what Jubilee had termed convertible convertibles. Logan smirked around his cigar. He should've taken the time to leave One Eye one more present before leaving Utopia.

But he hadn't. He'd blazed away from him and the horrors that he was twisting his friends' and the children's lives into in an enraged hurry, not expecting any one to follow him, but instead, just as he'd been mounting the Blackbird to leave, he'd been floored to find an entire jet full of people waiting for him. Kitty had been there, and theirs eyes had locked in instant and mutual understanding. The same grin Logan had worn there, seeing the complete trust and faith she still held in him after all these years, resurfaced on his face as he stubbed out the last bite of his cigar and lit another one.

He didn't know if he was doing the right thing. He wouldn't know for some years yet. But it was the only thing he knew to do now. The children needed some one to take care of them, some one to lead them, teach them, and protect them. Scott was no longer that person, and for some damned reason, Chuck didn't seem interested either. Ororo had her own life away from the X-Men now, and Jean . . . Jean would have done it in a heartbeat. She would have put Scott in his place long ago had she still been alive and rescued the kids herself, but she was dead and wasn't coming back this time.

That left him. Logan didn't know if he could do it. He'd never been much of one to tolerate kids, but there had been a few along the way who had been different. He'd enjoyed teaching Kitty and had found with her a bond deeper, stronger, and more understanding than any relationship he'd ever shared with any one else. She had his back always. Even when she'd been a world away and serving to protect Britain with Excalibur, he'd known that she would have come to him if ever he'd told her he needed her, and she had known he'd always do the same for her.

It had been the same with Jubilee for a while. He'd even ran across the desert one night, because he'd caught a vague whiff of her scent and had followed it to find her taken by Bastion. He'd thought nothing could have ever broken them apart, but it had. He ground the remains of his previous cigar with his boot. He'd failed her. He hadn't been there for her when she'd needed him the most, and she'd turned away from him now. She'd stayed on Utopia with Scott.

But that was her choice, he reminded himself again. He hadn't expected any one to come with him, and he hadn't really wanted them to do so. But some one had to do something. They couldn't continue letting the new mutants of today's world think that they were monsters. He thought of Idie, and pain inched into his valiant heart. He sucked hard on his cigar. He couldn't stand the fact that she not only thought herself a monster because of her powers but also believed that you had to kill to be an X-Man.

He snorted and almost bit his cigar in two. His dark eyes flashed, and the construction workers left without another word to him. They could feel the danger rising on him. It was as though there was a furious storm building on the very spot where he stood. Thunder did not sound more threatening than the growls escaping around his cigar, and a force deadlier than lightning danced in his anguished eyes.

He'd been more of a killer before he'd joined the X-Men. The X-Men weren't about killing. They weren't about trying to shove a place into the world for them and beating down any one who threatened to take that place from them. That was Scott's doing, and he'd never been the right choice to lead the X-Men.

The X-Men were about trying to forge a world of peace. They were about taking the bad and making it good. They were about learning to use their powers to better the world and learning not to be afraid, not to fear the outside world, the hatred that filled it, themselves, or their powers. They were about creating a world of peace, not force shoving their values down the rest of the world.

Charles had had it right. With him as their leader, the X-Men could have done anything, but with Scott . . . Scott was destroying their world, and Logan could stand it no longer. He walked forward and traced Jean's name with his fingers that didn't feel the cold though the wind was turning to biting with the first signs of an early frost lacing it. Jean had seen the difference. She'd known Charles was the rightful leader and Scott was just a flopping fish in the sea trying to follow their adopted father's example and failing miserably. She'd been his backbone, and had she still lived, Scott never would have screwed up so badly.

But he had, and now some one had to pick up the pieces. Some one had to save the kids before it was too late, and that some one, Logan thought, again biting down on his cigar, rather he liked it or not, was him. There was no one else left brave enough to take the reins. All the others would rather follow than be held responsible for the future and for the possible deaths that might yet occur along the way.

He was no stranger to death, and he could hear the voices of almost all those he'd ever loved and lost speaking to him now. Some urged him to go forward and told him he was doing the right thing, making the right decisions; others condemned him for being a fool and caring too much. Victor would have been on his trail by now, doing all he could to slaughter his new students, if he'd still been alive, but Kurt . . . Kurt and so many of the others who were no longer with them now would have been standing right beside him.

His fingers froze on Jean's name. His head lowered. Hers was the one voice he had not heard inside his head. She was his one silent friend, and though Scott thought Logan had loved her and had falsely accused him of being pissed off at him for having been her husband, and now dragging her name through the muck by taking Emma Frost to his bed so soon after Jeannie's death, he'd been wrong. Logan had loved Jean, but he'd never loved her like that. His heart had belonged to many over the years, all of whom had since been taken from him through one means or another, but even though he'd been infatuated with Jean when he'd first joined the X-Men, she had never owned his heart.

