I don't own Wolverine or any of the X-Men characters referenced, and I make no money from this.

This is also my very first X-Men fanfic. I'm bad at sticking to canon so this story follows no established timeline and includes at least one outside character that I know of so far. You've been warned. Beyond that, I do love reviews. :)

Enjoy!

psyche b

1. Reunion Behaviors

Claire sat in front of the crackling fire, her hands wrapped around a mug of hot tea. Her knitting was in a basket next to the sofa. The pair of long wool socks she'd started a few weeks ago was nearly done now, and not a moment too soon. The weather was starting to turn cold, and there was still so much to do before winter set in.

She had most of the apples to bring in, all of the late vegetables, not to mention preserving the things that wouldn't keep on their own. Thankfully, her uncle had managed to get two deer before he died, and that was likely enough meat to get her through the winter, but she wanted to make some time to go out on her own and see if she could get another one, or maybe one of the wild pigs she'd seen signs of recently.

She wanted to check the wind turbines and solar panels too. They didn't provide enough to power all the conveniences, but they did keep food cold and give her a decent amount of hot water. The whole family had called the government-fearing old man a crank, but that was before the H5N1 strain of avian flu mutated into an airborne pathogen with a nearly perfect kill rate. After, she was the whole family.

She glanced at the softly ticking mantle clock. It was close to ten. She wasn't doing herself any good just sitting there. She finished the tea, got up and wound the clock, banked the fire and went to bed.

He watched the dim light flicker out in the cabin. From his vantage point in the woods he couldn't see anyone moving around inside, but he knew someone was there. He had been watching the small farm for several days, considering his next move. Whoever lived there was alone. The wind had been blowing in the wrong direction for him to tell if that person was male or female from scent, and the clothing wasn't giving him any clues either. The few survivors he'd seen wore whatever they could get their hands on, hell so did he. The way the person moved, his guess was that it was a woman.

Satisfied that there wasn't going to be any more movement, he crawled into the small shelter he had built of pine boughs. A fire would have been noticed by whoever lived in the house. He wanted the element of surprise on his side. Not that it mattered much, one person – male or female – wasn't a match for him. The possibility that there might be a lone woman in the house was interesting. It'd been six months since he'd even seen a woman, much less been close to one. Thinking about that wouldn't do him any good right now, though. He wanted at least another day to plan.

She spent most of the day harvesting the late vegetables from the large garden. Her goal was to gather enough of each to get her through the winter. She could go back and get the rest when that was taken care of.

At lunch, she put together a stew of venison, potatoes, carrots, onions and parsnips. It would cook all day and be ready for dinner. She made sure to make enough that it would last a few days. She went back out into the garden. By late afternoon she had put a good dent in her goal, and she decided that the rest could wait until the morning. She went over to the woodpile as she did every day in the late afternoon.

This was something else that she would miss about her uncle. Even though he was in his eighties, he'd hauled enough wood from the surrounding forest to last through the winter and then some. That was something else she was going to have to find time to do herself. Right now she had to focus on splitting and stacking what she had. It was a daily chore that she hadn't gotten appreciably better at in all the weeks she'd been doing it. She picked up the ax, selected a likely length of wood, and got to it.

He was pretty sure that this was a woman, even if he couldn't see her face because of the vantage point and the hat she wore. The way she moved and the way she swung the ax told him so. Clearly it was a chore she wasn't very good at. A little smile touched his lips for the first time in...well...he didn't know how long. Half the time the feral in him was in control. The other half of the time, his human side missed the way the animal distanced him from the pain of losing everyone who had ever meant anything to him. Again.

He took a silent step forward. The ax paused, so did he. He knew that she hadn't heard him, she couldn't have. The ax came down again, and then again in a similar arrhythmic pattern as before, but there was a definite tension about her that hadn't been there before. Something about that tugged at a memory. He took one more step forward.

This time her head snapped up. He knew she couldn't see him, but her eyes were on his location and they didn't waiver. The only person he knew could do that was dead, at least he assumed that she was. The wind changed direction and he caught her scent for the first time. Definitely female saturated in fear, but there was a familiar tone underneath all that.

"Logan?" She called. She was holding the ax in front of her like a barrier. It couldn't be who he thought it was. It was impossible, wasn't it?

"There's someone there! Come out!" Her voice cracked from fear and disuse. He started down the hillside, not taking the trouble to be silent.

It couldn't be. She was sure that it couldn't be. Nothing else activated her mutation like his adamantium, though. She hadn't even thought about her mutation in months. She knew even before her arrival at Xavier's how it worked. Because of how matter is constructed, everything in the world vibrates, and she was able to sense and reproduce those vibrations. The more refined the material, the more intense the sensation it produced in her head.

The world here was considerably quieter than the mansion had been. Now, the background was there, but that's all it was. She'd been able to forget about the rest almost completely. She listened to whoever it was coming down the hillside. The sensation at the base of her skull only grew stronger. It had to be him, or someone else with adamantium layered onto his or her skeleton. That was a truly terrifying thought. She tightened her grip on the ax.

