Logan's lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, pretending he thinks he can sleep. He's naked, because wearing clothes to bed in case the kids barge in is one step on the road that leads to giving up smoking because it's a bad example and buying oxford shirts. He's running one hand over the back of his other hand and up his arm, down his chest where the scars aren't. She stabbed him here. Or was it here? Already he's not sure.
Of course, that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with him.
He's pretty sure being cut up and drowned and pumped full of metal is enough to make amnesia seem like a reasonable response. It's Stryker's fault, him and whoever Logan was before. If he ever met his past self, he'd punch himself in the face for being stupid.
But he isn't stupid now, and he's starting to read between the lines of things the Professor says. Changes, time, we know so little about the mind, much less about the mind at 100, 150, more ...
What if it's just that there's only so much he can take before his mind, like his body, neatly, relentlessly, heals?
What if it does? Does he want to feel like this forever?
He rolls out of bed and crosses to the window. It's warm outside, moonlight slanting down over the gardens. The temptation is strong to open up the window and drop to the ground and feel the damp air on every inch of his skin. To not think. To be the part of himself he trusts most, the part that says dirt is for running on, moonlight is for drinking, women are for fucking, enemies are for killing.
You're nothing but an animal, Stryker's voice says, but there's a woman's voice, too, that says The water reflects the cranes. Warm hands on his. Move like water, reflect like a mirror, respond like an echo. That's all he remembers. Warm hands. The cranes pass on.
He reaches for the notebook by the bed. The professor suggested he write down his dreams. He hasn't, although there's a scrawl on the top page that says "get gas for bike" and on the page underneath he's written, heavily underlined, a message for Marie: Nice try, kid.
His hands remember how to fold a paper crane. He stares at it and then crumples it into a ball, tosses it on the floor.
There's a more reasonable part of himself that says pull yourself together and stop being weird long enough to get out of here. Get dressed, leave a note saying "sorry," get on the bike and go. You can be across the border into Canada by morning. Get on the road where nothing you have to do hurts: get up, eat, drive, have a beer, drive some more, raise hell in a bar, get thrown out, sleep in the truck, get up and watch the sun rise red over the black, black trees.
Because every time he wakes up here he remembers, and it hurts every time.