X-Men: Evolution

Season Five

"Sins of the Father"

Jean Grey's house did not look the way she remembered it. It was exactly the same as it had always been and yet somehow not the house she'd grown up in.

The 40-year-old faux-Victorian had seemed like a mansion to her she was a little girl (and long before she ever visited an actual mansion), towering above her when she stood before the porch and stared up at the high point of the roof. She would run off that porch and launch herself like she could take off and fly (or so she imagined); the giant block of cement which surrounded the front of the house was like the deck of an aircraft carrier. A great eternal surface which never ended, the only thing larger than the house itself which itself had to be large enough to contain all that Jean was and remembered of being a child. It had to be huge.

It seemed smaller now she decided. That was only logical, she was a good deal older than the version of herself that remembered the place, but even from her most recent visit the previous Christmas it seemed different. She felt as if she had become detached from it not the other way around, as if she were the one that had changed and she knew that was true.

But the ambulance parked in the drive way also had a lot to do with it.

It was a private ambulance, not one affiliated with Kingston Hospital and none of its lights or emergency accoutrements were blaring as it idled on the curb. It was just a personal conveyance (complete with nurse or, if really necessary, with doctor) for moving the sick around. It spoke of money and it spoke of death.

Jean walked past the ambulance, ignoring its meaning, its quiet menace, its bored driver sipping from a plastic coffee cup utterly ambivalent to the enormity of her impact on Jean's life. Jean never spared the vehicle a glance as she climbed the front steps and rang the doorbell. No one answered, not that time or the second or third ring.

Mother, I'm at the door, please put the dishes down and let me in.

"I've asked you not to do that," her mother's voice said from somewhere inside, but plainly approaching the door. A moment later it opened and Jean was face-to-face with an older, more worried version of herself.

"I'm sorry mother, I know. I've just been a bit on edge since …" Jean trailed off, not wanting to give voice to the unspeakable.

"Well how do you think I've been?" Elaine Grey said, but immediately softened and reached for her daughter in partial hug-partial tug to get Jean off the porch. "Come in, come in. It's cold out."

I hadn't noticed, Jean was going to say but instead had to jump aside as a pair of black clad EMT's thumped down the stairs and out the door.

"Everything's taken care of ma'am," the lead EMT said as he went past, "and you've got my number if you need anything."

"Yes, yes, thank you," Elaine said, the door closed before even the last syllable was out or the last EMT had fully gotten his foot out of the house. She locked the door with such force and acumen Jean briefly imagined an old farm woman throwing salt over the door sill to ward off evil spirits. "I do not like having so many strangers in and out of my house, I cannot tell you. All day, it's been."

Jean wasn't listening. She'd already started up the stairs out of habit with a faint notion she was headed towards her parent's bedroom. Her mother stopped her. "It was too hard to get the equipment upstairs so we moved him into the living room."

Jean always wondered why it was called the living room, they had never lived in it and only occasionally held social functions there. Process of elimination, she supposed; they didn't have a parlor or a den or a study or anything else which could have taken its place so living room it was.

If she could think of the word to best describe the room it would be storage. No, that wasn't quite right. Display, or possibly Showcase. It was where her mother created her version of the family for visitors to view – not to interact with or exist among – but view like a living diorama of Grey life: carefully arranged family photos and furniture (not for sitting on!), a Christmas tree in December (with large, empty, wrapped presents under it), a cornucopia at Thanksgiving and obscenely large colored eggs at Easter. Jean imagined she saw her father moving amongst the carefully arranged proscenium sitting down to read as Jean watched TV from the floor. Which was ridiculous because her father spent most of his time in bedroom. She wondered why she was wondering about this so much; it had been the living room for so long she just accepted it as so. It was just what it was, what it had always been.

The vision bled away to the sight of her father lying in a hospital bed in the now naked living room. All of the furniture and knick knacks had been removed, replaced by IV bags and computer monitors. It definitely wasn't a living room; it was the place where the other thing happened.

A grey haired doctor knelt over her father, checking the drip of the IV bag before standing up. Even standing up Jean towered over him, with her surprise she recognized Doctor Hooks who had been her GP since she'd headed for grade school (and before 'the thing' as she thought of it). Everything was so much smaller than she remembered it, not least of all her father.

"Jean, I didn't see you there," the doctor said.

"No, I just got back," she said.

"Well, I'm sorry it had to be for this." The doctor was putting away his implements and closing his bag; it was a mark of finality in a place where Jean did not want it.

"So am I," she replied, sharper than she had meant it.

Actually that wasn't true at all, she realized. She wanted to take out her frustration on someone, anyone, and Doctor Hooks was the one in front of her. She only felt a little bad about it.

"Yes, well … well …" the doctor said, trailing off rather than finding whatever words he was searching for. A warm bedside manner had never been one of his strong suits. When Jean was six she'd broken her arm jumping out of a tree; Doctor Hooks had given her a lecture about the dangers of climbing high and left her with an intern to have her cast made.

"The live-in nurse will arrive tomorrow … he should sleep until then when she can update his pain medication."

With that pronouncement the doctor disappeared from Jean's field of view; somewhere behind her the front door opened but she didn't notice. All she could see was the EKG monitor beeping softly, insistently. Jean couldn't even wish it would stop, no matter how much she wanted to, because of what that would mean. She couldn't take her eyes off of it.

The other monitors and dials meant less. Jean had been reading up on them, on the different tests they measured, even before the call from her mother as her thoughts about pursuing an M.D. became less aspirational and more concrete. Her whole life everyone had told her what a quick study she'd been but looking through her father's chart started to make plain to her what a long journey it was she was considering. It didn't blunt her enthusiasm any, only the unspoken certainty that she would be able to do … something … once she returned home. She hadn't been able to put that certainty into words and still couldn't as she quickly moved beyond the realms of systolic and diastolic pressure readings and into blood glucose levels and enzyme numbers and other factors she couldn't decipher yet. She wished she hadn't been so abrupt with Doctor Hooks after all.

With the chart and monitors no longer occupying her attention Jean had, for the first time since leaving Prof. Xavier's, time to reflect. She had long since realized, on some level, how much she was avoiding that or where it would lead her as it did at that moment. Thoughts of caskets and funerals and preparations and arrangements and what she would say at the service and where the reception would be held … all of these flooded her like a damn being broken, ignoring her commands to stay shut away. Jean Grey was used to knowing her own mind, in a way it was all she had trained herself to do for the past 10 years, and having it rebel on her like that was unsettling. One of the monitors fritzed and shook and Jean had to put a hand out to steady it.

Ignoring the problem will only make it grow stronger, the Professor's calm voice said in her head as it had thousands of times over the years. Jean knew his maxims by heart. Tackle it head on.

Jean choked on the thought, she'd never liked that lesson but she never liked letting the professor down, either. "How … how long does he have?" she finally managed to get out.

"We've all got to go some time; why drag it out I say."

Jean turned in shock to find the doctor gone after all. Instead a young blonde man, tall and thin, stood in the doorway wearing a charming smile and dangerous eyes.

"Hello, Red," he said. "How've ye been?"

She recognized him immediately, particularly the smile. It had stuck in her head for months, also no matter how much she had tried to banish it. If she weren't so distracted Jean might have noted to herself how much trouble she was having putting things from her mind.

"Lucas?" she finally said.

Lucas Haller had not changed much since that blustery night in Scotland; even his clothes appeared the same. Appeared being the operative word; on closer examination it was clear they were of both a very fine material and cut.

"What are you doing here? How did you get here? Where have you been?" Nothing but the same smile. "We looked for you for weeks after McFadden; your father looked for weeks. He's been worried."

He did not reply to that or give any indication that he'd heard her. "Invite me in? It's getting colder by the day and I'm nay dressed for the occasion."

No, she wanted to say. Go away, go to jail, go see your father, bring back David. She wanted to say all those things, but didn't. "And what if I don't?"

"I'm not a vampire," he laughed. "I don't need your permission, but—" he held up his hands in faux surrender as she glared at him "—I'm not a pillock, either. I don't force myself in where I'm not wanted."

She considered calling for the Professor but knew that Lucas would know if she did. Jean was not prepared to turn her father's sick room into a battlefield at that moment. She stood aside and gestured for him to enter.

"My mother is here," she said by way of warning.

"I know that." He took his jacket off and tossed it on a chair near the door. By reflex Jean took it up, unfolded it and hung it on a peg by the door. "She's upstairs right now wondering how long you're going to be here and what trouble will be along."

"You don't get to do that!" Jean snarled. For a moment her hair even began to rise around her as if a wind was blowing through the house. She took a breath and got hold of herself.

"Right, trespassing on your territory there. Won't happen again."

"That's not what I meant," Jean said, her face coloring, but Lucas had already turned his back and entered the living room.

"He's not looking too good, is he?" Lucas said, zeroing in on her father's sick bed. He took up Mr. Grey's chart and flipped through it very much as Jean had done herself. She took it from him.

"Is that what you're here for? To have fun with my pain?"

"Wouldn't dream of it," he replied, sauntering about the room, taking its details in. He seemed to find the clay figures on the mantle enticing, shifting them about in search of the perfect diorama for them. "I've too much personal experience with loss to wish it on anyone else. Yours is calling out like a siren at sea, drawing unwary men under its spell."

He fixed her with such a steady eye Jean felt herself growing embarrassed and broke away. "And you just happened to be nearby."

"No happenstance about it," he smiled again.

She took a single step forward; the walls of the living room began to tremble like an earthquake was beginning. A family photo dropped off the wall.

"You did this to him!"

"A lifetime of beer and fried egg sandwiches did this to him. I'm the one keeping his heart pumping, thank you very much. Think I should stop?"

She was just as certain that he was telling the truth as she wished that he wasn't. She asked him why he would help her in such a way.

"Maybe because I love you."

"You have a funny notion of love," Jean scoffed.

"I can't imagine why," he returned and for the first time there was no hint of a joke or sarcasm in his voice.

"The Professor has been worried sick about you since he found out about you. He's looked and looked—"

"That's not why I'm here!" He slammed a fist down, knocking down the carefully arranged Grey diorama. It was the first time he'd raised his voice and Jean realized she'd been trying to get him to. She wasn't sure why. With a visible effort Lucas got himself under control.

"You have a problem. I can help you with it; no need to make it more complicated than that. Yes or no is all you need to say."

"Why should I believe you?"

"That should be obvious, too. You have something I want."

Jean tried hard not to ask what but knew that he'd heard the thought when he smiled again. "It'll take more than that to make me sleep with you."

"What exactly would it take?"

Decisive action was not one of Jean's strong suits; she was self-aware enough to know that. She punched him in the face, as hard as she could.

"Satisfied?" he asked. Through the fingers holding his smashed nose it came out muffled.

"A little," Jean admitted.

"And get your head out of the gutter, I don't care about anything as tawdry as that."

Jean resisted the urge to ask him what he did want for as long as she could before giving in. It took a few minutes.

"Why, your mind, love."

Jean made the decision, even before arriving at Xavier's school, that she would never knowingly use her powers to hurt another person. To protect others, to keep from harm, to push and pull as required, but never to truly hurt someone. Her years at the School at brought her close to that line a number of times but she'd always pulled back. That resolution didn't stop her from reaching out, grabbing Lucas by the throat and lifting him off his feet.

"You still want my mind?" Again the self-assured smile. Jean was starting to hate that smile. She suspected he used it when he didn't have a snappy answer for a question. Professor Xavier used extended silences the same way.

"More than ever," he managed to croak out.

She let him go. "Then why are you leaving him like this?"

"Best I could do, love."

He put his hands up defensively when she advanced on him again. "I'm not God! I can't do anything I want. Almost anything, but not anything."

He let that hang in the air. "But you and me together … God wouldn't stand a chance."

She wanted to turn from that whisper, to run from it as fast as she could. But her feet wouldn't move.

"Why should I believe you?" she asked.

"Because you can read minds," he shot back. "You'd know if I was lying or not."

"And you'd let me read you? Probe around in there for all of your secrets?"

"You can do whatever you want but I'm not going to hang around forever. It's all bit too 'Death of Ivan Ilyich' for my taste," he said.

