Author's Note: I don't own Wolverine or the X-men and i don't make any money from writing this...though i do enjoy it quite a bit. ;)

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Enjoy

psyche b

4. The Corners Of Her Mind

Claire could hear Emily bleating and Logan swearing the whole time she was feeding the chickens and gathering the eggs. When she walked into the barn to see how he was doing, he was on one side of the small space and the goat was on the other. They were glaring at each other. He was growling and it looked like the claws were going to come out at any second. Emily was pawing the ground and looked equally angry. Claire couldn't help but laugh.

"It ain't funny!" Logan said.

"Looks pretty funny from where I'm standing." Claire couldn't suppress all of the little giggles that threatened to erupt, but she did a reasonable job at silencing most of them.

"That thing," He jabbed his finger at Emily. "Belongs roasting over a fire."

"She just doesn't know you. Here, take the eggs inside, I'll be in after."

He shot one more withering look at the goat and took the small basket from Claire's hand. As soon as he was gone she let some of the laughter out. The indignant goat calmed down and stood still while Claire milked her.

"You're going to have to get used to him Em, at least for this winter," Claire said.

The goat shifted, seemingly unhappy with the prospect.

Claire cooked eggs and venison sausage for breakfast, and he ate with as much gusto has he had at dinner the night before. She loved to see him enjoy her cooking, but if he kept up at that rate she was going to have to get out and do some hunting before winter set in. Or he was. After a quick discussion of what needed to be done he modified the neckline of the t-shirt he had tried to wear the night before and headed outside. Claire started the laundry.

Laundry was easily one of her least favorite chores. It involved a metal washtub, a washboard and entirely too much time sweating. At least today she didn't feel like doing the laundry meant that she had to neglect other things. For some reason, that made it easier to tackle the job.

By ten, she had a line full of clothes and she was ready for a break. She got last night's stew heating and brought up some mint tea. Healing factor or not, she figured he'd probably want a break too. She prepared two glasses with ice and put a bit of fresh mint in each, just because she felt like being a little bit fancy.

By the time he'd been there a week, Logan noticed that she'd started to sing again. Today she was canning what couldn't be stored any other way and she had all the doors and windows open. He stood there, just listening to her for a few minutes. In the last few days, most of the worry had faded from her face. She still looked tired, but not half as tired as she had the first day.

He figured she was tired because she still wasn't sleeping right. He knew because the sharp change in her scent had awakened him twice. The first time, he'd simply lay there listening to her take faster, ragged breaths as she tried to calm herself down. The first time, he just listened. The second time he'd tried to comfort her. She'd laid awkwardly against his shoulder, hesitating to relax into him. She'd calmed down more quickly, and eventually fallen asleep against him. Much as he hated to see her in that state, he like having her close like that.

His own sleep had been less troubled in the last few years. With nothing interfering, he'd managed to reclaim most of his memories. He didn't want most of them, but at least when he had nightmares now he knew what they were about. That alone made them easier to deal with.

The sun was sinking lower in the sky, and the scent of roasting meat mixed with the other smells that surrounded the small farm. Any minute now she would be coming out to milk that damned goat. He still wanted to roast the irascible animal, but she liked having the milk. A moment later he saw walked across to the barn, still singing.

"You said you met other survivors," Claire said. "Are there any around here?" It was a topic she had been curious to broach ever since he arrived. After a good meal, with her back to him while she dried the dishes, she seemed to finally have enough courage to ask.

"Why?" He sounded guarded. She turned to look at him.

"I'm curious. I haven't seen anyone besides my uncle since I left Burlington. I was starting to think I was all alone in the world." That was a part of it, but the reality of managing the place alone had hit home with his arrival. Claire knew she wasn't going to be able to keep the place going without at least one more person. Through the winter, he would stay. It was the time after he left that worried her.

He seemed to be weighing his words. "You damn near are. I've seen about a hundred others."

"That's all?" She sat down at the other end of the sofa, her leg tucked under her, then picked up one of his shirts. She'd started mending the shoulder seam before dinner. For some reason, the worn flannel felt comforting in her hands.

"All I've seen." He watched her fingers move deftly for a moment before he looked at her again.

Claire tried to ignore the scrutiny. "Have you stayed mostly in this area?"

