tampered | Log; ongoing

When; Evening, the Forest
Rating; PG-13 ish
Characters; Rachel Summers

twodogsfighting
Summary; Bad news travels fast, better to face it than let it creep up on you.
Log;

She began moving through a simple form, mindlessly moving arms and legs in a familiar pattern...no, wait. She stopped her movements, her breathing uneven, as she replayed her actions in her mind. She remembered the form she wanted and that wasn't it.

And she was being watched.

Ignoring the familiar presence, yet acutely aware he was analyzing her every move, she started moving again - breathing evening out, steadying, and her mind...she stopped again, finally realizing where the form was from. From that future, the desert Nathan told her she carved out of Apocalypse's grasp. Damn, she was tired of having those ghost memories in her head.

There was no way she was getting though the form, her mind wasn't in it. Between her own memories, and that cryptic post Captain America put up...not gonna happen. Instead, she turned to her friend.

"So, you finally going to tell me what's going on back home, Logan? Or should I go see Cap and Iron Man?"

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Arms folded, he watched her from the back step as she mangled the form and eventually gave up. It still seemed like forever since he'd seen her this young, this confused. In fact, last he'd heard she was in space with the Starjammers. And he didn't need to be a telepath to know what was bothering her. He'd managed to brush her off earlier when she arrived, but there was no avoiding it for long.

He rolled the toothpick in his mouth to the other side after her question, gathering himself for what would inevitably follow. Her reaction wouldn't be pretty and backup would have been nice, but not really an option. Finally, he removed the toothpick from between his lips and flicked it off into the grass before approaching.

"C'mon then. Let's take a walk. This is gonna take a while."

Somehow that sounded like an understatement, but Rachel kept silent and grabbed her jacket from the log she'd set it on when she began her workout.

Because something was off - it was wrong and she'd sensed it since they'd left the cafe the day she arrived. The whole time she'd been at the cabin, getting clothes, supplies, things to make her comfortable while she was at the cabin, he'd watched her - looking at her like like he didn't know her anymore. She wanted - needed - to know what it was.

And to top it all off, he was...nervous. Well, as nervous as he ever got, but there it was. And that made her nervous.

"Sure, let's go."
...Let's get this over with.

Edited 2009-03-10 22:09 (UTC)

Logan tucked his hands into his jacket pockets and started walking. There was a nice little path he'd explored back a bit, before the forest started to smell like magic and do strange things when you weren't looking. Rachel was still so young, not the confident young woman he had come to expect, and the world had changed into something almost unrecognizable in the past few years.

When he judged them isolated enough, he turned and levelled a look on her.

"You ever meet Wanda Maximoff? Magneto's daughter."

So he told her the important parts,

Arriving in the past to find out her mother had been killed was one thing, but as Logan kept talking, the Scarlet Witch, the SRA, Vulcan, her family - oh, Christ - just her family! Jean dead, Jean's family dead, Scott back, Nathan missing... It was like she couldn't breathe.

"No. Not going to happen. I'll change it. When I get back, I'll change it...I..."

She was shaking, she could feel it, but she couldn't stop it. "Scott and Alex - they're, they're OK, right? I still have that much family left, right?"

She was upset and that was only natural, but a danger when you had the Phoenix Force at your command. Logan didn't like to remember the kind of things that Jeannie had been able to do, and if Rachel had any amount of her mother's talent, and she did, she could always be a danger to the people around her.

"Slim's fine, Alex maybe not so much."

Even as he said it he stepped up and placed a heavy hand on her shoulder.

"You know that ain't how it works, Ray."

He looked her firmly in the eye and waited for her acknowledgement, mentally urging her to breathe through it. He didn't want to have to kill her again.

[ooc: I'm so sorry for taking so long with this, if you want to assume an ending so that you can make a post before we actually finish the log that would be totally cool with me.]

"I thought it worked how we made it work, Logan."

She didn't want to be calmed down right now, she wanted to rage, to scream, to destroy - Stark was in town, maybe she should start with him.

"What else? What did you leave out, Logan."

[ooc: no prob - let's have logan hold out on the emma/scott thing as long as he can, but otherwise we'll assume he caught her up to her joining the 'jammers. beyond that, it's up to you.]

"Messin' with time tends t'leave you worse off than you were before."

He paused for a moment to think things over, and gave her shoulder a squeeze, both as a warning and as reassurance. If there was anyone in the world Rachel wasn't going to like it was Emma Frost. Not that Logan had really forgiven Scott that either, but she made him happy so he could live with it. Rachel likely wouldn't have that mature of a perspective.

"You went with Chuck to go deal the Shi'ar after that."

Even this was no good news, and he didn't know the whole story, just what Xavier had told him upon returning to Earth without her.

The Shi'ar, always the goddamn Shi'ar, and now with -

But there it was again. With shields as good as Logan's she shouldn't be able to notice, but there it was. Evasion, misdirection, and the hope that keeping her focused on the Shi'ar would keep her from digging about...

"Scott. Just a second ago - there was something about Scott, Logan. What did you leave out? Did he leave the X-Men again, did he - he didn't lose his powers, did he?"

He had to be OK, he had to be. Rachel...she couldn't lose anyone else.

"It ain't that bad, Ray. You just ain't gonna like it."

He doesn't like lying to her, but he doesn't want to see her reaction either. She hadn't reacted well the first time.

Now he's talking from experience. Whatever he's hiding from her...he's already seen her reaction and the fact that he's trying to back-off means it was bad. Learning Jean was dead-bad, fighting the Beyonder-bad, being rejected by Jean-bad.

But she has to know. He's her Dad, always will be no matter what timeline she's in and she has to know.

She takes a deep breath to try and calm herself - no mean feat with the tears she's fighting.

"There's not liking something, Logan. And then there's not liking something I have to hear from Richter or Madrox instead of you. I promise I won't...try and kill the Deities or anything, but please..? What's wrong with my Dad?"

He doesn't like that look on her face, and it pulls on something in his stomach. He cares about her more than he would admit, and would love to protect her, but he knows that's not the way to go. Lies never last long, especially from someone who could literally reach inside your head and pluck the truth out.

"After Jeannie died again Summers got together with Emma Frost."

"...that's not funny, Logan. Tell me the truth."

He doesn't think it's funny either. In fact, he hadn't liked it much when it happened either, but it had made Summers happy and he was the closest Logan had to a brother, so he would put up with the woman. At least she loved him. But it would be hard to convince Rachel of that. He remained silent and gave her a long look.

"Oh you have got to be...after everything...after...EMMA FROST!?!?"

Rachel was flabbergasted, beyond shocked. The White Queen of the Hellfire Club - she who had tried to kill, maim, torture and otherwise destroy the X-Men on more than one occasion.

With Scott. Her Dad.

Granted, Emma had been helping, teaching some of the younger students, but...

"How in the hell did that happen - and why didn't anyone STOP it?!"

Log; ongoing

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