This is dark. Really dark. Like, scarred my poor friend and Beta, Irma66, because I didn't warn her, dark.

TW: major character injury; mention of child abuse; heavy angst; hopeful ending

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"Like a bat out of hell I'll be gone when the morning comes
But when the day is done
And the sun goes down
And the moonlight's shining through
Then like a sinner before the gates of Heaven
I'll come crawling on back to you"

The ringing in Logan's ears finally stops. Opening his eyes, he finds himself sitting in a black room on a metal chair. In front of him is a door with a golden knob but as he looks around he realizes there is no other exit. Slumping slightly in the hard chair, he runs his fingers through his hair, exhaling loudly. The room is lit, but there is no light bulb above him and no other visible light source. It reminds him of that one interrogation in Kabul, where his mind started to play tricks on him, but after you've been waterboarded once, you tend to build up a psychological tolerance to such things. That was one of the things he had going for him in the intelligence game—growing up with physical and psychological torture from a parent made him immune to that of strangers, relatively speaking.

Rubbing the back of his neck, he tries to remember what happened before he landed here. He remembers Veronica staring down at him from their apartment. He was in the back lane, about to move their car before the street cleaners came. But then, there was the blast. Frowning, he glances around again. By all reason, he should be in a hospital, but this wasn't it. Doing a scan of his body, he feels no pain. In fact, he feels oddly light—like nothing he's ever felt before.

The door opens and Logan blinks at the tall man in the black suit who enters. It can't be. There must be some mistake…

"Hello, son. Welcome to Hell."

Standing quickly, Logan knocks the chair backwards and it falls to the ground with a loud crashing sound which echoes in the small space. Aaron smirks at Logan, deep lines creasing his cheeks as he removes a black file folder from under his arm and opens it in front of him. He has a full head of beautiful chestnut hair, like he did when Logan was younger, before the hair plugs, and his face lacks the deep leathery look that too much California sun and tanning booths had given him towards the end.

"This…this isn't happening…" Logan stammers, backing away slowly, stepping around the chair when he bumps into it as he moves to put some distance between himself and this ghost.

"Oh, but that's where you're wrong, son. This is happening." Licking his thumb, Aaron flips a page in the folder. "Funny thing, God didn't give you a pass on the bum fights either. Beating up a few rapists helped to even out some of your numbers, and joining the Navy certainly helped, but that incident in Budapest where those Russian operatives ended up dead and that woman on the Korean border…just to name a few…"

Holding up a hand in protest, Logan steps towards his accuser. "That woman on the border was trafficking children—it wasn't my mission, but killing her meant I put a stop to their operations and saved a bunch of kids."

Closing the file, Aaron shrugs. "Look, I don't make the call, son. That's another department. But thanks to your intelligence work, you seem to have gotten yourself back on the naughty list, so to speak."

Striding to Aaron, Logan puffs up his chest, making himself bigger than his old man. "I slept with a clear conscience about everything I did. Can you say the same thing, asshole? Would you like to see the marks you left on my back when you beat me with those leather belts? Because they're still there. And Mom and Lilly—what about what you did to them? I hope to God they're not down here with you."

Aaron tosses the file in the air and it disappears, causing him to grin at his magic trick.

"No, son, it's just you and me, down here for eternity." Crossing his arms, he chuckles. "This is just the preliminaries—seems that they've decided that your worst version of hell is to be trapped with me forever. It'll be like some wacky sitcom—the son and father who hate each other, trying to survive the torments of hell. Just wait until we do the endless papercuts before jumping into a vat of vinegar challenge together—that's always a fun day."

"Over my dead body…" Logan spits, now eye to eye with Aaron.

"You still don't get it, do you, Logan? That's what this is. You're dead!" Aaron steps away, strutting around the room, his arms gesturing at the nothingness. "You got your happy ending for a nano-second, but you didn't deserve it, so when you got blown up, the one above sent you down here, with me."

Veronica.

Logan feels his knees start to give out and he steadies himself against the wall at the thought of Veronica. His wife. All this time, all he wanted to do was make some sort of life with her, the love of his life.

"Spanning years…continents…"

"Epic!" Aaron laughs, his hand flicking in the air. "Well, I mean, you were epic, but now…not so much."

"There's got to be a way," Logan mutters. "I need to get back to her."

Launching himself across the small room, Logan grabs Aaron by the collar of his black shirt, shaking him violently. "Tell me! Tell me how to get out of here!"

A twisted grin spreads across Aaron's face as it grows redder and redder. As Logan watches, two hard black horns emerge from his forehead, curling ever so slightly upwards before stopping. When Aaron opens his mouth, the heat of a deep fire singes Logan's face and he winces.

