I first suspected something wasn't right the moment we entered that old military base. Of course, with Logan's screaming I didn't have much time to reflect on my reaction.

We can hear him as soon as we exit the jet, the hopeless panic in his voice chilling me deeper than the brisk night air. It sounds like he's being tortured, but from what Charles had shown me, he's alone. Still, we run, desperate to end his wretched howling.

A blanket of fear, tension, and near-hysteria drops down on me as I follow Scott into the expansive building, and I stumble, thrown off-balance by the weight of the emotions.

"Jean?" Scott stops mid-stride and turns around to see what's wrong.

I just shake my head and concentrate, pulling my shields up to full-strength. I won't be of any use to Logan medically unless I take an emotional step back. Once I'm alone in my head, I start running forward again, leaving Scott and Storm to follow.

We find him in the middle of a landscape of blood. The floor in front of him and the crate on top of him are grooved with claws marks, and as we watch, he swipes blindly at his back, cutting through both wood and flesh in an escape attempt. He gasps as the pain takes his breath away; then his body freezes and he sniffs deeper. Cocking his head around and catching sight of us, he starts to growl low in his throat.

Scott walks forward, his hands held out in a calming gesture. "Logan, we're here to help."

The growling gets louder, and I can see Logan's muscles tensing, waiting for Scott to get within reach.

"Scott." When my fiancee turns around, I shake my head and hold up my medical bag. He nods, and I take the lead.

"Logan," I say kneeling down just out of arm's-reach. "Do you remember me?"

His only reaction is more growling, now with snapping and clawing.

"Logan, do you remember Marie? She says you called to her."

The growling stops and it is utterly silent as Logan inhales deeply, checking for new scents. Scott and Storm both turn confused faces to me.

*Marie?* Scott asks across our mental link.

~Rogue,~ I answer.

*How did...*

~Charles.~

Logan must not have found what he's looking for because he starts snarling even louder, and I focus my attention back to him.

"Logan, Marie sent us. If you'll just calm down..."

He doesn't react to my words, still tensed and watching for an opening to attack. I'll have to use the sedatives. Dammit. I knew we should've let Rogue come with us. Sedatives in a man with a healing factor are unpredictable at best. Since Rogue and Logan seem to share some sort of mental bond that allowed her to pick up on his situation, I thought she might be a calming influence. Of course, both Scott and Charles insisted she remain back at the school for her own safety.

After preparing a syringe of Ativan, I telekinetically freeze Logan. Pulling his right arm out straight and rolling up the sleeve, I gingerly float the needle towards him. Logan's eyes open so wide as he helplessly watches the syringe approach him that I can completely see the whites. After lining it up and plunging it into a vein, Logan's frenzied terror starts leaking through my strongest shields. Soon, though, his eyes roll back, his muscles go limp, and his claws retract.

I lower my shields and check that he's truly unconscious before I close in to inspect the crate. It's huge and could have covered his entire body instead of just his lower half if it had fallen differently. Experimentally tugging on it to judge the weight, I'm not surprised by its heft. Still, a couple hundred pounds is nothing I can't handle. I'm more concerned about the crush injuries.

Logan's skeleton is unbreakable, but his muscles and connective tissues are as easily damaged as anyone's. His circulation's been slowed by the weight, so I doubt he's healed too much. When the pressure is released from a crushing injury, toxic chemicals produced by the damaged muscles work their way into the circulation, leading to kidney failure in severe cases. I can't just pull this crate off and then take my time stabilizing him. Moving it has to be the last step before we rush him back to the jet.

"Scott, go back and prep the jet for take off. Storm, get a stretcher, a backboard, and a "C" oxygen tank. I'll set up an IV."

Charles and Rogue are waiting for us when we touch down. Logan had almost woken up half-way through the flight, and I'd sedated him more heavily. It should be hours before he wakes up again. Still, when a teary-eyed Rogue runs up the jet's platform and places a gloved hand on his cheek, whispering indistinguishable words of comfort, his body seems to relax even more.

"Is he going to be ok?" she asks in a shaking voice.