It seemed to take ages for him to get to the bottom of the hill. The glimpses she caught through the trees gave her the impression of a male, but not much detail. She didn't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. She took off the wide-brimmed hat she was wearing and let it fall to the ground. She gripped the ax tighter. Finally he broke through the trees.

His hair was shaggier than she remembered and his shoulders seemed broader, but this was the same man. Her head was spinning with the improbability of it all, she held onto the ax tighter, as if it were her stability in the storm of emotions that threatened to consume her. He advanced slowly, warily.

"Put the ax down, Claire." The tone of his voice left little room for argument. Claire found that she couldn't make herself let go.

"I'm afraid I'm hallucinating." Her eyes were locked on his, little tremors chased down her spine.

"Yer not. Put it down." He moved closer and gripped the ax handle between her hands. She made herself let go. He took it from her and leaned it up against the block.

Claire hadn't realized she'd been fighting tears until they started to fall. He pulled her close in an unyielding embrace. She hesitated only a moment before wrapping her arms around him, need for closeness overcoming her usual reticence.

"I thought you were-"

"Take more'n a bug to get rid of me." His cheek rested against the top of her head. "Looks like it wasn't enough to get rid of you either." She felt him smile a little against her head. Claire laughed softly.

"I always was a survivor," her voice cracked. His arms tightened around her.

"I know, Darlin'. I know."

She wasn't sure how long they stood there, but eventually, she realized that the light was fading. "Come inside." She murmured, then took a hesitant step back from him. Claire stooped to pick up her hat and stacked the few pieces of wood she'd managed to split. "I have a goat that's probably wondering what happened to me."

"I have to get some stuff," he said. Claire looked up into his eyes, realization dawning. She forgot about the wood.

"You've been watching me, haven't you?"

"Claire-"

"Dammit, Logan-"

"Now just hold on a minute-!"

She crossed her arms and locked her eyes on his. "Me?! You're the one that's been spying on me for God knows how long-"

"I didn't know it was you!" He shot back.

The retort Claire was already forming died on her lips. "Then why-?"

"I've met up with enough survivors to know I ain't always welcome. I like to know what I'm walkin' into."

"Sorry." Claire looked away, she used her crossed arms to still the little tremor that went through her. "No one else has come here..." She turned and walked away. "Get whatever you need. I'll be in the barn for a bit."

Claire walked away not knowing what the hell she could have been thinking, asking him to stay like that. True those hadn't been her words, but the intent was there. She hadn't really known how to deal with him at Xavier's, and then she'd had a lot of other people to act as a buffer between them. It wasn't that she disliked him. She liked him a great deal, and that wasn't a comfortable feeling for her. Claire had never met anyone who made her even consider coming out from behind the walls she had built around herself. The fact that he had was absolutely terrifying. The plaintive bleat of an anxious goat drew her attention.

"I know, Em, I'm late."

The animal whined again. Claire slipped a rope loosely around the goat's neck and led her back into the barn.

"We have a guest," she said to the animal. "And I have no idea if that's a good thing or a bad thing, and I'm talking to a goat. He's been here ten minutes I'm already losing it."

Logan made his way back up the hill quickly. Even after two and a half years she still had the same effect on him that she'd had that first night in the kitchen at Xavier's. He'd gotten back late one night expecting to find the whole place asleep, and when he'd walked in he thought that assumption was pretty much right. He'd wanted a sandwich and a beer before turning in himself, but he hadn't gotten three steps toward the kitchen when the scent of terrified female tickled his sensitive nose.

He'd advanced slowly, not knowing what he was going to find. When he'd entered the kitchen, she was sitting there eating a sectioned orange. The way she'd hugged one leg was the only physical betrayal of her fear, and that was minor enough that a casual observer could have missed it. He'd seen people who could project that icily calm image, usually they were used to being afraid all the time. Before he even knew her name his protective instincts had claimed her, but he felt that way about half the kids at the school. The rest took longer.

That didn't mean she'd made it easy to get get to know her. She'd looked young enough to be a student, so he'd tried to chase her off to bed. She'd told him that she wasn't a student, and she'd told him her name, and that was exactly it. Chuck told him she taught music, and that her mutation was some kind of big secret that she didn't want anybody to know about. Getting more information than that took weeks, but the more he got, the more he wanted.

He collected the few possessions he had and started back down the hillside, considering how order of the world as a person knows it can shift in a matter of minutes.

Claire finished milking Emily, then got her and Billy bedded down for the night. She saw Logan sitting on the porch steps as soon as she left the barn. She had no idea what to say to him, no idea how to tell him that she'd missed him, and that she'd worried about him even if that wasn't entirely logical. She certainly wasn't going to say all those things because if she did she would end up telling him that she was mad as hell at him too. She hid all that in being the good hostess instead.