Jean's answer wasn't in doubt, not even to herself. She wanted it to be, wanted it to be desperately. But she also wanted to keep everything from her youth exactly as it had been. Though she had barely spent a year's worth of days in the house (or with the people in it) since leaving for the School, she had kept it in her mind as an unchanging rock, a touchstone outside of the weirdness of her everyday life which she could return to for solace and comfort. As transitory as she knew that fiction was, she couldn't let it go without a fight.

"Yes," she said.

She expected a long list of conditions, requirements, black mail. She braced herself for the worst of them and was instead surprised and disarmed when he simply shrugged and said "Okay."

"Just like that?" she asked.

"Just like that." Before she knew it he was beside her; one arm around her waist, the other lifting her hand towards her father's forehead. She struggled to break free. "Stop it, I told you I'm not here for that. I'm here for this."

He touched her hand to her father; his skin was warm and she could feel herself being drawn towards her father's mind. She resisted the urge out of reflex, then she felt Lucas adding to the tug, pulling her down to her father's depths. She released her hold on herself and went with him.

A light opened up before her, so bright she couldn't look at it. Then it started to dim and pull away. Jean desperately wanted the light back; she reached for it and suddenly found herself dragged along with it like a swimmer in a riptide. The world grew dark and cold as the light dimmed; she pulled at it, trying to bring it back. Instead it dragged her along and grew afraid. She held onto it as long as she could but the dark enveloped her, climbing into her nose and mouth and she panicked and let go.

Gasping like a swimmer breaking the ocean surface, Jean opened her eyes. She was covered in sweat and at some point both she and Lucas had fallen to the ground. She knelt there still next to her father's sick bed.

"It's too much," she panted. "I can't do it."

"Can't or won't?" Lucas had gotten to his feet and was staring down at her with something like disappointment. For some reason it hurt Jean's feelings terribly, even more than feeling like she'd failed her father.

"What are you talking about? I'd do anything to help him."

Lucas was already out of Jean's range as she rose, dropping onto the couch across the room and sticking his feet up on the table – all disapproval gone and all insouciance returned.

"I'm sure you think so but I know what you're really capable of. I saw it in your mind in Scotland and I saw it again here. If you really wanted to save him you could rewrite the laws of entropy as easily as squash an ant. You're holding back; worse, you're holding yourself back, and that won't do anyone any good."

Jean was standing over father, touching his hair, unconsciously transposing the face of now with the face from her memory. He was so small and slight now, his hair was fine like a doll's.

"Well? What's it going to be?"

She said nothing and after a moment he let go and stood. The disgust rolled off him in waves. "Then there's nothing I can do for you."

He took his coat off the rack. The rustle of it mixed with the steady beep from the EKG. She managed to let him get to the door and open it before wrenching it free from him and slamming it closed. The smile on his face made her sick to her stomach, but she pushed that down.

"What do I have to do?" she asked.

The answer turned out to be 'going to the town park.' She and Lucas were sitting on a green hill, watching the handful of people willing to come out on a blustery day to walk dogs, put their children on swings or throw bread at the ducks congregating on the artificial lake. The picnic table they'd found was still damp from the mornings' rain and Jean was uncomfortable, but when she tried to stand up Lucas said 'stop.' He'd said little else in the thirty minutes they'd been there. Jean asked him why they were there but "Practicing," was all she got in response.

"I already told you I'd do what you wanted … why all these games?" She made no effort to hide her impatience.

"Games are fun," he said. "I'm having fun, aren't you having fun?"

She glowered at him and let him know she was not. "Don't worry, you will."

A preemptive finger shushed her next question. Jean could feel him concentrating on the people filling up the park. She followed his lead, focusing on the people, letting them wash over her: their surface thoughts, their hopes, their dreams, their secret fears. It was a closeness to the people around her she had refused to allow herself to have at Professor Xavier's, but it never stopped being intoxicating. She'd forgotten how much she enjoyed it.

"There," Lucas said. It was so sudden and abrupt after the long silence Jean actually jumped a little. She followed his pointing finger to the small group of people at the bottom of the list. A young man in grey sweats was jogging slowly around the green, a long haired golden retriever following after him on the end of a leash.

"I see him," she said.

"Not him, the dog," Lucas said.

The retriever had raced past the jogger, attempting to engage in the strangers all around the park, wrapping its owner up in its leash. He was struggling to untangle himself and get to the dogs collar but laughing all the same. He was alive.

"Watch him," Lucas said.

The man let the dog off its leash and it took off like the rocket, racing past Jean and Lucas. It ran around and around and around the park. When Jean asked Lucas what the point was she got no response. He was watching the dog, watching so intently Jean worried for a moment that he had stopped breathing.

"You can feel him from here, can't you?" Lucas said, eyes partially closed. "Feel his legs straining, his lungs bursting, his heart racing. He's alive, every inch of him, and you're alive with him."

Jean said she couldn't. Lucas called her a liar.

"What do you want me to do?"

"Focus. See his heart, see how strong it is."

She did. "Now what?"

"You're going to squeeze it and make it stop." Jean gasped and exclaimed there was no way she was doing that. Her passion was met with the barest shrug.

"This is a waste of time!" she stood up to leave, knowing it was at least partly theatrical even as she did it. Lucas didn't move a muscle.

"It is as long as you won't take it serious."

"Me!"

Now Lucas did stand. "You said you'd do whatever you had to for your father. This is it."

"I can't see how killing someone's dog helps anyone but you."

"I know you don't. That's why I'm here," for the first time Lucas' shell of anarchic apathy had dropped. He was intensely focused on what he was saying to Jean, regardless of what she thought about it. He was practically glowing. "Because destruction is control and control is creation. Take the world apart and put it back together the way you want it."

Jean refused to budge, refused to let Lucas know whether his words had struck over or how deeply. He signed, gave up on the dog, changed his focus to the table.

"Look at it," he said.

Jean cocked an eyebrow. "At a table?"

"Not the table, look deeper, look what's within. Past the paint and the fibers down to the molecules making them up."

As he spoke the annoying mixture of arrogance and ennui vanished replaced with an awe and even reverence for what he was talking about, just the way Professor Xavier did when he was deep into one of his lessons. For the first time Jean recognized the similarities between the two and wondered how deep they really ran.

Without realizing it Jean had followed his voice all the way down to the crazed pinwheeling of subatomic particles within the wood of the table, a fuchsia kaleidoscope of colors bouncing against one another. She realized she could tug at them with her mind just as she did the coffee maker or brush, that on one level she already was.

"Even as you get down to the atoms themselves, to make a new element you have to rip an old atom apart, pull electrons out of its orbit, launch your own miniature nuclear explosion in order to create something new."

Before he'd even finished talking Jean was doing it, reshaping the atoms swirling around her, pushing subatomic particles together, interrupting electron streams. She pushed and pulled, prodded and directed, like a painter or sculptor, then stood back to see what her inspiration had wrought. The corner of the table and transformed to snow and collapsed in on itself, along with a bird which happened to be sitting on it at the time. The only tell-tale sign was the remains of a redwing resting on the table top where the wood began again. Jean felt nausea well up in her stomach; it took all her will to force it down.

"That was, that was …" Lucas' eyes had practically bugged out of his head. He grasped around for words to describe what it was. Like Jean, he was coming up short.

"I want to leave," Jean said. She did not give Lucas a chance to respond.

"I don't know what you're so angry about," Lucas said when they'd finally returned to the Grey household. He'd been uncharacteristically silent for the entire drive back, even his thoughts closed off to her. "It took me years to make that break through."

"Aren't I jumping for joy."

"Looks like I'm rubbing off on you everywhere," Lucas leered. Even after just a day together she'd started blocking out his ridiculous machismo without a second thought.

"You think it's a good idea to make me want to be as destructive and amoral as you."

"Yes, I do."

Whatever Jean was going to respond with was lost to the sudden ring of the telephone.

"That's for you," Lucas said.

"Are you just doing that for dramatic effect?" Jean asked.

"Daddy dearest is calling," Lucas replied, his voice taking on the icy tone it always did when Xavier came up. "He did say he'd check in every day, didn't he?"

"Stop doing that," Jean replied and went to the phone. "Hello, professor."

"Hello, Jean, how are you?" Normally she found Xavier's voice the most comforting of sounds, the signal that answers even for the most intractable problems were forthcoming. For the first time it was causing her nothing but stress; more than anything she just wanted to get him off the phone. "Is there something wrong?"

She closed her eyes and collected herself. "No, sir, I'm fine. Well, I'm not fine, but …"

"Yes, no, I'm sure," the professor said. "Have the doctor's said anymore?"

"Not much. He could get better at any time or he could go any minute or he could just stay the way he is. It's … it's really frustrating."

"I won't pretend to understand what you're going through …"

"If there's anyone who would know, it would be you, Professor."

That got the barest chuckle out of Xavier. Jean knew he had a sense of humor, but it was extremely difficult to get a glimpse of, even for those who knew him well. The professor refused to let himself go in front of his students, even those who had graduated and moved on. Even Ororo and Dr. McCoy professed to rarely seeing it.

"I'll give you that, but you know how I feel about that sort of thing," he was saying.

"No, sir, I know you don't like to eavesdrop." A sound, like a strangled snort, drew her attention for a moment.

"Am I interrupting something? I someone there?"

"Just …" she paused, glancing at Lucas. He was glaring at her with a look she couldn't place. "Just my mother. She's not handling all of this particularly well."

Jean had never lied to the Professor before. Not even when she was a little girl, when she'd broken one of the house rules or stayed out after curfew. It had simply never occurred to her to do so before.

"No, I wouldn't think so. I'll leave you to it then, but if there's anything I can do don't hesitate to call. We're all here for you, you know."

"Yes, sir, I'll let you know, sir." She could feel Lucas's smirk even without seeing it. Jean hung up the phone. "I hope you found that entertaining," she said. She didn't even bother to hide her scorn anymore.

"You have no idea. Not many warm family chats in the Haller household."

"You're not being very fair to him."

"I don't care about being fair. I care about making myself feel better. Isn't that why we're here?"

The phone rang again and Lucas' smile faltered. Jean went for it but he stopped her.

"Don't bother, love; that one's for me."

He picked it up with a muffled hello. Jean realized he must have given out her number as his point of contact before he'd even knocked on her door. The sheer arrogance frustrated her more than she expected, considering how fitting it was for him. She was going to say something when her mother suddenly called her name from upstairs. Her mind on the mysterious call Jean met her mother coming down the stairs with a dazed expression on her face.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing," her mother said, touching her temple. "Nothing, I …"

"Why did you call me? Did something happen?"

"I don't know. I just felt like I had to."

Jean growled a silent Lucas! to herself and went to confront him, ignoring her mother's calls behind her. He was still on the phone.

"No, it's going fine. No I don't think that's a good idea. When I say it is."

Jean cleared her throat and could tell Lucas had heard her by how still he suddenly became. A few more words and he hung up the phone.

"Who was that?" Jean asked.

"No one that matters."

Jean crossed her arms. The misadventure in the park was still weighing on her; combined with Lucas' willful use of her mother and gleeful contempt for everything around him had left Jean completely through with him.

"I could make you tell me."

"Love, if you could do that there'd be no reason for me to be here at all. But that doesn't mean we're all out of options."

"I don't trust how smug you're being right now."

"You shouldn't," Lucas clapped his hands together and rubbed them like a child getting ready to open the largest Christmas present in the world. "The easiest way to solve your problem is to learn how to destroy everything."

"That doesn't sound likely."

Lucas rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I don't mean actually destroy everything. I'm not insane. But you've got to know how. Your whole life you've let your power be, let the world rush past you, refused to exert your will over it. Aren't you tired of that?"

A day on the street outside … a little girl crying … the world coming apart around her … the images suddenly burst upon Jean from … somewhere. She didn't recognize them and yet felt connected to them, unable to let go of them. She let out a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding. "How do you know what I've been my whole life?"

Lucas ignored her. "If you won't do it—"

"I won't."

"If you won't do it, we're not left with many options. Which is to say, we've got one. When I said I couldn't save your father all by myself I wasn't being a hundred percent honest."

"Color me surprised."

"I might be able to do it … emphasis on might … but it would take a lot. I'm not sure I would survive it, all by my lonesome like."

"That definitely doesn't sound like you."

"I'd give it a shot for the right incentive. Truthfully, I'm a little curious if I could pull it off," the annoying smirk reappeared. "Well?"