"Nah. Went back to Canada at first, then worked my way back down here."

"And you've only seen a hundred people?" Claire was shocked. She was sure that there would be more survivors than that somewhere.

He laughed. "Darlin' there are parts of Canada that were empty even before the flu."

She blushed a little. "I know, but I just thought that there would be more people somewhere."

He shook his head a little. "Not many people survived. Of the ones who survived the flu itself, a lot of them didn't make it through the first winter because most of them just didn't know how."

Claire looked down at the shirt in her hands. The needle paused. "What about mutants?"

"I've met three other ferals, and you." He wasn't looking at her. She could tell there was more to it than that, and she knew one of the reasons better than she wanted to. She started stitching the seam again.

"They blame us." It made Claire sick to her stomach to say it out loud.

"Yeah. Ferals manage better. We can live between settlements more easily than most. For those who can't," he looked into the fire, "they hide as long as they can."

The meaning behind those words sent a shiver down Claire's spine.

Claire's consciousness came swimming back slowly. Her limbs felt so heavy, for a moment she was sure she was bound to whatever she was laying on. For awhile that oppression was all she knew. She didn't know how long it took to come back to herself, but eventually, the world started to seep in. The bone deep ache registered first and silence. Next came the sticky stench that settled in the back of her throat and expanded, like a sponge filling with water. She started gasp. To force her arms and legs to work. She fought, almost as if she were fighting with a living being. Her senses were consumed by the thick miasma...

Claire was gasping for breath when she opened her eyes. Without thinking about the cold or anything else, she ran outside, drinking in the cold fresh air as if she had been drowning only minutes before. The stones stung her feet and threw her balance, but getting away from the stench and the dream was all she could think of. She kept going, ignoring everything else, until she felt a tight grip on her upper arm. She screamed and struggled against the iron grip that pulled her bodily around and shook her back into the present.

"CLAIRE!" Logan's face was etched in moonlight.

"I'm.." She looked away, trembling taking over. "I'm sorry."

She tried to move away again but he pulled her against his chest. That was the last thing Claire needed if she was going to keep the threatening tears from falling. She pushed against against him.

She whimpered. "Let me go!"

"No!"

For a moment she fought harder, knowing it was useless. She couldn't fight the sob that tore through her. Once it was out, all the tears she'd held back came out too. She put her arms around him awkwardly, unaccustomed to drawing comfort from another, and certain he was going to withdraw it at any moment. The only time he moved was to rest his cheek against the top of her head. When the storm of emotion passed, she was trembling against him.

"Sorry." Her voice was barely above a whisper. "You must be freezing." She couldn't make herself move away from him, and he still hadn't let her go.

"Not as cold as you are. C'mon." He kept his arm around her shoulders while they walked back to the house. She didn't say anything until the door was closed behind them again.

"I don't usually-" She searched for the right words. "It's weird for me to do that."

"What was it about?" He asked. He still hadn't let go of her.

"What?"

"The dream."

She shrugged and wrapped her quilt around her shoulders. "I don't know, it was just a dream. They never make any kind of sense to me." She sat on the couch with her feet drawn up under her.

"Bullshit. You've had nightmares every other night since I've been here. Dreams like that don't follow you unless there's a reason." He sat next to her. Her eyes clashed with his.

"Fine. Half my childhood was a nightmare. I'm dreaming about that." She turned away. Her voice was flat, her eyes on the embers that glowed in the fireplace.

He put his arm around her and pulled her against his shoulder. She shifted the quilt so that it was covering him too. "You're a bad liar."

"It's too late to go digging around in the past," She said softly. Claire closed her eyes and let the scent of his skin replace the one that she had been running from. One of his hands drifted lazily over her back, the other stroked her arm as it rested around his waist. Claire could feel all of her resolve slipping away. "You don't need me to cry on you any more than I already have."

"Darlin', I been shot more times than I like to think about, a few tears ain't gonna do any damage."

Claire didn't look up at him, but a little smile tugged at her lips. She couldn't remember a time when she felt more safe. She hoped talking about it wouldn't shatter that feeling of safety. Twice she tried to start, and twice the words just wouldn't come out.

"You know I had the flu," she said finally.

