The forest is quiet now. Only the sound of rain dripping from the pines breaks the stillness. The old truck sits half-hidden between the trees, its headlights dark, its metal streaked with mud and moss. A fire crackles weakly nearby, casting pale orange light across the clearing. The smell of damp earth mixes with smoke and oil.

Logan sits by the fire, hunched over a whetstone. Each drag of his knife rings dull against the wet air. His jacket steams faintly from the rain, his knuckles raw and cracked. He’s not looking at the fire. He’s looking past it — to the edge of the trees, where the stranger sits.

Charles is wrapped in a blanket near the truck, dozing lightly, his breaths thin and unsteady. Laura crouches on the tailgate, chewing on a piece of jerky, eyes never leaving the man across the clearing. She hasn’t said a word since they stopped. She doesn’t need to. Logan knows that same thought’s burning behind her stare — who is he really?

They found him two days ago.

It was Laura who heard him first — a faint sound under the wind, somewhere deeper in the forest. Logan had been ready to keep moving until Charles insisted they check. What they found wasn’t a mutant on the hunt or a Reaver hiding out — it was a man, half-buried under fallen branches and ash, clothes torn, skin scorched. He should’ve been dead. But he wasn’t.

When they pulled him free, the light had hit his wrist, glinting off the strange metal band clamped there. For a moment, his skin flickered like a bad projection — blue, then human again — before stabilizing. Logan had nearly dropped him.

Charles had recognized him before anyone spoke. The old man’s voice trembled with something between awe and grief. He had said only one word.

Nightcrawler.

Logan hadn’t wanted to bring him. Said it was too risky, too much baggage, another ghost from a team that didn’t exist anymore. But Charles had refused to leave him behind, and Laura had silently helped lift him into the truck bed.

Now he’s awake, quiet, keeping his distance. The projection still flickers faintly at the edges, faint blue bleeding through his human disguise when the firelight hits just right. Every time it happens, Laura stiffens. Logan pretends not to notice, but his hand tightens around the knife.

Charles stirs in his sleep, mumbling incoherent words — fragments of names, memories slipping loose in dreams. The fire hisses as a drop of rain hits the embers.

Logan finally speaks, his voice low and rough. “He shouldn’t be here,” he says, more to himself than anyone else. His eyes stay fixed on the figure sitting by the tree line. “He’s been through enough.”

Laura looks at him, frowning. “So have we,” she mutters, and goes back to watching the stranger.

The rain starts again, light but steady. The forest hums with the kind of silence that feels alive, heavy with things unsaid. Logan sheathes his knife and stares into the flames. He doesn’t trust him — can’t, not yet. But Charles is sleeping peacefully for the first time in days, and somehow, the clearing feels safer tonight.

The bracelet hums faintly. The illusion wavers once more, blue skin shimmering through the rain before fading back to human. Logan exhales, long and tired, and looks toward the trees.

He doesn’t say anything else. But for the first time since they found him, he doesn’t tell him to leave.

The forest breathes around them — rain, fire, heartbeat, and memory. Whatever happens next, the four of them are still here, huddled beneath the weight of the world, waiting for dawn.