"Go on, spit it out. I know you're dying to."

"A trade. My father's life for yours."

At some level Jean had been expecting that ever since Lucas arrived. "You're finally starting to get predictable," she said.

He frowned. "That hurts."

"I bet it does."

"So what's the answer, Red? Or do I already know?"

Jean glared at the candles on the dining room table. They stubbornly refused to burst into flame. Her brow furrowed, she tried harder; still nothing. A matchbook sat on the lace tablecloth, her mother's best, next to a china salad bowl so gleaming Jean could see herself in it. Jean refused to reach for the match's, focused on the candles again. They suddenly ignited; Jean was momentarily elated.

"It's not that hard," Lucas said. "But you've got to want them to burn, or they won't do it."

Jean unsuccessfully fought to hide her grimace. "I would have gotten it."

The dining room was set for five places, all of the families best places laid out just so. Jean's mother was not the type to pull out a tape measure and make certain each plate and piece was the exact right distance from the edge and each other, but she wasn't far off.

"You didn't have to go to so much trouble for my benefit," Lucas said.

Jean gave him her coldest one over. "Put a coat on."

"You definitely don't have to go that much trouble," he replied, but went to his luggage (which had appeared from somewhere while they were at the park) and pulled a crimson blazer, decorated with flames along the bottom, from it.

Her mother came out of the kitchen, smoothing her dress; her best red Valentino she'd spent far too much on for Prof. Grey's retirement dinner and which she'd never regretted.

"I don't know why I'm so flustered," she was saying. "Heaven knows I have enough to be thinking about right now."

"I know." Jean rubbed her mothers shoulder, idly picked a single mote of lint from it. "You look fine."

"And don't be doing any of that please," her mother said, motioning at Jean's forehead. "I want to know what's going on."

"Mother…"

"If the Professor can help your father in any way I need to know but more importantly I need to understand and I don't," Mrs. Grey said and Jean tried to keep her internal grimace from showing. On the one hand she had to tell her mother something; on the other, the false hope she'd instilled was heartbreaking. Mrs. Grey had visibly unstooped with some of the weight lifted from her; its return when the truth was revealed would be devastating. Unless Lucas could do what he said …

"Have you heard a word I said?" Mrs. Grey asked.

"Sorry, it takes a lot of concentration to not do that stuff."

"I asked what you think the Professor can do? Not that I don't think the world of him, but the problem is in your father's heart, not his head."

"He might not be able to do anything," Jean hedged. "But Lucas thinks the three of this together might be able to make his body heal itself."

Her mother said she still didn't understand and Jean agreed with her. "If anyone would, it's the Professor."

A set of headlights panned across the dining room window as a car pulled into the driveway and stopped.

"He's here," Jean said.

Lucas was the closest to the front door and had already approached it before a firm hard knock emanated from it. Jean just barely kept herself from running to the door, her desire to open it first overwhelming her. As it was she could see Lucas' back tense up as he did so, just make out the legs and wheelchair in the doorway. Jean paused, preparing herself for what would come next. Lucas had sworn up and down and would not attack Professor Xavier in her home, though he promised nothing more than that. Faced with what he seemed to think about more than anything else, Jean realized she didn't know him remotely well enough to say whether he'd keep his word or not.

"Hello, father," was all Lucas said.

"Hello, David," Xavier replied. Jean could get nothing from either of them.

"Lucas. My name is Lucas."

"Yes, of course. I apologize."

They froze there, the four of them, like a tableau. Jean knew she needed to say something to break the tension but had no idea what.

"Professor, it's so good to see you again," Mrs. Grey did the job for her, pushing Lucas aside with practiced ease and ushering the Professor across the threshold.

"It's been too long," Xavier replied. "I only wish it was under better circumstances."

Jean felt temporarily removed from her body, watching her mother make small talk with Lucas and the Professor. The only thing which kept her from laughing at the outright absurdity of the situation was the permanent knowledge of her own father, lying just a room away. Something of the emotion must have leaked out of her, as she noticed Xavier giving her a particularly strange look.

"That smells heavenly, Mrs. Grey," Xavier said, pushing himself towards the dining room and momentarily breaking the tension. "Salmon almandine, isn't it? How did you know?"

"All wives specialize in mind reading," she replied, gesturing for everyone to follow her to the table.

After Professor Xavier and Lucas' last meeting Jean expected the dinner to be nothing but shouting and venom but instead no one said anything. The three of them sat silently, drinking the cabernet Mrs. Grey had opened and waiting for someone else to talk. Jean sat in the center of the long dining room table having pointedly planted Lucas and Professor Xavier at opposite ends so that she could act as a mediator if needed. The silence was just as pervasive sub rosa; the telepaths had closed themselves off from one another, locked into their own minds and letting nothing of their feelings out. Jean wondered how people existed in such a state without going mad.

"Jean tells me the three of you might be able to help John, you can … 'trick him' into fixing himself? How is that possible?" Mrs. Grey said at length.

The shock of language after such a long silence startled Jean momentarily, though she wasn't sure why. Her mother had never been able to stand long silences.

"I don't want to give you any false hope, Elaine, but if there is anything I can do rest assured I will," Xavier said.

"That's mighty white of you," Lucas smirked.

"That's not fair, Professor Xavier has been here for my family since I was a little girl," Jean said. I'm sure, was the cold reply from Lucas.

"It's alright, Jean," Xavier said, cutting in. "None of us ever do as much as we should, only as much as we can. Fortunately you were here to pick up my deficiencies, Lucas. I was very happy when Jean told me that."

"I'll bet."

"I've never been more sincere in my life. You have my permission to scan me if you'd like."

Professor! Jean practically screamed. Over and over he drilled into her the danger of opening herself up to another telepath. It was the most dangerous thing one could do.

"There's nothing in there I'm interested in, not that you don't already know," Lucas said, and tapped his own forehead. "Unless you're afraid to look too deep in here."

"On the contrary, I relish the opportunity to know you better. I've put it off for too long and for that I am sorry."

"Don't get used to it. This is all temporary."

"It doesn't have to be," Xavier said. "The boundaries between us are imaginary. We set the terms, we can change them."

"That's the professor's dream" Jean said. "It's what made us what we are."

"In dreams begin responsibility," Lucas replied and turned to Mrs. Grey. "The Professor doesn't want to let on how much our thoughts affect reality, even the beating of a man's heart. We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world."

Mrs. Grey had never heard such a thing before.

"Just something I learned from the professor," Lucas said, for once no trace of mirth in his voice.

"Oh? Do you go to the institute also?" Mrs. Grey said, slightly confused. "Jean's never mentioned you before."

"I was never so lucky," Lucas replied, still focused on Xavier.

"It's never too late."

"Old man, I'm starting to wonder if you've ever been right about anything your whole life." Lucas stood, wiped his hands one final time and disappeared out the front door stating that he needed a cigarette.

"I feel as if I've walked in on my parents arguing," Mrs. Grey. She didn't raise her voice or put any of her usual guilt into it, but the sad resignation was devastating.

Xavier also pushed himself away from the table. "I meant what I said, Elaine. I'll do everything I can for you. And Jean."

Xavier wheeled himself into the living room and its large bay window which overlooked the front yard. Jean knew from experience that the front porch was not visible from there, but it probably wouldn't have mattered if it were. Jean thought, not for the first time, how wide the gulf between parents and children really was and wondered, again not for the first time, how that happened.

"Jean …" her mother said abruptly, and stopped. She tried to start her sentence several times but all she inevitably came away with was: "I'm going to bed."

Jean absently wished her mother good night while watching Xavier at the window. He still hadn't moved. Jean wondered if he'd sent her mother off to give them privacy, but she didn't ask. She didn't want to know. Lucas had been gone for so long Jean had honestly come to think he'd left for the evening, when the front door opened and he walked back in.

"That many cigarettes in one go will probably kill you," she said.

"Needed to clear my head some."

"It's going to take more than cigarettes for that," Jean said.

"Truer words, love." The ridiculous smirk again, which Jean found so annoying. She tried to look past it.

"You can believe everything the Professor has told you, here and in Scotland, I promise you."

"Just because you can believe it doesn't make it true," Lucas said and took a sudden step forward. Jean wanted to step back, to keep the space between them even, but didn't. "You shouldn't believe a word he tells you."

"Tell me why," Jean said, trying to prolong the conversation, wanting to know what was behind it.

He seemed to think about it, if only for a moment. "Another time. I've already called my ride."

"You don't have to take it," Jean said. She didn't know why she did, she hadn't even been thinking of the words before they tumbled out. Certainly she didn't want to continue the awkward warfare between the Professor and his son. She'd rarely wanted anything to end so badly. And yet she also knew she'd meant what she said. Nothing more dangerous than a telepath who doesn't know their own mind, Xavier's old adage occurred to her.

"Give me a good reason to stay then," Lucas said. He burned with such intensity Jean had to take a step back.

"Perhaps a game of chess?" Xavier interrupted. Somewhere he had rejoined them from the dining room window, though neither had noticed. The idea of helping Lucas had become so momentarily enthralling Jean had lost track of everything else, even the Professor whose presence she was normally unable to ignore so close. The feeling unnerved her. "I believe Dr. Grey has a board about somewhere."

"I never cared for the game," Lucas said.

"I could teach you, if you'd like," Xavier said.

"Should I be gratified by the gesture?"

"You should take it for what it is," Xavier said.

Lucas said nothing, the first time since dinner he seemed genuinely stumped. Jean thought she sensed hidden desire coming from him, focused on Xavier's offer but it was buried under so much static it may have just been her imagination.

"You expect too much of me," Lucas finally said.

"I refuse to believe that."

Father and son were silent for so long Jean wondered if they had dropped to subverbal communication, but felt sure she would have sensed it if they had. She thought each was simply unwilling or unable to give the other the satisfaction of speaking again. She wondered if they would simply stand there like that forever, until they grew old and withered away into dust. The stalemate was broken by an elegant, grey Rolls Royce Phantom pulling into the cul-de-sac. It perched at the end of the Grey's driveway, idling. No driver emerged but the rear passenger door opened on its own. All was darkness within.

"That's for me," Lucas said, smiling down at Xavier. "Perhaps I can drop you somewhere?"

"Actually, I was wondering if I might stay here?" Xavier asked, turning to Jean.

"Of course you can, Professor," Jean said immediately. Lucas stood, indecisive, unsure whether to press the issue or not.

"The first rule of chess is the importance of position, both now and in the future," Xavier said.

"I'll remember that," Lucas said

"If you should need anything —" Xavier started.

"I don't need anything from you," Lucas said, opening the front door. Professor Xavier followed him to the threshold, but refused to cross it.

"That is the first lie you've told this evening. It doesn't become you."

"No, you're right, there is one thing I need," Lucas replied and tapped his forehead with two fingers in a mock salute. "Be seeing you."

"Yes, you will," Professor Xavier replied. "Good night, David."

Lucas' face changed slightly, his jaw clenching and unclenching, but he said nothing. He turned on his heel and disappeared into the night.

"That went better than I expected," Jean breathed.

"I think it went exactly as expected," Xavier replied.

He wheeled himself back into the living room and Jean closed the chilly night air outside.

"The master bedroom is the only one on the ground floor, but no one is using it right now. Mother moved into the guest room when dad got sick. Or I can lift you upstairs …"

"I'm sure the downstairs room will be fine," Xavier said, and paused. "It seems no matter what we do we'll be intruding on your grief, I am sorry for that."

Jean assured him it was fine and waited, knowing that was not at all what Xavier had wanted to say. She was eventually rewarded with a quiet "What has he been like?"

Jean related the events of the 'training' at the park, and his mysterious phone call. "He blocked me from listening to it but the words 'Hellfire Club' kept going through his head. Do they mean anything to you?"

"No," Xavier replied. "No, and that worries me."

"Everything about him worries me," Jean said, relating Lucas' view of the intertwined nature of creation and destruction and what he wanted from her.

"He's not wrong," Xavier said after a lengthy pause. It surprised Jean and she said so. "Well, that doesn't mean he's right, either. Nature is rarely so cut and dried as he is making out. His inability to perceive that, for all his gifts, is his great weakness."

"You don't think he can do it either, then." Jean was surprised how deflated she felt.

