Hiya.  I'm not a professional writer or associated with Marvel 
Comics in any way.  The following is a work of fan fiction for 
which I've borrowed Logan of the X-Men.  (Though he has 
little more than a cameo appearance.)  No profit.  Don't sue.

Kai, Mama Francis, Ellie, and Carole are mine.  Don't use 
without permission.  You'll invite a plague of locusts into your 
kitchen.  Honest.

Kai has a mysterious past...one that she doesn't know much 
more about than anyone else.  Seems she's gotten the burn to 
try to find out who she was before the conditioning program 
destroyed her memories twenty years ago.  Here's a little story 
about one lead she follows.  Oh, it'll help if you know that Kai 
looked the same age as she does now (late twenties or thirty-
ish) back when she underwent conditioning.  

Comments to Kaylee1109@aol.com.  Ya know ya wanna.

Enjoy!

--"Kai and Logan: Mama's Day"
By Kaylee (Kaylee1109@aol.com)

"Mama Francis," said the dark-haired young nurse.  "There are 
people here to see you."

The eighty-year-old woman raised a head gone snowy with 
time and smiled at the young woman.  "Who is it, Ellie?"

Ellie shook her head with a slight frown.  "No one I know, 
Mama.  A woman and a man.  Do you want me to send them 
back?"

Beside Mama Francis, Carole chuckled with the friendly, wise 
sound of great age.  "Ellie my girl...have you ever known 
Francis to turn away a visitor?"

"No," answered Ellie with a smile.  "Not once."

"Tell them to come on back, dear.  And would you be sure that 
batch of birthday cards got mailed out for me?"

"Of course, Mama."  The nurse left the room, and for a few 
minutes Mama Francis and Carole sat in companionable 
silence, the only sound in the room the quiet creaking of their 
rocking chairs and the faint whisper of yarn as they knitted.

And then a woman they'd never met before was stepping in 
through the open door, followed by a man equally as unknown.  
She was short, with deep auburn hair and matching eyes.  He 
was only a little taller, and his thick black hair swept back in 
an unruly way from above a steady brown gaze.

"Hello, there," nodded Mama Francis warmly, still rocking 
slowly back and forth.  "How are you?"

The woman looked faintly nervous.  She gave a fleeting smile 
and stopped a little ways across the floor.  "Good," she 
answered quietly.  "And you?"

"Just fine."  Mama rocked back and forth, back and forth, 
knitting needle moving in its slow, precise way.  "Can I help 
you with something, dear?"

The man stayed silent, leaning back against the wall beside the 
door and watching.  The woman gave him a glance, then 
cleared her throat and looked back to Mama Francis.  "My 
name is Kai.  This is Logan."

"It's a pleasure to meet you both.  I'm Francis Harper, but 
everyone calls me Mama Francis."  She bobbed her white head 
towards Carole.  "This is Carole Baker."

"Hello," said Carole with a nod, then focused back on the 
growing sweater in her withered hands.

Kai seemed ill at ease.  There was something in her face that 
Mama Francis recognized...a sort of hunger she'd seen more 
than a few times over her long life.  She fidgeted with her 
hands, then stuck them firmly behind her back as if that would 
make them easier to control.  Cleared her throat again.  "Ms. 
Harper..."

"Call me Francis, dear.  Or Mama Francis.  Or just Mama.  I'm 
only Ms. Harper for junk mail."

Another brief little smile.  "Francis, then.  This is gonna sound 
strange..."

"Strange is all in perspective, sweetie.  Why don't you tell me 
why you're here and let me decide if it's strange or not?"  Rock 
back, rock forth, steady, steady.

"All right."  Her shoulders twitched.  She was probably 
gripping her hands tightly behind her back.  "I...don't 
remember anything about my family.  Some friends of mine 
have been trying to track down my past for me.  They 
say...there's a chance you might be my...my mother."

_So that's what I see in her face,_ Mama Francis thought with 
a trace of sadness.  _Poor dear.  Lost and alone and trying to 
find who she is._  She let the steady rocking of the chair slow 
to a halt, resting her knitting in her lap and looking at the 
young woman with brown eyes not even slightly clouded by 
eighty years of seeing.  "Do you see that photo album there, 
dear?  Grab it for me, will you?"

Kai stared at her for a moment.  There was a slight tremor in 
her arms that she was trying very hard to hide.  She turned her 
head to where Mama indicated, then took a breath and stepped 
forward to pull the heavy album from its place on the shelf.  
With hesitant steps, she carried it over to Mama and laid it on 
the narrow lap as Mama set her knitting on the table beside 
her.

"Sit beside me, dear," Mama Francis told her, patting the seat 
of the chair next to her.  Carole kept up her steady rocking, 
feigning full attention to the sweater, though Mama knew that 
she listened with a keen ear.  Kai slowly took the chair beside 
her, sending another look at Logan.  Mama raised her head and 
looked at him as well.  "Do you have an interest in this, son?"

"I'm just here for Kai, ma'am," he answered quietly.

Mama smiled at him, then at the young woman perched so 
uneasily and hopefully and fearfully beside her.  "Aren't you 
the lucky one, to have someone to offer support like that."