But she had been a friend. A good friend. One of his best ever, and he couldn't help but to wonder, especially as the new school bore her name, how she would feel about what he was doing. She would have seen the error in her husband's ways and tried to make Scott fix what he was messing up, tried to get him to be the protector he was supposed to be as the leader of the X-Men, but would he have listened to her? Would she have stayed with him if he had not? Might she have done exactly what he was doing now, reforging the old path they had once, too long ago though it had, in truth, only been in a few years traveled and giving the kids who needed it so badly a new place in the world to live safely and hope for a better tomorrow? Or would she have stayed with her husband and let him destroy everything the X-Men had ever stood for?

"She would have liked it."

His fingers arched against the letters spelling Jean's name. His teeth clenched his cigar. He'd not heard her approach, but her sudden presence neither angered nor unnerved him. She had simply taken him by surprise. Logan grinned around his cigar but did not yet turn to face her. "Ya think so?" he asked.

"I know so," Kitty said, coming up behind him and taking his hand. "Scott's screwed up, Logan. We both know that. He's not the same man he was, and he's using the X-Men to fight a war instead of living for the dream. Jean believed in that dream with all her heart, as much as we do, and she would've done anything to make it a reality." Kitty smiled sadly. "How many times did she die trying to do just that?"

Logan's smile echoed their shared sorrow. "Too many," he remarked.

"Precisely."

"Ya don't have to do this, ya know."

"Who said I have to?" she returned. "I want to." The purple dragon curled around her slender but muscular shoulders cooed his agreement. "The X-Men aren't about living on an island away from the rest of the world and battling against every other nation in the world to keep their butts afloat. We're about living with the world and fighting for a better tomorrow, making the dream that Professor Xavier began for a world full of mutants and humans living peacefully together a reality, and that's never going to happen as long as Scott's got the reins." She sighed. "I just don't get why the Professor gave up."

Logan shook his head, and a bitter sigh escaped his mouth as well. "I don't either," he told her truthfully, "but even if he's given up, we haven't given up on his dream."

"And we're not going to."

"But ya don't have to be here to fight fer it." He finally gazed over at her, and his troubled eyes met hers. "I know Petey's staying with Scott."

"Let him," Kitty said decisively. She shook her head at the surprise that flickered in his dark orbs. "He's not the same man I fell in love with."

"Are you the same woman?" he asked.

"Yes," Kitty paused, "and no."

Logan hesitated. "Ya don't have to talk about this if ya don't want to."

She shook her head. Lockheed cooed, and she gently scratched his head. "It's okay," she told him. "I've been around. I've been all over the world and galaxy at large, and still I find myself coming back here and going back to him. This is home, but I think . . . " She paused. She would have threatened any one else with killing them if they ever spoke another word about what she was fixing to say, but she didn't have to even ask him not to repeat what she was going to say. He would take her secrets with him to his grave, as she would his to her own grave.

Logan beat her to the punch. "Ya ain't sure Petey's th' one?"

Kitty sighed. "No," she admitted and shook her head again.

Logan gazed thoughtfully into her misty eyes. "Ya miss 'em, don't cha?"

She blinked innocently. "Miss who?"

"That Wisdom fella o' yers, an' Rachel, . . . " He studied her eyes and the unspoken secrets therein. " . . . an' Elf."

Her smile was a strange mixture between a sorrowful frown, a self-mocking smirk, and a smile that he understood from her so well though they hadn't spoken about any of this in a very long time. "Yeah," she admitted, "and you miss yours too."

He cocked his head to one side and raised a brow. A single claw popped out of his hand and shredded the last bite of his cigar. "An' who do ya think they are?"

She met his eyes evenly, her gaze silently daring him to tell her she was wrong. "You miss Jean, but you didn't love her. You miss Mariko, but you've moved on since then. The ones you're still missing are Ororo, Kurt, and . . . " She paused. They'd never admitted this truth even between them. " . . . Creed."

It was his turn to pause. He gazed deeply into her eyes and then looked away. He lit another cigar, took a deep puff on it, then exhaled, and watched as the smoke circled through the late afternoon sky. "He ain't dead," he commented softly. "He'll come back."

She'd heard those words many times before. She'd even told them to herself. Sometimes it was the truth, but not always, and though Sabertooth had always been one of the X-Men's worst foes, she found herself hoping that Logan was right for his heart's sake. "Maybe," she agreed.

"He will."

She nodded. "Come on," she said, taking his free hand and tugging on it. "The others are waiting to talk to you. They want to know what we're going to be doing from here on out."

He walked with her through the gates of Jean Grey's Institute For Higher Learning for the first time. "We're going to do," he said, "what the X-Men are supposed to do."

"They need to know what that really is, especially Idie."

"We're gonna do better'n telling 'em, little darlin'. We're gonna show 'em."

Bobby was waiting just inside the school grounds for them. He fell in to step just behind Logan on his other side. "That's cool," he said with a grin. "I was hoping you'd say that, and Hank'll be as thrilled to hear it as I am." He paused before admitting with a broad grin, "He's coming home."

Logan and Kitty shared his grin. They were already patching together one set of hearts. Now they just had to patch together the rest of their worlds, and together, side by side as the family they were, they would succeed in doing just that and, they hoped, finally making the dream they all shared come true.

The End