"I don't know. He certainly thinks he can. And as you know, in our line that is sometimes enough. But even if he is right, the cost … may be high."

"You've tried it before," Jean realized.

"We've all had loved ones taken from us," Xavier said after a pause.

"Why didn't you say anything?" Jean asked.

"You know why," Xavier said and Jean realized she did.

"Can I trust him?" Jean asked, in spite of herself.

"Not in the slightest. Don't believe a word he tells you, no matter how much you may want to," Xavier said. "And you will want to very much."

"What do you mean, Professor?" Jean asked, but he was already wheeling himself down the hall to the master bedroom.

"Good night, Jean," was all he said.

The room was empty except for her father's slow breathing. In the emotional back and forth Jean had almost forgotten he was there. The assisted nature of his breathing was like a metronome, it threatened to lull Jean to sleep. It startled her how quickly she'd gotten used to the sight. Trying to remember him as he had been when she was younger, she could only picture the older man he had become and gradually the man lying on the bed in front of her. She wondered if that was a protection mechanism built into humans, to keep them from noticing the obscene passage of time. Not for the first time she wished she could freeze everything in place, keep it from changing any further, keeping her youth as she remembered permanently alive. But none of this was quite how she remembered it, Jean realized, and not just her father's aging. At a certain point in the past her parents vanished and all was replaced by Professor Xavier - her family, though still involved with her life, further and further removed from it. That was a choice which had been made, she wasn't even sure by whom anymore; it was simply a thing that was and had always been. Was that what she wanted to trap, and keep frozen, or was that where everything went wrong? Jean shook her head wondering, again not for the first time, where such thoughts came from. Her father slept, breathing slowly and mechanically, in and out.

Jean's mother was puttering in their now joint room, making the bed and laying out extra pillows.

"That was … interesting," she said. "Your professor and his son have quite the relationship."

Jean's only response was a vague guttural sound, deep in the back of her throat.

"Do you think he'll be able to help us?" her mother asked, ignoring Jean's indifference. "That is why he's here, isn't it?"

Which one? Jean thought to reply with, but didn't. She blamed Lucas for putting such ideas in her head, she blamed Professor Xavier for making it so easy and she blamed her father for falling ill and starting her down this road. Her thoughts circled round and round each other. She tried several mind calming techniques Professor Xavier had taught her over the years, but sleep remained stubbornly out of reach. His words haunted Jean late into the night.

Lucas was waiting for Jean the next morning, just as Xavier had predicted. Not at the front door as he had been the day before, but sitting calmly as you please at the breakfast table in the kitchen, reading her father's copy of the New York Times.

"I don't remember inviting you in this morning," Jean said, continuing past him to the cupboard to see what if any breakfast-like material was in there. There frequently hadn't been when she was little and Dr. Grey was out of town. Every trip home reminded her how much she'd gotten used to living in the mansion – always overstuffed all the time, every need prepared for and met – and the difficulty of adjusting back to 'normal' life. How did people live like this?

"You already let me in once, that's all I need," Lucas replied setting the paper down. Jean wondered if he was sure he wasn't a vampire.

"No, just pushy and rude," he laughed. "And pressed for time. We've got a lot of work to put into you if you're going to be any use to me."

"Weren't you the one who was supposed to be of use to me?" Jean asked, pushing down the urge to punch Lucas again. An urge she knew he was triggering deliberately. Instead, she suggested they wait for the Professor to awaken, perfectly aware that he already was even though he'd not yet emerged from the master bedroom. She also knew Lucas would be aware of that, too, but decided to give him to room to pause and slow down. Instead he jumped to his feet.

"No time for that, love," he said.

"Practice again?" Jean scoffed.

"Practice always," Lucas said. "Practice makes perfect."

"You really are your father's son," Jean smiled. After the previous night she thought Lucas would lose his practiced ease at that, but he regained his calm and smiled back at her.

"You've no idea."

Jean had predicted they would go to the park, to repeat the exercise she'd failed at the day before.

"What would be the point of that?" Lucas replied when Jean had said so. "You've already shown you don't want to do that. Time for a different approach."

Instead they were walking through downtown Bayville, slowly, amiably as if they had not a care in the world like the cover of a Dylan album. Jean did still have cares, though. She was not happy about moving so far from her parent's house but was too curious as to why Lucas had picked it to put up more than a token complaint. She nibbled on the muffin she'd picked up, feeding both her hunger and giving her space to come up with a new direction of questioning. Aware that Lucas was purposefully not adding any more to that statement she finally gave in and asked him what he meant.

"I mean I've told you what you need to be prepared to do in order to get into the headspace you need to be in. But you are far too uptight to accept that. So; we need to do something about that." He stopped and gestured with a flourish. "Voilà. Dear papa's salvation."

It was at first glance a random store front on Bayville's Main Street, one of several which'd had various owners over the years battling against encroaching malls and big box stores and failing on a regular basis. They came and went so fast (both her new favorite record store and second favorite vintage clothing shop had pulled up stakes in the last six months) Jean had no idea what was actually there at the moment. People in white button ups and ties sat at desks - not a store, maybe a church? - and carried pieces of paper and cups of coffee around inside the floor-to-ceiling front windows. Jean tracked the various offices - they seemed to go on and on, blending into one another, how big was this not-a-store-but-whatever-it-was? - finally stopping at what must have been the entrance. Above it hung a large white sign scripted with blood red letters: Edwards For Mayor.

"What are we doing here?"

"Searching for inspiration," Lucas said. Jean demanded to know what he meant. "You're not willing to do what you need to do on a stranger. Okay, fine. We'll give you someone you actually mean harm to and see if that gets you over your reticence."

"There's no one here I want to hurt," Jean said.

"Give it a minute."

One of the white shirts exited the front door, walking towards the nearest corner.

"Right on time," Lucas muttered and started after him. "Mind how you go."

Lucas followed him to the nearby intersection as did Jean. She realized that this was both a regular occurrence and that there were several other people also following the young man. It wasn't till they got closer to the corner that she noticed the unfolded step ladder standing there. From the chain around it and the nearby lamppost it seemed to be a permanent fixture.

"Lucas, what is going on?"

"You should come out in the world more often," he said without sparing her a glance. "Trapped back there behind your walls you lose touch with what the hoi polloi are up to."

The young man climbed to the top of step ladder and called for attention at the top of his lungs. Jean suddenly realized she knew what was coming before he opened his mouth.

"Mutants are among us!" he yelled at the top of his lungs and quickly devolved from there into a familiar screed, decrying mutantkind and how easily they hid from normal humans, how dangerous they potentially were. Jean was walking so quickly it took almost a full minute for Lucas to catch up despite having several inches on her.

"Not your cup of tea, then," he said.

"I've heard it all before," Jean replied.

"Maybe you should listen. If that doesn't get your blood up enough to break something apart then there's no hope for you."

Lucas kept talking but Jean was no longer listening. Something, something, was nagging at the corner of Jean's perception. She concentrated on it. They'd left the campaign worker and his speech behind, along with his most active listeners. The crowd around them was returning more to average passersby and shoppers thinking about their problem of the moment. But not all of them; every so often Jean would pick up a feeling of pure aggression and malevolence aimed in her and Lucas' direction. A feeling which was staying close to the two of them no matter how far they moved from the Kelly campaign headquarters.

Her first instinct was to look widely around the street and look for anyone suspicious or out of place. Her inner-Logan voice smacked the back of her head and reminded her she knew the correct way to search for surveillance on a busy street. Jean stopped so abruptly Lucas continued past her several steps before turning back to see where she'd gone. Jean was looking into the window of a furniture store advertising upwards of 40% discounts and reflecting the street behind her. Even as she scanned the faces around her she sent her mind out over the crowd; lightly, gently, like a light fog moving through them. She felt the presences stop as well, but no face in the crowd leapt out at her. Whoever they were, they were very experienced at this sort of thing.

"Something on your mind?" Lucas asked. Bringing herself back to the here and now, Jean realized he was standing uncomfortably close. "Or are you ready to decide what you really want?"

Jean grabbed Lucas hand and yanked on it.

"I appreciate the enthusiasm but this isn't the time for—"

"This way," Jean interrupted Lucas and turned into one the alleys off Main Street, lined with dumpsters and loading doors from the handful of office building's bordering the area between Main and First Street.

"Oy! Mind how you go!" Lucas protested.

"Someone's —" Jean started.

"—following us," Lucas finished for her. "Not exactly."

Six large forms came out of the shadows ahead of them at the other end of the alley.

"Someone's ahead of us," Lucas said. "Look sharp."

"Excuse us," Jean said, planning to just rush past the men before they had a chance to realize what she was doing, and already knowing it wouldn't work.

One of the men stepped forward from the pack, holding out a hand for them to stop. "What's the rush?" he asked.

The Men in Black spread out around them. Jean recognized immediately their attempts to surround Lucas and herself, their experienced footing and the way two always backed up one. Soldiers.

"You're making a mistake," Jean said.

"Funny, that's my line," the leader replied. There was something in voice, almost tinny, like the intercom speaker at her old elementary school, a voice reverberating in a box. What would make a man sound like that? "You've wandered into a bad place where bad things happen."

"Funny, that's my line," Lucas said and smiled.

A van pulled into the alley from First Street. The soldier's seemed to be already aware of it, pressing themselves against the wall of the alley and allowing it to pass. The rear door opened and another soldier got out. This wasn't some random occurrence, Jean realized. This was prepared for.

Professor! she called out instinctively.

"No!" Lucas suddenly shouted at her. "Do it on your own!"

He gestured towards the van and its gas cap shot off like a bullet, spraying the soldier standing nearest in gasoline. The man dropped his gun and started frantically rubbing his eyes.

"Care for a light?" Lucas asked, flashing his right two fingers in a V at the man. The gasoline spontaneously ignited, sending the soldier running down the alley screaming and scattering the other soldiers.

"No! No killing!" Jean cried. She reached out and pushed the man to the ground, dragging and rolling him through the dirt in an attempt to extinguish the flames before they really got going. She was so focused on that she barely saw the soldier taking aim at her at the edge of her peripheral vision. She turned her head just in time to see the flames from the barrel. If she hadn't been so preoccupied she might have noticed how shocked the soldier was that he'd actually fired.

The bullet stopped just shy of Jean's head. With a wave Lucas sent it flying back where it came, forcing the gunman Jean was calling Funny Voice to drop to the ground to avoid getting shot.

"You're losing focus," Lucas said.

Jean turned her back on him, putting her focus back on Funny Voice, who she took to be the leader, as he climbed back to his feet.

"Trust me, you don't want to do this," Jean said. "You want to let us go."

Jean had never been particularly comfortable with forced suggestion. If she was honest with herself, she wasn't really comfortable with any of her telepathic abilities, not the way she was with her telekinesis. That was easy; it was just like an extension of herself, like moving an arm or a leg. Pushing her will into people made Jean feel queasy and invasive and she tended to avoid doing it if at all possible. She put all her force of will into her commands and braced herself for the braced herself for the psychic backlash as she ground his ego beneath her own.

Nothing happened.

"Inhibitor field," Funny Voice said, tapping his forehead. "Stops you lot from gettin' in here."

Jean pushed him as hard as she could into the alley wall, knocking the wind out of him.

"They're ready for us!" Jean called out to Lucas. "They were waiting for us!"

"They think they're ready," Lucas replied. He began pulling bricks and pieces of masonry out of the nearby walls, pelting several of the soldiers with it. One man took a solid thunk to the head and fell to the ground; Lucas promptly began burying him under the flying rubble until only a hand was visible. It wasn't moving.

"Forget capture," another Man in Black said, taking the place of the fallen leader in front of Jean. His rifle was aimed; he sounded scared to death. "They're going to kill us all!"

Jean slashed into the air and the man's rifle flew out of his hands. Not missing a beat he charged at Jean; he would have knocked her to the ground if Lucas hadn't been directly behind her. Instead she was shoved into Lucas' back. He was holding off two of the soldiers himself, twisting piping from the nearby buildings into slithering metal cylinders with jagged ends. They lunged in and out like vipers, forcing the soldiers to bob and weave to keep from getting stabbed. Lucas' grin was getting larger and larger.

Jean placed her hand to her assailant and he froze like electricity had surged through him.

"It's you!" she realized and turned to Lucas. "It's the ones who took Kitty!"