Kai nodded tightly, eyes distracted.  Mama sighed faintly.  
_Youth,_ she mused.  _They never know what they have until 
they've lost it._  She opened the album's cover and motioned 
for Kai to lean over and look at the pictures.  One by one, she 
turned the pages, showing scenes dating back as far as fifty 
years.  "These," Mama told her gently.  "These are my 
daughters."  The pages turned, and faces gazed up at them.  
Some angry.  Some fearful.  Many showing the same desperate 
yearning she saw now on Kai's own face.  As the years passed 
with every careful flip of a page, those expressions turned 
gradually to confidence and respect, love and happiness.  
Marriage announcements were pressed beneath plastic.  Births.  
Here and there, a death.  Young women grew up and held 
babies of their own.  Some wore uniforms, some dresses, some 
pants.  Copies of diplomas, birthday cards, Mother's Day 
cards, Christmas cards...scenes from dozens of lives that all 
twined together with Mama Francis' own.  Children of every 
nationality and race matured beneath their eyes, and all the 
while Mama murmured their names, telling a little about each 
one without pausing once to have to remember.  Kai's tension 
radiated out of her, but she listened attentively.

"I don't understand," she said after a bit, still gazing at the 
turning pages.  "You adopted all these girls?"

"Adopted some.  Merely acted as a surrogate for others.  There 
are a lot of motherless daughters out there, dear, and not all of 
them are orphans."  She smiled down at the birth 
announcement of the first of her great-grandchildren.  Carole's 
chair kept up its steady rocking.

Kai was silent for another long moment, watching pages turn.  
Then she spoke, very quietly.  "But no blood daughter."

Mama Francis stilled her fingers on the pages and gazed sadly 
at Kai.  "I'm sorry, dear."

The auburn eyes clouded with a hint of pain.  The young 
woman's mouth tightened and she gave a forced smile.  "I 
guess they were wrong, then."  She cleared her throat again.  
"I'm sorry to have disturbed you, Francis."  Then she rose to 
her feet as if she would leave.

"Wait," Mama said swiftly.  "You...Logan, was it?...go find the 
nurse.  Ellie is her name.  Find her and tell her to bring my 
camera, would you?"  He glanced at Kai, a quizzical tilt to his 
brows, but turned to do as she said without comment.  Kai 
gave her a puzzled look.

"Francis, what...?"

The old woman gave her another smile, but said nothing until 
Logan returned with Ellie.  The nurse held an old Polaroid 
camera in her hands.  She didn't look at all surprised to have 
been called.  Mama reached out a hand towards Kai.  The 
young woman took it, her grip firm but not tight, and allowed 
herself to be drawn to stand beside the old woman.

"There are a lot of motherless daughters," Mama Francis told 
her again.  "But you don't have to be one anymore."

A sudden mist sprang into the auburn eyes, and Kai swallowed 
hard.  She opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came out.  
Instead she just bobbed her head once in acceptance and 
turned to look towards the camera.  She was holding Mama's 
hand like a lifeline, and the old woman's smile was as warm 
and sunny as it had ever been.

Ellie snapped the picture.  The film came out, and she set it on 
the table beside them and left with a welcoming grin to Kai.  
With a smooth motion, Kai knelt by Mama Francis' chair and 
took both of the slim hands in her own.

"Thank you, Mama," she whispered.  Then she rose to kiss 
Mama's forehead and turned to leave.  Logan slipped an arm 
around her shoulders.  The look he gave Mama Francis spoke 
his appreciation more loudly than any words could have.

And then they were gone.  Mama lifted the new Polaroid from 
the table and watched as the picture became clear.

Back and forth, back and forth, Carole rocked.  "She had the 
hair and eyes," Mama's friend said idly, as if it was of little 
importance.  "Deep red."

"Oh, Carole," Mama said with a sigh, pulling back plastic to 
press the picture on a new page in the loaded album.  "Don't be 
silly.  Even if Kaitlin was alive, she'd be over sixty by now."  
She spent a moment gazing at the picture, staring at features 
that did somehow look familiar, even though they shouldn't.  
Her friend was right.  If it wasn't for the age, she might have 
just thought...

Carole only grunted.  The sweater was almost finished.  The 
chair creaked slowly back and forth, back and forth.  Mama 
kept staring at the picture as her feet started her own chair to 
rocking in a rhythm with the other woman's.  It was there, in 
the face.  The hunger, and the trace of hesitant, scared 
happiness.  In the line of the mouth that dared no more than 
the barest of smiles for the picture.  In eyes that looked as if 
they'd seen more life than a woman that couldn't have been 
more than twenty-five or thirty could have seen.  Yet another 
motherless daughter to add to the number she'd gathered over 
the years; gathered after her own precious Kaitlin had been 
abducted at only eleven years of age; gathered after a body had 
been found that had tentatively been identified as the young 
girl; gathered after a year of pain and loss had passed, and 
Mama Francis had started to see the need she felt reflected on 
the faces of girls around her.  Over time, the hurt had faded.  
She could remember her daughter without the pang of sorrow 
by looking at the rejuvenated light in so many other pairs of 
eyes.  Almost all her daughters knew the story of how Mama 
Francis had found purpose in taking in those in need, and so 
Kaitlin's memory had been honored.  Her spunky, fearless 
daughter would never be forgotten.

Kai's eyes gazed up at her.  Mama left the album open as she 
reached for her knitting, and then she went back to making a 
pair of mittens for her newborn great-granddaughter, still 
staring at her newest foundling and smiling faintly.

--end--