LOG: Logan and Charles Xavier

[x-wolverine.livejournal.com]

Logan, as a part of his rather gruelling sessions with Charles, accepts some responsibility and plans are made for getting him back on Active status.



Logan was, in a word, tense. Chuck's psych sessions were never, ever easy. He came at you from weird angles, talked you into corners, then made you look at all the ugly shit that you really didn't want to think too much about. He wasn't a tea-drinker, and out of deference for Charles's office he wasn't smoking either. But Logan wanted nothing more than a good smoke and a stiff drink. Make that a _lot_ of stiff drinks. A whole lot. Maybe he'd actually manage to swamp the factor for once, enjoy some oblivion. "Stryker was wrong." he said, in an act of will that made Sisyphus look like a piker. "I'm not just an animal. I got the instincts, I got the claws, but I am more than the sum of my parts." he said with difficulty. But he was sincere about it.

"'I think, therefore I am'," Charles quoted, sipping at his tea. "Stryker had good reason to encourage you to think of yourself as no more than an animal. You should keep that in mind when assessing what he had to say in your last encounter with him."

Logan's mind, unbidden, cast itself back to that final encounter. Artie in his arms, Stryker behind him, the Blackbird before him. Getting the kids out, getting them home safe. "I had to believe him." he said. "He's the only one who knew me before. And I walked away from him." Logan said with more than a tinge of regret. "Doesn't matter, though. We got the kids out, shut down the weird shit Stryker had you hooked into..." His voice trailed off as he remembered the price they thought they'd paid then.

Jean.

"Anyway." Logan said, dragging himself out of that morass of memory. "I want to go back, Chuck. The shit with Cain ... I got no excuse for it. I know that. But you've been in my head, talked me through what happened. Showed me different ways of dealing with ... whatever the fuck you called it. When stuff comes back to me. It ain't gonna happen
again."

"Ah, yes. The incident with Cain." Charles's eyes were sharp, yet somehow gentle at the same time. "And what of the incident with Jean? Or the one with Nathan? Very different situations," he pointed out calmly.

"Jeannie's thing I gotta take up with Jeannie. Everything I had said that wasn't Jeannie. That she was pullin' some kind of a con. Turns out I was right, but not like I thought I was. Sometimes I guess wrong." he said with a shrug. "And with the car - Nathan, that space we were in fucked everyone up. I was the only one in there with enhanced senses. It hit me harder than it hit anyone else."

"I'm not sure you're thinking about all the implications, Logan," Charles said, more gravely. "You view these incidents, all three of them, with too narrow a perspective. How they affected you, what your motivation - or lack of conscious motivation may have been. That needs to be dealt with, of course. But," Charles went on, setting his teacup down, "given your plans to return to the team, you must also deal with how these incidents have affected your place with the X-Men."

"Because I am who I am and I got no past and killer claws if some external force drives me around the bend I gotta suck it up and eat it?" Logan growled. He then took a moment to take a few deep breaths (aftershave, Earl Grey, leather, dust, ozone...) and fight for some restraint. "Guess I do. Well, I'm gonna eat it, then. I fucked up. Did the wrong thing."

"No one here," Charles said very seriously, "will expect you to pretend that your personal burdens do not exist. You'll find, I expect, that many of your teammates are willing to help you deal with them, to manage the weight, at least in the context of how it affects
your role with the team." The but was implicit.

"But..." Logan said, making explicit the implicit clause. "But I gotta make it happen. Talk to them, sell 'em on having me back. Invite them into my nightmare, tell 'em everything."

"Look at these incidents not simply in isolation, but for the ripple effects they have," was Charles's reply. "Nothing you did in any of these cases had any direct impact on Scott and Ororo, for example. But I know that both have questioned their decision to welcome you back to the team so soon."

Logan thought about that for a few moments. "Not much I can say or do about that." he said. "Done is done. I know I've got a lot to offer. And yes, I got my problems. So does just about everyone else. I lose it and people get hurt. Not the first time that's happened to team." he pointed out.

"And in each such case," Charles said quietly, although there was something very firm about both his voice and his expression, "the person responsible for doing harm has needed to be accepted back onto the team. Trusted again. You should give your teammates enough credit for the ability to see the mitigating factors, but that doesn't change the fact that they must have a reasonable degree of certainty that you will not put another X-Man out of commission the next time the situation in the field becomes difficult. Unfortunately, you are the only one who can convince them of that."

"I'm open to suggestions. I don't think that my word for it is gonna count for much." And, for some reason, that stung. "Give me back Danger Room rights. Use the safeties to make things as safe as I can." he said, thinking fast. "Think you can come up with some suitable programs or whatever?" he asked with a sudden grin.

"Speak to Scott, when he returns, or Ororo," Charles suggested. "They will be able to suggest... team-building scenarios, I imagine." He smiled. "As for the rest... talk to your teammates, Logan. All of them."

Logan nodded. "Great." he said, thinking of Nate. "I'll talk to 'Ro. She's here and she's not so bent that she's bleeding." he pointed out. "Besides, I gotta talk to her anyway about that FOH op."

"There are amends to be made with Ororo as well, perhaps," Charles suggested mildly. "She did after all receive a concrete reminder of your difficulties in New York that night."

"That was what else I needed to talk to her about. You ever find out anything else about whatever that _thing_ was that messed with everyone?" he asked, relaxing a touch.

"No," Charles said, sounding regretful. "Nor am I entirely sure that the mutant did die when the building collapsed. I was monitoring the area and felt nothing that resembled death-trauma... but the mutant's mind was nearly impossible to read. I cannot say for certain what happened to him."

Logan apparently didn't care much for that idea judging by the expression on his face. "Hate to say it but I was more a hazard than a useful member of the team on that op. Next time - if there is a next time - I'll know better and sit the brainbenders out."

"You didn't realize you'd be facing such conditions when you arrived that night," Charles pointed out. "There will be other times when what you face is not what you expected."

"True." he said, thinking that over. "And that's why we sit here while you drink tea and rake my brain over the coals. So that I can handle it when the nasties bump into my brain and shake shit loose." he said with another grin. "Looks like I got a lot to do."