"Who's Kitty?" Lucas asked. It was enough distraction for his opponent to kick Lucas hard in the sternum, knocking him back into Jean.

The extra weight and the surprise was enough to knock Jean to the ground. It also freed her target who quickly backed away. "Inhibitor's not working!"

"Not if you let 'em touch you, moron!" the leader said, picking himself up from the alley floor. "Stun 'em before they get the chance!"

With Lucas' weight still on her Jean couldn't see what the other soldiers were doing. She tried to push herself, and Lucas, up from the Alley floor. She was certain she could do it, or would have until something or someone pushed Lucas back down onto her, levering the pair of them back to the ground. She felt his entire body seize and arch above her, tasted the sharp tang of ozone in the air. And just like that the weight was lifted from her.

Rising to a knee and craning her neck, Jean was just able to make out several of the masked soldiers shoving Lucas into the back of the van. His eyes were lidded, his limbs hanging limp.

The remaining soldier aimed at Jean. "If you don't want him to get hurt you'll—"

Whatever else the soldier was going to say was lost as Jean flung him into the back of the van, knocking several other soldiers over with the impact. They'd packed Lucas into the back of the van and were snapping some sort of collar around his neck. She'd been so angry and desperate Jean hadn't fully realized that fact before the leader jumped in behind them and grabbed the swinging door.

"One's enough for now!" he called, slapping the roof of the van. "Go! Go!"

The wheel's van spun, kicking up smoke and dirt, but it didn't move.

"Go!" the leader said again.

"I'm goin'! I'm goin'!" the driver said, but the van still didn't move.

Jean advanced on it, hand outstretched, each foot step an effort.

"You're. Not. Going. Anywhere." she said.

It had been Jean's experienced that even hardened soldiers, when dealing with mutants or other extra-normal beings using their abilities without holding back, tended to freeze up when faced with the remarkable. It was human nature, and even these men weren't immune to it. As the van began to move towards Jean, ignoring all the commands of its engine or axels or the laws of physics acting upon its wheels, the soldiers within seemed to determine to get as far from her as the innards of the van would allow, pressing against the aluminum wall separating the rear from the driver's seat.

All of them except the leader. That one kept his cool. Holding himself up by the open rear door he leveled his rifle at Jean and unloaded on her. Jean had to pull a portion of her concentration away from the van and give it to the bullets. They froze in mid-air, their inertia fighting against Jean's willpower. She'd been working with Logan on this and could stop one or even several bullets easily now. But that was in a controlled environment when it was the only thing she was dealing with, not trapped in a smeller alley while simultaneously keeping a motor vehicle from moving. All in all she was doing quite well, better than she had even in the Danger Room. The van started to get friction under its wheels again and inched away.

Jean held the van as hard as she could. More bullets came her way, stopping closer and closer to her. She could feel her skin warming but pleasantly, like she'd just taken a long sip of coffee, or come in from the cold on a winter's day. She couldn't see herself and didn't realize her hair was standing on end or debris was beginning to lift from the alley floor around her. All she was focused on was the van, which was continuing to move away from her.

She considered her other options for keep it from getting away and taking Lucas with it. Easiest would be to just grab Lucas but she couldn't see him very well and one of the soldiers could easily hold onto him. Perhaps she could stop the engine or even pull it free from the chassis. She considered more and more outlandish options such as lifting it into the air and flying it back to the X-Mansion. She thought she could do it to, if the soldier's would just stop shooting for a minute and let her concentrate. As she got more desperate, more disturbing ideas occurred to her. She could take the whole van apart, she thought. The wheelbase, the engine, maybe even the men inside …

Horrified Jean came back to herself, letting everything go. She collapsed to the floor of the alley, semi-conscious. The van disappeared into the night, taking Lucas with it.

Professor Xavier took the news that his unbalanced, Omega level son had been kidnapped by shadowy mercenaries surprisingly well.

"Would you mind putting the tea on?" he asked.

Jean's first instinct was to ask him if he was serious, if he understood what had happened, but she knew he did. She knew all of his tics by now; it was a comforting thought which banished the aloofness of the previous night. Jean put the tea on.

"It will take a few minutes, the stove isn't so good anymore," Jean said. "Those men, they had to be connected to Principal Kelly, they had to be. I bet he was behind Kitty's abduction."

"We don't know that," Xavier replied. This time Jean did ask him if he was serious. She did not think it could have been a coincidence that they would have showed up outside an anti-mutant rally at Kelly's campaign headquarters just as two telepaths they were clearly prepared for showed up.

"How could he not be involved?" Jean asked.

"There's a lot of grey area in 'involved,'" Xavier said. "I don't think Mr. Kelly, distasteful as he can be, could have caused the dread Kitty feels about whatever it was those men were working for. None of which, however, means he doesn't know anything. Barring any other leads he is at least our best possible option."

"That's not saying much," Jean said. She got up and began pacing in the living room. The moment of respite was enough to get her thinking about her conversation with her mother the night before, which did nothing for her mood. Her impatience spiked as well; she was suddenly flooded with a desire to race to Kelly's office and demand answers from him.

That won't do you or your father much good, Xavier's voice said to her.

"I know, but it will make me feel better," Jean said.

"Could you save your father without Lucas?" Xavier asked at last.

Jean was horrified he could be so cold blooded. She couldn't imagine leaving Lucas with those men, as dangerous as he was.

"That isn't what I asked or suggested," Xavier said, but his rebuke was gentle. "Could you do it?"

"I don't know," Jean admitted. "I hadn't even thought about it until Lucas mentioned it."

"And why do you think he did that?"

Jean bit back her first retort, remembering Xavier's constant refrain since she was a child to think, think - why was what was happening, happening.

"He wants me to know I can, and he wants me to owe him," she said, as much to herself as to Xavier. "He wants me to do something similar for him."

"Perhaps," Xavier conceded. Jean wondered where he fit into Lucas' plans; his issues with Xavier had to be more important than anything. "He could be killing two birds with one stone. Or he may still not know what it is that he wants."

Jean wasn't sure how to say what she wanted to say. Xavier gently reminded her he could tell her anything.

"Maybe … maybe we should just leave him," she said at last.

"A mutant in the hands of anti-mutant terrorists? What would be the point of the X-Men if we did that?"

"I know but … professor, he wants to kill you." Xavier assured Jean he already knew that. "… and he wants me to help him."

"Well I can hope you told him no," Xavier smiled.

Of course not! she shrieked before realized Xavier was making fun of her a little. As if now was the time. "That was the price for saving my father."

"All the more reason to rescue him, then," Xavier said.

"I thought you told me not to believe a word he says?"

"You shouldn't. But you also shouldn't pass up on any hope you can cling to, either. The other option is much worse."

None of that, Jean pointed out, solved the problem of where Lucas was right that moment or how to retrieve him.

"Actually, I have an idea about that." Xavier said.

Edward Kelly's election office was large, far larger than Xavier expected for a mayoral election in a suburb, filled to the brim with desks, computers and bright young things to man them. Wherever Kelly was getting his money, it was more than what was needed to become the chief executive of Bayville.

"Can I help you?" one of the bright young things asked.

"I hope so," Professor Xavier replied. "I'd like to speak with Dr. Kelly."

The young woman dutifully took his information. The flourishing of his checkbook sent the girl scurrying off to higher ups without bothering to get his name. For a few moments Xavier was left alone outside the offices towards the back of the suite though he didn't forget for a moment that he was still very much in 'enemy territory.' He let his mind drift out beyond the walls of the building and out into the street beyond, where Jean was crouched watching the rear doors of the main office.

She had changed into her combat uniform and was using all of her abilities to shield herself from notice. Passersby - and more importantly anyone who happened to enter or exit the back of the office - could look directly at her and see nothing but the street behind her. It took all of her concentration to manage, however.

Do you see anything yet, Jean? she heard Professor Xavier ask. 'Nothing,' she wanted to say, but didn't if for no other reason than to curb a sense of crushing disappointment just on the horizon. She put off the admission for as long as could allow herself before screwing up her nerve to tell the Professor his idea was a failure.

Wait, Jean thought. A man in a blue security guard uniform had opened the back door as several cars approached. He held the door open as multiple stern looking individuals entered, then closed the door and stood at it. Not at all typical behavior at a small election headquarters. There's someone entering the rear of the complex. Someone not right.

Xavier asked if she recognized any of them from the attack and Jean sent him her mental image of the individuals. Have you seen them on your end?

No one, Xavier affirmed. Nor can I get a specific sense of them. Be careful.

The back door opened and the security guard came back out. Jean watched, simultaneously hoping and dreading seeing anyone else arrive but no one came. Jean thought through her options. The fact that the strange individuals had not come out the front meant whatever they were doing was both on Jean's side and meant to be hidden from ordinary view. The fact that Xavier could not glean it either meant it was being hidden from extraordinary view as well. None of which definitely proved Lucas was inside, but it wouldn't hurt to disprove it. Besides, she hadn't gotten into all of her combat gear just to sit on her hands.

I'm going in, Jean thought, her leg muscles tensing.

Just a moment, Xavier thought, then nothing. After a suspenseful heartbeat the man moved away. Holding her breath Jean sprinted for the alley door.

It opened into a small loading dock, exactly as expected for an alley door in a retail storefront. It was exactly what it should be, which depressed Jean immensely. For a moment she thought they'd been mistaken, that Kelly was just a pest but ultimately useless.

Look deeper, Xavier's voice said. She wasn't sure if it was the actual Professor or just the voice that sounded like him and advised her. She hadn't been able to tell the two apart for years.

The loading dock held everything she'd expect it to: yard signs, flyers, note books and office equipment. There was even several cases of bottled water pushed up against one wall. Jean walked among the rows, reaching out with her mind, touching each object. Not trying to move them, just feel them, get a sense of them, like a soft caress. The professor had been working with her recently to find the limits of what her telekinesis would do, ignoring the power aspect to focus on the finesse. To see if she could get feel not just the present of an object but its history as well, to see when it had last been moved, maybe even by who.

A pallet of flyers pressed against one wall had never been moved since being sat down six months ago, even as other boxes had come and gone over time. This one had just been sat and forgotten about, while so many others right next to it had been dropped off and picked up again. Jean swatted the pallet out of her way and reached out to the wall, feeling what was beyond. All she felt was nothing.

That was strange in and of itself. One thing she had discovered recently was that every room had its feel, and she could tell what it was fairly quickly. This was the first time she'd encountered nothing.

Inhibitor field maybe, she thought, remembering the men in the alley and the way she had not been able to get into their minds or effect their thoughts.

Perhaps, Xavier responded. Don't worry about what's beyond the wall, yet; focus on the wall itself.

Jean pulled her mind back from the void and into the barrier in front of her. Her first instinct was to say it was just what it appeared to be … a wall. Cement and concrete and rebar, solid atoms connected together by clusters of electron orbits, heavy and unwilling to move. She moved her hands along the exterior of the wall, using her telekinesis as slight extensions of her finger prints, feeling around just beneath the surface layer. She was beginning to think even that was useless when she felt something decidedly not wall almost at the corner of the room. Metal and bearings and gears, the bones of a mechanism of some sort. Holding her hands above it she commanded the mechanism to move and it did. Squealing and grinding like a devil being tortured - loud enough that Jean worried someone would hear - but it did.

The wall slid open, revealing a stairway leading down into darkness beyond.

"No, that's not suspicious at all," she said aloud, and then stepped into the darkness following the stairs down to what she assumed was some sort of basement.

The basement was pitch black, but Jean wasn't letting that get in her way. Stretching out a hand she used a wall nearby to give her a sense of the room. She strode forward with purpose … and directly into a wall. She didn't even try to constrain the curses in her head.

Jean? What's wrong? Professor Xavier said.

I can't see anything, Jean thought.

Go deeper in, he's there somewhere, came Xavier's mental reply. That was so definitely Xavier. Even as he sat in the mayoral candidate's office, he was directing Jean through the warren of tunnels beneath the campaign headquarters. Or attempting to.

No, I mean I can't see anything. There are no lights; its pitch black. I'm just running into walls.

Cast your mind out, Xavier replied. Look for everything living around you: the animals, the insects, the guards. Make a map of them.