"Given time," I answer with a nod.

Rogue helps us carry Logan's stretcher to the Med Lab, but when it's time for me to examine him, she refuses to leave.

"Rogue, you can't be in here."

"Why not?"

"He..." How do I put this? "I have to perform tests and some of them... Logan's privacy..."

"It's nothing I ain't seen before, Red," she says in a smooth drawl.

I haven't heard her slip like that in weeks, but it sounds like Logan's still in her head. In any case...

"I need to focus all of my attention on Logan, Rogue. It'll be quicker and better for him if I'm not distracted."

"'Ro gets to stay," she complains, dropping back into her own personality.

"I need an assistant."

She opens her mouth, but I add, "Ororo's done it previously," before she can offer her services.

"Go with Scott and the professor," I say, shooing her towards the door. "I'll keep you updated."

Reluctantly, she leaves.

I pick up two sets of razor-sharp scissors, handing one pair to Ororo, and we attack Logan's clothes. Even though the adamantium ensures no bones can be broken, dislocation's entirely possible, and I don't want to unstrap him from the backboard until I get a full set of X-rays. That means we have to cut around the straps to peel the flannel and denim away. Once he's down to nothing but a sterile towel draped over his hips, we move his black and blue body into the machine.

The results are very different from the X-rays just a month ago. Both hips and his right knee are dislocated, and the spinal cord's completely severed. With any other patient, there would be no hope of restored sensation. Like Charles. Where did that thought come from? Anyway, with Logan's healing abilities, it's worth a try to realign and stitch the cord together in the hopes that it'll heal the rest of the way on its own.

"Back surgery," I tell Ororo, indicating on my own back where we'd need to concentrate, and no further instruction is necessary.

It takes both of us to move Logan into the operating room. Then, after I intubate him, we carefully position him on his stomach. While Ororo collects the sterile sheets and preps the surgical field, I set up an anesthesia drip to keep Logan unconscious for the duration of the procedure.

Once we're in, I stitch the spinal cord together as best I can, then I turn my attention to the vertebrae. Only the two where the separation took place seem to be affected, but the disk that sits between them is gone. If I don't do something, they will rub against each other whenever Logan moves, causing extreme pain.

The only solution is to fuse the bones together so they won't move, but, of course, they are covered with adamantium. I can't affix surgical pins and screws to it like I normally would.

How can I... Lorna. That's it. Lorna Dane has the power to manipulate metals. She's still learning how to control it, but she should be able to handle this. I telepathically call the teenager, and when she arrives, unlock the door to let her in.

Rogue is standing there, blocking Lorna's entrance.

"Logan?"

"He's doing fine so far," I answer, signalling Lorna through.

"How much longer?"

"A few hours," I answer as the doors shut again.

After I've gotten Lorna into surgical scrubs, I lead her back into the operating room where Ororo's waiting. I explain to her that I need the metal pulled away from these two vertebrae, emphasizing the delicacy required, but I must've put too much pressure on her. Instead of moving the metal out of the way so I can attach screws, the metal flows together under her influence. She has effectively fused them using the adamantium itself.

She steps away from the table, stunned at her mistake. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

"No, no," I reassure her. "That's fine... In fact, it's better than I had planned."

I let Lorna go, and now that the spine's fixed, the surgery's done. I release the clamps holding the incision open and stitch the muscle and skin closed.

Ororo and I clean up and bandage the wound, then collect the surgical sheets for cleaning. The dark bruises covering Logan's legs and hips have lightened during the surgery, so it seems his healing factor is working. Still, he won't be able to walk unless I relocate his joints.

"Ororo, just one more thing before we're done," I say as I start to climb onto the bed.

She looks at me puzzled, but then I explain what I'm doing and she positions her hands to get ready. For Logan's right knee, Ororo gives me countertraction while I kneel on the bed and pull back on his leg. The bone wobbles around a bit, then falls into place. One down, two to go.