"You could've gone inside." The words were more tentative than she'd hoped.

He shrugged and stood up. She let him take the small pail of milk from her, freeing her hands to open the door. "I figured you wouldn't be long."

Inside, the one large room was gloomy, except for the weak light cast by the banked fire.

"Hold on." Claire said. She stirred up the fire, knowing that at this time of day that would be enough to light up the space. "Come on in."

"How did you find this place?" He asked, looking around curiously. The small house was decidedly rustic, but there were flashes of the modern here and there. Framed photos sat on the mantle, books on every subject lined two of the four walls from floor to ceiling. She took the pail of milk from him and set it on the table.

"It was my uncle's. He built it himself when he retired. It's just the one room for living space, but there is a bathroom behind that door. The solar panels heat the water, so if you want a hot bath it's there. The windmills to the north generate enough electricity to turn part of the basement into a coldroom and another part into a walk-in freezer," Claire said. She stirred the stew and cursed herself for babbling. She tasted a bit of the gravy and tossed in a few herbs from the drying rack. She could feel him staring at her, she turned around. "What?"

One eyebrow was lifted curiously. "You have running hot water and refrigeration?"

She smiled and shrugged a little. "Uncle Jackson was...a unique individual. To him utility companies were the government and he didn't want the government in his business. So, he took things into his own hands. He lived this way for twenty years before the flu hit. In that time he upgraded the technology when he could."

"Smart guy." He glanced toward the bathroom door. "Hot bath, huh?"

She smiled a little wider. "If you like," she said. "You can see if any of my uncle's clothes will fit you too. He tended to buy things by sales, not by what fit, so you might find something. Look in that cabinet there." She nodded toward a cabinet near the bed. She turned back toward the stove again. "There are fresh towels in the cabinet in the bathroom."

Claire kept her hands busy pouring the milk into a pitcher and shedding the down vest and quilted overshirt. She hung the clothing on a peg in the small kitchen area. As soon as the bathroom door closed she allowed herself a deep breath. She pushed her left sleeve up to her elbow and the right one halfway up her forearm before washing her hands and getting the ingredients for biscuits out of the cabinets.

Thankfully she'd made those biscuits so often that she could make them in her sleep. She let her hands go through the motions while her mind wandered through a confused landscape.

Logan suppressed a deep groan as he settled into the steaming water. He decided a long time ago that hot water wasn't a necessity for survival, but it was a luxury he liked a hell of a lot. Leave it to Claire to figure out a way to have hot baths and cold food after the end of the world. He smiled a little. She had always been resourceful though, and damn secretive about how she managed half the things she did. The longer he knew her, the more he realized that her mutation was part of it, the other part was that she trusted no one.

She was still doing the thing with her sleeves too. The first time he saw her do it he thought it was just some kind of affectation of hers. The second time he noticed how she held the sleeve in place when she reached for a plate in the kitchen.

"What's wrong with yer arm?" he'd asked.

"Nothing." She hadn't looked at him when she said it, but her scent had become tangy with anxiety. She'd pulled both of her sleeves down again and that's where they stayed for the next few weeks. Hell, they probably would have stayed that way indefinitely if it hadn't been for the accident.

Even through the closed door he could hear her start to hum absently. He started to scrub through the layers of grime as he listened. The humming was one of the little things he felt the absence of after she left.

Clair checked the fire in the stove and put the biscuits in the oven. She glanced over at the only bed in the small house. While her uncle had been alive, he'd slept there and she'd slept on the sofa. After he died, the bed was hers. That was the theory anyway. Most nights she ended up waking up, wandering around and finally sleeping on the sofa anyway. Having Logan there would curtail her movements enough. She stripped the quilts and sheets off the bed and got a clean set of sheets out of the cabinet. He was a guest, the least she could do was make him comfortable.

The very idea of that irked her. Leave it to him to just show up on her doorstep sometime after the end of the world as she knew it. She tugged at the sheet angrily. The first time she'd met him, he just walked into the kitchen at Xavier's in the middle of the night. That threw her off balance before she even set eyes on him because of his adamantium. The fact that the novel sensation was attached a dangerous-looking grungy man who walked in and started pawing through the fridge hadn't eased her mind any. She spread the quilts over the bed again.

That was something she hadn't considered. She could feel the vibration of his adamantium through bathroom wall, how the hell was she going to sleep in the same room with him? Claire sighed. She took an old quilt out of the cabinet and tossed it on the end of the sofa. If she couldn't sleep he would just have to sleep in the barn. He was the only person for miles and his very presence managed to complicate her life.

Of course there were moments when she'd missed him so badly it was almost a physical ache. That upset her more than anything else. Claire set the table and took the biscuits out of the oven. She lined a bowl with a clean cloth and dumped them in, covering them again to keep the heat in. She didn't think she'd ever missed anyone quite that way.

She wouldn't allow herself to think of where it might have gone if he hadn't left.