The thought terrified Jean. When she was little she had attempted to read the mind of the family cat. She nearly became lost in its instinctual behavior, reverting to a cycle sleeping-hunting-eating almost without ability for communication or internal thought. It had taken weeks to fully disentangle herself from that and had thoroughly disinclined her to attempt such a thing again. I don't know if I can do it.

I believe in—the sudden halt to the professor's thoughts brought Jean up short.

"Professor?" she asked aloud? "Professor?"

Jean was alone in the blackness.

I believe in you Jean, Professor Xavier said, unaware that she was not receiving him. And I know that—

Xavier's thoughts were interrupted when the office door opened and Edward Kelly entered. His educator tweed had been replaced by an electioneer's silk electric blue jacket and red power tie. His stern, no nonsense demeanor had not changed and if anything hardened even more when he caught sight of Xavier.

Xavier always cautioned Jean about reading people against their wills. It was his first rule for a telepath, one he himself had learned at some cost as a young man. A lifetime of struggle had taught him to block other people as a reflex, to the point where he could walk into a room and have no idea what anyone was feeling unless he really wanted to know. Unless the feelings involved were so strong the other individual swung them like a hammer to the temple, unable to be ignored.

The disapproval came off Kelly in waves.

"My staff told me there was a prospective donor waiting for me, not you," he said.

"Yes," Xavier replied with practiced ease.

"I don't know if you've noticed but I am in the middle of a very busy campaign. It might be funny to you but I assure you everyone here has far better things to do than have their time wasted," Kelly replied.

"On the contrary, I'm prepared to donate up to the full amount to your campaign. As a fellow educator I thought you did an admirable job picking up the pieces at Bayville High after Principal Darkholme's disappearance and not letting any of the recent incidents affect the school schedule."

"Incidents you caused."

"I understand the graduation percentage is now top ten in the nation," Xavier continued. "If you can manage similar actions in City Hall, I think we'd all be better off for it."

Rolling, competing emotions played off across Kelly's face. "Please don't try any of your Mutant ways on me. The people of this community won't have it. And honestly, I'm not sure my supporters would be that understanding of my accepting a bribe from a known mutant organization."

"A donation."

"And would your donation cost me?" Kelly asked.

"Nothing. Actually, I was thinking I might do something for you."

Kelly did nothing, at first. Then he laughed, sitting at his desk. It was a hearty laugh, so unlike the pale academician sitting in the chair; more fitting for a longshoreman coming in off the tide. It was the laugh of a man it would probably be interesting to spend a brandy and an evening with, but also controlled and well-rehearsed. The laugh of self-control. The feeling of disapproval vanished with it. Kelly wondered what on earth Xavier might do for him.

"Speak for the mutant community with you."

"Now it definitely sounds like a bribe," Kelly said, all trace of the laughter gone. "And frankly, I'm not sure what would be the point."

"To ensure that all sides in the community benefit equally from the opportunities before us."

Xavier knew he had a better way to put his argument to the question, but a mild annoyance in the back of his mind had begun to grow and grow. Xavier was aware a deep and unsettling headache, an affliction he did not normally have to deal with.

"It seems to me mutants are already achieving that without any help from anyone, leaving the costs for others to pay." Kelly said. Xavier assured him that wasn't true, but Kelly waved his words away. "The uncertainty involved with mutation makes that denial inherently false. We already have a mutant who can control ferrous metal, what happens when we have one who can produce gold out of thin air or control access to water? We're already fighting tooth and nail against the dangers of income inequality and the outsize influence of individuals starting life with large resource pools from their families. What happens when random people start being imbued with instant regime changing power? To say nothing of the social consequences."

"But people all the same," Xavier countered. "Also imbued with certain inalienable rights."

"Nothing is inalienable when faced with the end of your civilization."

Xavier denied the situation was so dire, but once again Kelly waved him off. "That's always what the situation is when different groups compete for the same living space. And I am here to say, for all the people who can't, that we won't be denied a seat at the table."

"No one's asking you to. There is enough room at the table for everyone," Xavier responded.

"And what if assuring that means mutants have to stand in the back of the line? Somehow I don't think that's the place you have in mind."

"Right now I'm settling for being let in at all," Xavier said.

Kelly said nothing for a long moment. A hand disappeared beneath his desk, momentarily, then re-emerged. Xavier winced, a grinding pain striking the back of his head before retreating.

"You're not really planning on donating to me," Kelly changed subject suddenly.

"Would you want me to?"

"Honestly, I'm not sure now. A local mutant leader coming to visit me about community concerns? As you said, it shows how fair minded I am, doesn't it?"

"And if I did bring such concerns to you?"

Kelly's face hardened. "I'd give them all the attention they deserved."

Kelly stood and gestured at the door in the universal signal that a meeting was over. "Now, if you please. I have a great deal of work to do and wherever you people go, destruction follows. I'd prefer it if you took it somewhere else, this time."

"Actually, I did have one other thing I came for," Xavier said. The headache had increased in intensity; with effort Xavier pushed it to the back of his mind.

"I'm not sure what else we have to talk about," Kelly managed.

"I'm looking for my son."

The abruptness of Xavier's disconnection combined with the utter lack of visibility in the basement caused Jean Grey to trip and land hard on the concrete floor. She used her mind to lift herself back upright, then reached out with her hands in front of her to see if she could feel a wall, with no luck. She had experimented a few times with using her mutant power to try and feel walls around her, get a sense of her surroundings, but mostly all she'd accomplished was to break walls and destroy rooms. Professor Xavier believed she could use her telekinesis as an extension of her mind her limbs, just as most others did, including expanding her sensory perception as she stretched outwards, but for the most part it didn't work like that. Push or pull, that's what she could manage, the rest was still a hope.

She tried to change that this time, desperately wanted to. She tried to repeat her experiment with the fake wall, reaching out and out with her mind, trying to feel what her telekinesis interacted with - the molecules in the air, the concrete in the wall - as if she were touching it herself. Nothing happened, except for a slight crack which told her she'd hit something somewhere, forcing her to stop immediately.

"Great," she said to no one, and then reminded herself not to speak aloud in case there were any human guards down there with her. Actually that would make this next part much easier.

In theory, she understood what Professor Xavier was suggesting. Rather than using her telekinesis to fill in the physical gaps around her, she would reach out with her telepathy to anything living around her and use their virtual presence in her minds' eye to create a map of her surroundings. This she had practiced more often and with more success than her telekinetic probe, partially because her telepathy was so much weaker.

Work the muscle, Xavier said. Everything will become stronger over time.

Jean wasn't sure about that, but she couldn't think of any other options right at the moment. The enterprise was delicate. It required to hold the consciousness of multiple beings in her mind at one time, keeping them all distinct from one another. And in this case, with unknown number of hostiles, she'd have to brush their minds so gently they weren't even aware she was there. She'd practiced it a few times in the Danger Room and not been able to achieve that level of control. No one had particularly liked the attempts - not her and not the students she was working with. Roberto - of all people! - had begun to 'get sick' whenever she scheduled an attempt.

Jean took a deep breath and pushed all of that from her. She stretched out her mind again.

At first she thought there was nothing in the room she was in, perhaps not even anything anywhere in the basement. She was alone in the darkness, and would remain that way forever. Just at the edge of her consciousness, she found a pod of insects, probably cockroaches or the like, scuttling in the corners. Insects were the most difficult creatures to reach, existing far below typical levels of consciousness, but were also difficult to keep out of even the most secure areas.

She was strangely relieved it was insects and not rats or something larger. They were both easier and more complicated to deal with. She knew she wouldn't be able to leave it where she was, though. She continued to reach out.

The small group of bugs expanded and was joined by a squadron of flies and the odd spider ensconced in the ceiling. The room was large, perhaps thirty feet or more - a hidden loading dock of some sort? If it was it would likely be filled with crates or other receptacles, lots of things for her to walk into or bounce off of. It had also had an opening almost directly opposite where she was standing, leading into a hallway beyond. Several of the insects were swarming that way and through it, escaping their own predators. Jean took a tentative step forward, then another and another, hands in front of her searching for any sort of impediment. She hoped whatever was in front of her, if anything, was at shoulder height as she would be hard pressed not to trip herself again. She would just have to remember not to say anything, even if she did fall. She took longer steps, holding her foot out and probing the air in front of her, just as she was doing with her arms. She was sure if anyone could see her she must look ridiculous.

She did eventually find rats, or at least one of them, roaming a hallway beyond. Holding her distaste, and her breathe, she followed it as it scuttled down one hall, and then another. The rat drew her in; for a moment she was running down the floor herself, on all fours, scavenging for any sort of leftover or dead thing to grab up. She managed to pull herself free of it just as it reached the first human being, a soldier who swatted the rat away with his foot.

"Can't we keep these things out of here?" he complained.

There were four of them, armored, with automatic weapons heavy in their hands and weighing down their shoulders. They had even more ammunition and devices attached to their belts and harnesses, as if they preparing for an imminent war. It was not just their battle implements, there was something within them adding extra weight and discomfort, as if their bones were extra heavy, their joints rubbing against themselves and leaving nothing but pain their wake. It was a similar feel she got from Logan the few time's she had scanned him. Jean realized they were wearing some sort of googles themselves - they must have been keeping it so dark to make it hard for any intruders to make their way down here.

Job done, Jean thought.

There were not, she was surprised to find, more than a dozen of the men down there, patrolling the hallway in a standard two by two pattern. She'd have expected more. Their sparseness made it difficult for her to get a sense of the entire complex. The vast underground spread and twisted away from her, like the branches of some strange tree; it stretched and stretched and stretched. How much of this is down here? Jean wondered. How long has this been going on?

And there in the center of it all, was Lucas.

"I'm sorry," Kelly finally said after a long pause. "Have you been to the police?"

"I'm not sure they would be able to help," Xavier replied. "These sorts of things generally require our own solutions."

Kelly frowned. "You say you want there to be equal treatment between mutants and humans, and yet you also want to operate by your own rules separate from the rest of society. You don't see that as an unfair double standard?"

"Mutants are human, Mr. Kelly," Xavier said. "And believe me when I say that no one would want to see that situation ended more than I. It is a barrier between our worlds, one of many. I'm not naïve enough to believe I can change your mind about that, but I am just enough to want to keep trying. However, none of this helps with the problem of my son."

"As I said, I am sorry." Xavier was, to a degree, amazed that Kelly's words were sincere. But there was something else lurking behind them. "I'm still not sure why you're telling me, however."

Xavier had become aware of a steady interference in the back of his mind. Not enough to block him from the minds around but, he suddenly realized, enough to keep him from understanding what was within them. As if a thin gauze had been draped across his eyes leaving everything blurry and indistinct.

Jean!

There was no feedback. Xavier refused to panic, slowing his heart rate as he had long ago trained himself. He stretched out towards Kelly, gently, probing … and received a grinding pain in the back of his head for his trouble.

"Can I get you something?" Kelly asked. "An aspirin or something? You don't look well."

"I think you may have already," Xavier replied. He lifted a silver picture frame from Kelly's desk, featuring a younger Kelly and several family members. "I believe I have the same photos on my desk. Interesting composition, children on either side of the parents instead of between them."

"It's Doctor Kelly," Kelly said, snatching the frame away from Xavier. "And please don't paw at my things."

"Of course, Doctor. I don't mean to pry; I didn't even realize you had children until now. Surely you must realize what it is to worry for a child, then."

Kelly wasn't looking at Xavier anymore, didn't even seem particularly aware of him. Instead he held the picture frame, as if he had not looked on it in a long time and needed to re-familiarize himself with it even though it was directly within his daily eye line. Xavier took a gamble and rolled closer, near the edge of the Kelly's desk, bracing himself for another outburst.

"What surprised me most was that the worry never vanished, not even as David grew up and became capable of taking care of himself. More than capable," Xavier said. "The fear of youth, of physical danger or disease, was nothing compared to the fear of adulthood. That they'd take the wrong path, not live up to their potential or worse that they'd hurt someone."

Close to the other side of the desk, Xavier saw an array of lights and switches just below the lip of the desk. It was not remotely expected of office furniture in a prospective mayor's temporary electoral headquarters. If anything it reminded Xavier of his own desk in his own office, and he knew all of the connections which ran to it.