For his hips, I have to stand up on the table to get a 90 degree angle. Ororo holds his pelvis down while I pull up. Rocking his leg back and forth and gradually increasing my force, the hip finally pops back into its socket. The other one cooperates after a little more persuasion, and Logan's well on the way to recovery.

As I stop the anesthesia drip, I wonder how long it'll take before he wakes up and I can assess whether he's regained any lower body sensation. Just the thought that Logan can heal from an injury that's permanent for everyone else, like Charles, is fascinating.

Rogue is a godsend. Logan woke up several hours after the surgery and immediately rolled off the bed, pulling out his IV and detaching his sensors. I was busy in the back lab, but she was there. She kept him calm, or at least as calm as you can keep a man brandishing nine-inch claws in the throes of a claustrophobic attack.

"Logan, it's ok. You're ok," I hear her reassure him, then louder, she calls, "Jean? Could you come out here for a second?"

Her voice is so calm and steady that I'm sure I can spend just a few more minutes on this protein analysis. Besides, Logan doesn't like spending any time in the Med Lab, so why shouldn't I take full advantage of the opportunity? If what I'm seeing is correct, I can use Logan's mutant abilities to heal Charles, and of course, all people with spinal injuries, but especially, Charles.

"Jean, you should come out here, now." Rogue's voice rose in elevation and nervousness.

Perhaps I should take a break and go check on him. Of course, if I wait just a little while longer, I'll have the nerve growth factor isolated from this spinal fluid sample. Charles could benefit greatly from this research. He's helped me so much over the years, given me an education and a worthwhile life. This is my chance to give back to him. Well, him and the world, too, I guess.

"Jean!" Rogue's shout, punctuated with the screech of metal on metal, cut into my reverie, and I finally went out to the main room.

Logan was perched up on his left arm, using his right-hand claws to cut a hole in the Med Lab door. His legs lay behind him twitching occasionally, but basically useless. I telekinetically froze his body, but when he discovered he was trapped, a piercing wail broke out of his throat.

I summoned a syringe and bottle of Ativan to my side and sedated him quickly. Still, even when the cry died, it left a painful silence behind.

Rogue looked up at me with tears shimmering in her eyes. "He can't stay here."

"Rogue, until he recovers..."

"No. He's trapped. You don't understand. I felt... In my dream, I saw..."

"I do understand. I've felt his emotions, too, but until he's better, he can't leave."

"How long?"

"From the preliminary results of these tests, I'd guess within the week."

"It's too long."

From what's just happened, I have to agree. Nodding, I say, "I'll sedate him until then."

Rogue and I have carried Logan on a stretcher out to the woods surrounding the mansion. He's unconscious, but I've finally stopped the sedative, so he should wake up within the next hour or so. Bringing him out here makes me feel like a nature conservationist returning a wild animal to his home, not a doctor releasing a patient after he's healed.

It feels like we're giving up, but Rogue seems to think this is exactly what he needs to begin recovering. I wish Charles could have come with us, but he's sleeping in the Med Lab. I gave him several transfusions of Logan's plasma and stimulated nerve growth with hormone therapy. He's hopeful that he'll regain the use of his legs, and I think he might be right.

Even as I think about the past week, though, it feels like I've been in a dream. Everything just came to me so clearly. Every idea, fully formed. Whenever I have a patient, I'm always consumed with their treatment and recovery, but this time, with Logan, I couldn't get my mind off of theory and experimentation. Every time my mind would wander to Logan's situation, I'd get another burst of creative thought, bringing up a test I hadn't used or a new way to analyze samples I'd taken.

It's almost strange.

Now, that I think of it, there was something off about how Logan got hurt, too. That military base was...

*Jean,* Charles's mental voice interrupts my thoughts. *How is Logan?*

~He's still unconscious. I didn't know you were awake. Will you help me monitor his mental state when he comes around?~

*Of course, Jean. Just call to me when you need.*

I can feel him backing away from my mind in that familiar way I've gotten used to over the twenty years I've known him.

Now what was I thinking about before? Oh, yeah. I was thinking about Charles's tests tomorrow. I'm so happy that I just might have healed him. I can't wait to see what the next few days and weeks will bring.