"Yeah." His cheek was resting against the top of her head again.

"At that point, they were telling everyone who got it to avoid hospitals and clinics unless there were no family members left to take care of them. By the time I got it, I was the only one left of the family I had contact with. I thought about coming here, but I couldn't reach Uncle Jackson. Even though I wasn't that sick in the beginning I knew I would need some kind of care later on, so I went to the hospital in Burlington." Claire had never talked about that time. Putting the words to the memory felt strange. She fought to keep her voice detached.

"At that point, the hospitals must have been full." His voice was quiet.

"They were. Triage wasn't about getting to the most seriously ill people first. The ones who were in the later stages were taken to any spare space available, made relatively comfortable and left to die. The ones who weren't so bad off had to wait. People who were in the beginning stages, like me, were seen immediately and given whatever treatment they thought would do the most good. They almost treated me with a new antiviral."

"Almost?" His hand paused on her back.

"I was sitting there, waiting for a nurse to come in and start an IV when she came in with two orderlies. She said that because I'm a mutant the hospital wasn't obligated to provide treatment. I was too tired to fight about it, so I got up to leave. That's when I was informed that I wasn't allowed to do that, either." Claire started to tremble a little. He held her tighter. "The two orderlies took me down into the basement and put me into a room near the morgue. It had probably been a storage room at some point, because it was just bare cinder blocks and a concrete floor. Someone had squeezed in six army cots, five of them were already occupied by other mutants in various stages of flu."

His body tensed and she could hear the little growl building in his chest. "They just left you there to die?"

"I guess." She whispered. "They didn't try to rush it along or anything. There was a shower and a toilet in the room. Once a day they brought in food and things like aspirin for the aches. That's when they would take the bodies away too. The rest of the time, the door was locked from the outside, unless they were bringing someone else in. Those who weren't as sick did what they could for those who were, until they weren't able to anymore. If I had died, it would have been easier. Or maybe if I'd gotten better sooner."

"What do you mean?"

"I went through the stages, like everyone else. After about four days, the high fever hit and I figured that was it. I'd lose consciousness eventually and die. I did lose consciousness, and I don't know how long I was out. I must have gotten up long enough to drink water at some point, but I don't remember doing it. Eventually the fever broke." Claire closed her eyes and started to tremble. "You must be tired. We should-"

"No. You gotta finish it."

"Why?" She was halfway between angry and devastated.

"When you woke up, were you alone in that room?"

Claire took a deep breath, letting herself sink into his musky scent. "I was the only one alive." Her voice was barely above a whisper, the trembling had returned, and so had her tears. "The others were...the smell...I couldn't breathe. The door was still locked." She couldn't say anymore. The tears and sobs took over.

Somewhere outside of all that, Claire could hear him swearing.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have-"

"It ain't your fault. Just pisses me off that anybody could do that." The low growl she'd heard in his chest was back again.

"I don't know if it was intentional. I was in the last stages, I should have died. Once I finally got out of that room I realized the hospital was abandoned. So was the city."

"Is that what the dream is? Bein' alone there?"

"No." She took a deep breath. "I dream about the smell, sometimes the face, but mostly the smell. It felt like days before it was off of my skin, weeks before it was out of my hair. In the dream it chokes me. I thought I would have forgotten it by now."

"I know that stink," he said softly. "It's been around every battlefield I've ever been on."

"Does the memory of it go away?" Some of her trembling eased.

"Probably. Hasn't happened for me yet, though." He kissed the top of her head. "C'mon."

He got up and Claire got to her feet at his urging. "What?"

"You need some sleep and so do I." He started leading her toward the bed, Claire pulled her hand out of his.

"Logan-"

"I ain't leavin' you alone, and I would rather not have to sleep sitting up."

Claire followed him hesitantly.

Logan looked down at the side of Claire's sleeping face and wondered how one woman could walk through one circle of Hell after another and still manage to come out on the other side as something other than a shattered shell. Most of what he went through, he'd signed up for. She hadn't wanted any of it, but she carried every single piece with a grace that amazed him. He didn't know if talking about the dream would help her or not, but now he had some idea of what she was dealing with. At least now she was in a deep, peaceful sleep.

He wrapped his arm around her waist and closed his eyes. She sighed softly.