"They become so … unknowable as they get older, don't they?" Xavier continued. "I'm told it's temporary, that with time the generation gap closes, the antagonism between ancestor and descendent disappears. I confess I haven't found that yet. Have you?"

"I don't know," Kelly replied, but he was distant, in another place. "Jason and I don't speak much."

Kelly turned slightly, to set the picture down on the window sill, where it would rest to the back of his office chair, keeping it from immediate view. The moment Kelly's back was turned, Xavier reached over and flipped the switches. All of them.

"I sympathize," Xavier said. "David and I … I've been trying to give him space, the opportunity to reconnect when he wants it."

"Did you have any luck?" Kelly asked.

"Not yet, but I refuse to give up hope," Xavier said.

The growing buzz Xavier had been experiencing in the back of his mind had vanished. The fact of its existence raised many questions, but Xavier knew better than to give into his curiosity right away. Slowly, gently, Xavier sent his mind out to Kelly. He rested for a long period in Kelly's frontal lobe, hovering around the short term memory, its preoccupation with the election, a speech to the Chamber of Commerce in the coming days, phone calls he had been taking …

Kelly turned his back on the photograph, as if giving his attention fully to the Professor. Xavier got the distinct impression, however, that Kelly's focus was still somewhere else. Certainly not what was directly in front of him.

"That sounds noble on its face but if you think about it, it's just another form of mania. This unwillingness to accept the facts you don't like as reality."

"Perhaps."

Xavier prodded gently, following the path of the recent phone calls. Most were solicitations for donations or support, back and forths over campaign promises many of which Kelly adamantly refused if they jarred with his ideals no matter how much money was involved. One of the calls beckoned to Xavier, the details of it of it strangely blurred as if it had been partially erased from Kelly's mind. Xavier followed it into the depths of Kelly's long-term memory where it attached to other, similarly blurred memories. A series of interactions Kelly had been having stretching back many months, even before the Graduation Day escapades of the previous spring and his actual announcement of running for mayor. They were tied together with an ephemeral thread of silver, some topic or idea which linked them in Kelly's memory strongly enough that, though the contents had been erased, the line of connection remained.

Xavier followed the line deeper into Kelly's subconscious.

"I would argue that some facts should be ignored, that immovable as they seem they are merely temporary place holders of old ideas where we do not yet know enough."

"You mean we're ignorant."

"Not at all. But I do think you're afraid, and I'm here to tell you there's no need to be. The fear is always in what could happen, the anticipation of it. But people always adapt after 'the worst' has happened."

Kelly actually laughed. "'The worst.' Listen to yourself. You're talking about an apocalyptic event as if it were something we shouldn't be worried about."

"Having seen an Apocalypse up close, I can tell you it's not that big of a thing."

Kelly's subconscious swirled around Xavier, all flashing lights and darting images. Xavier kept himself absolutely still. The subconscious was nothing to play around with, he'd learned that from cruel experience. An extraneous movement could alert the host that he was there or worse, permanently change or damage a component of the core personality. The temptation to do such was always great, especially in these sorts of circumstances, but Xavier had long learned not to listen to it, also from cruel experience.

He watched the strands he'd followed down bob and weave through the nebulous haze, looking for areas where they might come together, give him some clue of what they had contained. The strands began to connect to one another, more and more as Xavier focused on them but still distant from him, still obscured. The strands coalesced into a nexus. A word seemed to form there, not yet readable but important based on the number of strands running to it. Something, Xavier thought, Kelly had heard and/or thought about repeatedly.

"That sounds all well and good but it's easy to be on the dismissive side when you think you're going to come out the winner."

"I don't see any winners in that sort of scenario, only losers," Xavier shot back. "That's why it's imperative on those of us who have taken on a leadership role to keep a dialogue going and resist the urge to retreat to our own tribes. There's no reason why that can't start here."

"There's every reason why, and the fact that you can't see it is what makes you dangerous to everyone around, your students most of all. You think both sides talking to each other is the end of the fighting, when actually it's just a truce until the fighting starts up again."

The word remained stubbornly unreadable. Xavier could feel his patience faltering. This was the key to whatever sinister plot the X-Men had stumbled upon, he was becoming sure. He weighed the risks internally between the time it would take to carefully sift through the defenses in Kelly's mind (and just who had put those there was a question Xavier swore to find an answer to) versus the danger of alerting the new politician to what Xavier was doing if he just smashed his way in and took it.

"It doesn't have to be. I was completely sincere in my offer to work with you. You could offer both sides a reason

"If I could do that then I wouldn't have to worry so much about mutants fighting in our streets all the time, which is not an idle concern and you know it."

"If you could do that then I'd think you'd make an excellent Mayor. Or more, which you must surely be thinking about," Xavier said and then waved his hand at Kelly's sudden shocked look. "I don't have to read your mind to know what you're thinking."

Kelly smirked. "Are you offering to help me with that, too?

"There's nothing I wouldn't do to make my dream a reality."

Throwing caution to the wind, Xavier pushed through the curtain and reached inside. For a moment, everything became clear. Flames danced in Kelly's head and within the flames stood a group of indistinguishable shadows. People, Xavier was certain, but none he could make out in specifics. Xavier tried to probe further and the flames reached towards him, like the grasping arms of some creature or the wings of some great bird.

"That I do believe, and that's what-"

Kelly stopped, mid-sentence, noticing the downed switches. With a guttural noise in his throat, so primal he didn't seem to realize he was making it, Kelly flipped them all back up. Xavier was thrust back out into his own mind so quickly his teeth ground together. But there was a word in the corner of Kelly's mind. Xavier had seen it bright and clear in the moment before the curtain came back down again.

And that word was Hellfire.

Lucas was lying in some sort of clear plastic bubble. Whatever it was, Jean was sure it was the reason she was getting no signal from him.

She was, however, getting a signal from the four men stationed in the room around them. She could tell they were guards because they were busy looking out towards the doors, rather than in towards Lucas. That was at least part of the reason it had taken her so long to find Lucas in the first place; no one seemed to be paying especial attention to him. In fact they seemed to be going out of their way not to.

Their focus had the side effect on making the room something of a mystery. Jean could form a general sense of it from their surface thoughts but not much more. If there was one lesson Logan had drilled into their heads over and over in Danger Room sessions it was 'never walk into a room you don't know how to walk out of.' Getting more information would mean going deeper than surface thoughts, however. It would have to be done delicately, to keep the soldiers from being aware of what she was doing. If she did, and couldn't get back to herself before they found her…

Jean had to make herself ignore that feeling and concentrate more on the guards surrounding the bubble. Dressed all in black and carrying assorted guns and weapons, they were the same men she and Lucas had fought in the alley and who had attacked Scott and Kitty and Lance. Where had they come from and what did they want? Where were they getting their weapons and equipment from? Who did they work for? Jean suddenly realized the opportunity she had to find out. They were unaware; she could probably take at least one of them before the others realized it.

Don't get ambitious, her Logan voice said. Do what you came for and get out. He'd repeated the lessons so frequently they came to her mind whether she wanted them to or not. There's a reason for that, she reminded herself. Instead of searching in their minds, she sent hers to the men.

"What'd you say?" one of the men in black said. The only response was a grunt; it did not seem to appease him. "I said what did you say?"

"I didn't say anything."

Jean pulled back, slowly, letting herself be a gentle breeze flowing past them, not forcing them anywhere they weren't already going. Professor Xavier could do it easily; it took Jean quite a bit more effort and patience. The soldier turned away from the door she could sense he was facing, the one she wanted him to go through. Jean reached out again.

"There, I heard it again," the short one said.

"Pretty Boy, Skull, check it out," the other man said.

Two of the men disappeared into the maze of hallways, leaving two behind. The last two resumed the silent guardianship, resolved not to move until told to do so even if that meant standing until the end of time. Then a rat scuttled in through the doorway.

"Ugh," the taller soldier said. "I thought we got rid of all those things."

"Ignore it," the other said, not even glancing that way.

"You ignore it," the first said. "I hate those things."

"They're not worth hating, they're no threat to you. Hell, if it knew you were there it would just run away. We're the predators here and everything knows it."

The rat took a bite out of the tall soldiers' foot, its sharp teeth penetrating the layers of his boot at the back of his heel where it would be easiest to get at the meet beneath. The soldier swore and kicked the rat into the hallway where it scuttled away. Not content to leave the matter lie at that, he decided to follow the rat and teach it a real lesson.

"Stupid rat!" the soldier said, leaving the shortest one behind, yelling after him to Come Back!

He stopped yelling when he heard the footsteps behind him. Flipping his safety off, he turned and took aim and found … nothing.

The footsteps sounded behind him again.

"Who's there?" the soldier asked, but there was no answer. He followed the steps towards the door his fellow had run out of. "Macon? That you?"

The footsteps continued on into the hallway. The soldier considered his best course of action; part of him knew there was some reason he should stay where he was but he couldn't think exactly why that was. More than anything he just wanted to find out whose footsteps he was hearing. With one more gentle push he was out the door and stalking the steps down the hallway. They seemed to be right in front of him but he never seemed to get any closer to them. They turned another corner and another and another. The soldier followed and followed and followed. He could see the feet now, disappearing just in front of them and new the corner they turned led to a dead end.

"Got you now!" he said, and ran head first into a wall.

Jean had the bulk of the complex mapped out in her mind by now, but she did not like walking through the pitch black hallways. She took the soldiers' goggles, and for good measure hid his gun in a closet.

It took a few minutes to work her way back to the central room and Lucas, even with the renewed use of her vision, as she tried to keep the map of the complex and the position of the other soldiers in her mind. Shortly, though, she found Lucas again.

Jean took a closer look at the bubble. It completely surrounded Lucas, balanced precariously on the floor. Lucas himself lay within, propped up by nothing. Jean realized he was floating in a clear liquid of some sort. A sudden, surprising flash of worry struck her at the thought he might be dead. On closer inspection she saw that he was still breathing somehow, his chest going in and out in the smooth motions of sleep.

She considered picking the bubble up and just carrying it with her back to the Professor, or perhaps even back to the X-Mansion. She had no reservations about how dangerous Lucas was and the need to keep him somewhere supervised and away from other people who he saw as so many ants. She also realized immediately how impossible that would actually be to carry out.

The image of Lucas within the bubble tied to the roof of the Professor's Rolls Royce, driving down the highway, appeared before her and she laughed in spite of herself, before quickly stopping as the echo of the laugh filled the room. Jean reminded herself now was the not time for such outbursts. She also reminded herself that having brief conversations with herself did not mean she was losing her mind. This was all perfectly normal.

Jean turned her attention back to the giant size bubble in the middle of the room and the unconscious man floating within. If taking all of it was out of the question she was going to have find some way to extract Lucas without drawing attention. Grabbing ahold of the liquid within, Jean peeled back the exterior of the bubble. Jean had been working with liquid quite a bit recently. It was very difficult to manipulate, it always wanted to assume the shape of the space it was in, and resisted being held. Only fire was more difficult.

She ignored the sweat beading on her forehead as she kept the sphere steady and maneuvered Lucas' prone body towards the bubbles rippling skin. The trick would be to get him to pass through it without causing the whole thing to fall apart. She had yet to pick up any sense of alarm in the complex but did not want to tempt fate.

What had Lucas been saying over and over since he arrived? Believe you can do it and you can do it.

The instant his head touched the edge of the sphere the bubble burst, flooding the room with the strange fluid. The flood was strong enough it knocked Jean off her feet and to the floor with enough force to push the air from her lungs. After gasping for a moment she was able to collect herself enough to get to her hands and knees. Getting her wits back she realized Lucas was sitting up and looking at her.

"I knew you'd come for me," he said.

"The hell you did," she replied.

He tried to stand and almost fell over. Getting her hands under his armpits, Jean lifted Lucas to his feet, slinging a good arm over her shoulders so that she could balance his weight.

"Give me a minute, I'll be right as rain," he said.

Jean had come so far into the complex she wasn't entirely sure at first how far the exit was. It took her a moment to find it again and even once she had it seemed far too distant to approach quickly, particularly with Lucas' dead weight on her back.

"I am not dead weight," Lucas mumbled.

"Shut up and shuffle," Jean replied. "If we're lucky we'll be halfway to the exit before anyone notices you're gone."

They had only made it as far as the door when she heard the first soldier call out.

"What the hell is that?! Are we leaking?"