"Fight me! You want to get back to her, boy? You'll have to fight me! But you don't have it in you because underneath all of those muscles is the same scrawny little cry-baby I had to beat into being a man!"

A rage rushes through Logan the likes of which he had never felt before, shaking him to his bones. He was going to get back to Veronica and have the life he had always wanted, even if he had to fight the devil himself to do so.

Grabbing Aaron's face with his hand, Logan leverages himself forward, pushing him to the hard floor with all his weight behind him and he hears a sickening crack as Aaron's skull makes contact with the concrete. Staring up at Logan, Aaron's forked tongue flicks to lick blood from his lips.

"That all you got for me, son?"

Logan hooks his thumb over the edge of his leather belt, the perverse thought of taking it off and beating Aaron to a bloody pulp with it dancing through his head, but he stops himself, fights for some semblance of control in this out-of-control situation. Instead, he drops to his knees, grabbing Aaron by the throat and pinning him to the ground.

"I don't belong here," he hisses in Aaron's face. "I worked my ass off to become a better goddamn human than you, and I'll be damned if I spend eternity with you. I want to be with Veronica. I deserve to be with Veronica, for fuck's sake. After all we've both been through, is it too much to ask that this mother-fucking universe leave us alone? For once? Just let us both be happy?"

The look on Aaron's face softens in a way Logan had only seen on screen—the type of performance the critics would insist was "Oscar-worthy."

"What makes you think you deserve it, Logan? Tell me."

Releasing Aaron, Logan staggers slightly, dropping to the ground but keeping his eyes locked on his father.

"I love her. I've loved her for so long, I can't even remember a time when I didn't." Rubbing his face with his palms, Logan takes in a shaky breath, letting it out slowly. "And I've worked damn hard to keep our love strong. We've worked at it—I've worked at it—in ways I never thought I was capable of just to make myself a better person for myself and for her. Because isn't that the point of life—to love and be loved? I mean, I may not have been perfect in my work and my life, but Veronica is the one thing I did right in my life, and I'll be damned if I don't fight for that."

Aaron sits up, nodding slowly as he pulls himself to stand. His horns recede and his colour returns to normal and as he straightens, he looks more like himself than Logan remembered from his nightmares.

"You didn't try and kill me." Aaron smirks. "I wouldn't have bet on that."

"Only maim. Slightly." Logan holds his thumb and forefinger an inch apart, looking through the gap up at Aaron. "Call it mercy. Call it personal growth, even down in hell. Besides, if we're both dead, what good would it be to try and kill you?"

"Hmmm…maybe you made the right choice, son." Raising his hand, Aaron presses his thumb and middle finger together, pausing to speak. "Good-bye, Logan. Give my regards to Veronica, would you?"

Snap.

"Logan!"

His eyes open as he gasps for breath but whatever tube is shoved down his throat stops him and he begins to choke. There's a flurry of movement around him and he's disoriented by the bright lights and sounds.

"Oh thank God, thank God, Logan…"

Veronica's voice. It's somewhere near but he can't see her as the people in blue move around him. He can't move. Why can't I move?

"Mr. Echolls, you have to calm down. We're trying to help you," a masculine voice tells him and he focuses on the tall dark-skinned man standing over him.

Nodding, Logan scans the room and finds Veronica a few feet away. She's still in her white dress but it's covered in brown stains.

Blood? His blood or hers?

Her hair is stringy and by the look of terror on her face, it seems as though she has been in this room with him for some time. The nurse moves in his sight line and suddenly she's beside him, her hand resting on his shoulder as they work around him.

"It's okay, baby." She crouches down by his face, her voice shaky. "I thought we were going to lose you that time…but you're back. You're back."

His eyes try and communicate to her the questions in his head. What happened? What the hell is going on? Why can't I move?

Veronica nods, her tired eyes wild now with adrenaline and her shaky hand pushes the hair off her face. "Penn's bomb went off in the car. There was shrapnel and the nails and…." She pauses to take a breath. "You lost your arm, and your face was burned by the blast, and there were so many holes and parts of you they had to stitch up…but you're alive. They didn't think you would make it, but I told them you would. I just knew you wouldn't leave me."

Trying to move his shoulder, he realizes as he looks down that his arm is, in fact, gone, and his stomach knots. The medical staff are still hovering around him, talking among themselves, and Logan lets his eyes drift back up towards the heavens.

Alive.

Barely.

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Notes: Lyrics at the top of this fic from the song "Bat out of Hell" by Meatloaf.

This fic originally appears as part of "The Ones Where Logan Lives" series posted on Archive of Our Own. Eight authors. 35 fanfics. One fic posted every day starting in November, all with the same mission:save Logan Echolls.