Jean berated herself silently; she had been so focused on getting Lucas out she had forgotten to clean up her mess behind her. There was no question everyone would have known that she had been there, the discovery that Lucas was gone would have ensured that, but she had planned on having it happen after she was long gone.

"Don't know what you're so worried about," Lucas said, startling Jean out of her thoughts. "You could wipe the floor with the lot of 'em and and make 'em forget we were ever here. I'd do it if I wasn't out of my mind on drugs right now."

"Quiet, they'll here us."

Jean didn't have to try and sense the soldier's minds to tell where they were, the thump of heavy boots was getting closer. A confrontation was inevitable. Lucas' words plucked at her again and her fear left her as she realized she had nothing to be afraid of. She could defeat all of the soldiers easily, if she really wanted to. She felt the fire rising within her, like it had when she'd faced Xavier the Horseman in Egypt, and again at the park. She could take the entire building apart and simply leave. It would be easy.

Instead, Jean turned away, going for a different door along the wall.

"Still not ready to do what you have to," Lucas said.

"We'll deal with that when we get out," Jean said, grasping the door handle and pulling. The door was locked. As was the next one further down the wall. Just as the soldiers were about to enter the room, Jean reached out to their minds and made sure all they could see was the mess.

"What the hell is this?" the taller one asked, stomping through the growing puddle. "Where is it coming from?"

"Not here. The bubble's still secure," the shorter one said, examining Lucas' prison and seeing the prone body within he expected to see. "Where are Skull and Pretty Boy? Where is everyone."

As he circled around the bubble, making sure its prisoner was still secure, Jean circled with him, doing her best not to get bumped into and to avoid making noise. Blocking out one sense was easy enough, blocking several of them for more than person at once was another thing again.

"Probably looking for a mop or something to clean up this mess," the other soldier said. "At least they'd better be. If Reese sees this …"

"Reavers, report in," a hard voice said over one of the soldiers radio. Reavers, Jean thought to herself. Now she knew what they were called, at least. "The isolation room missed check in. Doesn't anyone have a twenty on Pretty Boy or Skull?"

"This is Macon," the tall one said. "I'm in isolation and prisoner is still locked down but there's no sign of the guys, just a leak or something they left behind?"

Reese wanted to know exactly what leak. He wanted to know everything, all the details, and didn't take anything for granted. Jean definitely did not want to still be in the room if he decided to come down and check it out himself. Lucas had thankfully drifted back into unconsciousness through all of this.

"You guys take up guard position, I'll be down in a minute to find the others," the radio said, and Jean swore to herself. Throwing caution to the wind she decided to just move, following the soldiers to the door and out it before they had a chance to close it on her.

Come on! she yelled at Lucas' mind to wake him up. His head barely lifted but at least his feet began working well enough to help her run for the exit, trying to keep her map of the complex in her head.

They had barely left the room when the alarm began to sound. It was completely silent. Jean probably wouldn't have realized it if she hadn't been able to pick up the thoughts of surprise nearby. She picked up her pace.

A red light began to blink on Kelly's phone. He looked at it, then at Xavier.

"I'm sure that's for you," Xavier said.

A multitude of emotions played over Kelly's face as wrestled with the appropriate reaction to Xavier (whether in the immediate or long-term sense, the Professor couldn't tell). Ultimately he chose to simply sit at his desk, but whatever distant thought or feeling Xavier had momentarily tapped into had fled. Though he seemed to be doing nothing, it was clear war had been definitively declared.

"I should have you arrested," Kelly said.

"It would certainly keep up your credentials with your base. It may even add some members to it," Xavier conceded. "Perhaps you should call the police. I'm sure they'd be interested in what you have built under here."

"Is that a threat?"

"An ability to call reality what it is. That's the first step to changing it."

"Not as long as myself and those like me are here to stop you," Kelly said. He smiled with no warmth. "Unless you want change my mind for me."

A blue light on the phone lit up. Kelly froze, then replaced the handset on its cradle. "Yes, perhaps better not to involve the police after all."

Xavier craned his neck about, looking for evidence of surveillance in the office and doing the same with his mind. He saw nothing, felt nothing.

"Are you sure we're quite alone here, Dr. Kelly?" he asked.

"Now that I know how you've weaseled information from me in the past I'll be more circumspect," Kelly opened the office door and gestured out it. "Good luck on finding your son."

Xavier had not yet felt Jean return from the black hole of thought Kelly's electronics had created. [A feat Xavier knew was beyond the man's resources but that was a problem for another time.]. Leaving the area before they were able to rendezvous had not been the plan. He considered for a moment different options for allowing himself to stay there but all of them were cures worse than their disease. Kelly's words about the danger Xavier was to his X-Men rebounded in his head, as did his own about doing whatever it took to make his vision a reality. He left the office and headed for the door back to the outside world.

Then, there was a something.

Xavier hadn't registered a truly unique psychic event in a very long time. Certainly some of the foes he had faced in the recent past had exhibited power even beyond his own, but none of them did anything he himself did not understand or had experimented with at some point, they simply had a larger battery at their disposal. This was different. He could feel the very fabric of reality around himself waiver for a moment, as if trying to restructure itself. Jean? he sent out to ether. Lucas? There was no response.

Xavier could not afford to sit and wait for another instance. The something had been so strong it had even caused the staff in the campaign headquarters to sit up and take notice. Even if they weren't sure what they were noticing they would know something was wrong and it was not a feeling he wanted associated with himself even as he was sure it was a hope in vain.

Xavier was just back onto the street and searching for his limo when the outer door opened again and Kelly emerged.

"This is why!" Kelly called after the departing professor. "This is why!"

Jean was nearly halfway back to the exit when she gave up any of her attempts at stealth and began a full fledged sprint. It wasn't an entirely irrational decision, she told herself. There was only one exit. Once the alarm had been tripped the Reavers would know where she was headed and would most likely try and block her escape at its source. That left speed as her best option, not stealth. She gave up clouding the Reavers senses and lifted herself and Lucas into the air, propelling them through the maze of hallways and back towards the concealed door to the loading dock. At least she wasn't having to carry Lucas anymore as he had passed out again. She wondered what was in the solution he'd been in; there weren't too many options for blocking a telepath's abilities and certainly not one as powerful as Lucas. Where had it come from? Who had given it to them?

Focus, Jean. There was time for that later.

Her internal map of the complex slipped and twisted in her mind; the faster she went the more disorientated she became, but she was fairly certain she was closing in on her goal. Even though she could not see it, the sunlight beckoned Jean Grey. She knew, like a child running from a nightmare, that if she could reach it she would be safe. She also knew, as an adult who'd been through things worse than any nightmare, that such fantasy was just that and getting back outside did not mean she and Lucas would be safe. But that didn't stop the longing.

The Reavers were just behind her. Jean increased her speed, focusing on the men running behind her and putting some distance between them. She was so focused on them she didn't notice the ones in front of her until it was almost too late.

A very tall man in black was standing at the door to the loading dock. Jean just had enough time to think whether she should stop or try to bulldoze her way through the man. She'd seen what they did to powerful mutants, though, and for one did not want to be placed in a bubble herself. She was fairly certain she wouldn't hurt the man too much if she hit.

She nearly bounced off him.

Whatever he was made of, he was solid like a tree trunk. If she hadn't been traveling so fast she didn't think she would have moved him. As it was he fell to his back and quickly rolled to his feet as if nothing had happened. Jean and Lucas, on the other hand, crashed to the ground. With an anguished oof all the oxygen in her lungs was forcibly expelled.

"You lot are pathetic," the tall man said and Jean wasn't sure if he was talking to her or to the other Reavers belatedly catching up to them. Jean shook her head, realizing they were back in the loading dock.

"Lock that and prep the bubble," the man said to his obvious subordinates. "And tell it we've got another toy for it."

"Actually I think you want to let us go," Jean said, but the man just smiled and tapped the side of his head telling her none of her tricks would work on him.

Jean tried to dive into his mind and discovered there was nothing there. Inhibitor Field? she wondered to herself. But no, she could feel the others nearby.

"I've already had you muties work you magic on me and that ain't happening again. I've seen to it," the man said. No, that was wrong. He was not a man, Jean decided. There was something very, very wrong with him.

"Now I could stand here and threaten you with all the horrible things that will happen if you don't go with me and my compatriots," he said and Jean realized the other Reavers had caught up to them. She and Lucas were surrounded again. "And I could tell you that none of that will happen if you comply, that you'll get the easy treatment. But we both know that would be a lie and I'm not going to disrespect you by lying to you. Things are going to be what they're going to be. We're inevitable."

The exit beckoned to Jean again and she could feel the adrenaline in her bloodstream respond; her fight or flight reflexes were taking over. Jean passed the man behind and looked into the world around him. Just as at the park she could see the molecules binding together to make the world she was experiencing and deeper still the atomic nuclei and the electrons sparking between them. It wouldn't take much to nudge them apart. You must destroy to create. That seemed easy enough.

A brilliant light, like the flame of the sun or a white hot candle, opened up before her. Jean was not afraid of it. She did not flinch or back away as it reached for her. Instead, Jean returned the movement, reaching for it. It was comforting, like going home. She was so focused on it she didn't notice when the Reavers fell to the ground clutching their heads, or the fact that Lucas was awake and grinning ear to ear. She did notice when the walls began to bleed.

With a gasp Jean released her hold on the world. The loading dock walks had been melted into the alley until the two had become indistinguishable; the Reavers lay on the ground among the debris, at least one of them also merged with the remains of the loading dock. Jean couldn't tell if they were breathing and didn't have the energy to focus. The world behind her was left in darkness. She did her best not to think about the Reavers or what they were experiencing, focusing entirely on Xavier's limo resting in the alley, it's open doors beckoning to her. She was hit by a wave of relief and exhaustion as the weight of her recent activity crashed into her. All she wanted was to get inside and sleep forever.

Nothing else emerged from the loading dock, but several concealed cameras watched Jean load Lucas' prone form into the back of a limousine which disappeared out of the alley.

"He was thinking about that same word Lucas was: Hellfire," Xavier said. "It can't be a coincidence but when I tried to probe deeper I hit a wall."

Jean's first instinct had been to return to the X-Mansion and let every one there know of what they had learned about Kelly. Instead they went to Westchester as Xavier had reminded her about the urgency of her father (how could she have forgotten!?). Her surprise had been redoubled when he had insisted on taking Lucas with them as well. In order to keep an eye on him, he had said. Which is how, in the face of a growing threat from a shadowy group who attacked them twice, she was sitting on her mother's couch as the hall clock chimed.

Jean was growing frustrated. "Shouldn't we be doing something?"

"Dr. Kelly would be a much bigger fool than I think he is if we were to find any of that infrastructure left behind. Which-" he held up a hand, quelling Jean's imminent outburst. "Which doesn't mean I'm above sending Logan and Storm to investigate the building more thoroughly. I just don't think much will come of it."

Jean was confused. Why continue on if you already know the outcome and it was failure, she wondered.

"You've just summed up the existential dilemma of the X-Men, mutants and, in the long run, all of mankind," Xavier answered. It was not comforting. "You're old enough now that I must ignore comfort, however much I might want to, and focus on reality. These are the sort of things you must keep in mind if you're to lead the school at some point."

"We've talked about that, Professor," Jean reminded him.

"We have. But, as we've just been reminded, even in the face of overwhelming opposition we must not give up hope." Xavier smiled his annoyingly secretive smile, the one that said I know something you don't, as he responded. It had always both irked and amused Jean in the past, but it did neither now.

"I'm not sure if I'm relieved Kelly was involved or not," Jean said.

"Frankly, I would have preferred it if he had been completely innocent. If he didn't know anything we'd have had to think up other avenues, but as it was…"

"As it was he's gone from forcing mutants out of schools to actively kidnapping and experimenting on them," Jean said, and paused. "I know you think through understanding we can bridge these kind of cultural gaps, and I want to believe the same thing, but …"

"You can't help but think the other side doesn't believe in the same thing," Xavier finished for her. "Perhaps, but we would best off offering everyone the benefit of the doubt."

"Not everyone," Jean said, watching the still figure on the couch.

Lucas had remained unconscious ever since collapsing again in Xavier's limo. After he had been taken she hadn't even questioned the requirement to find him. Years of rescue exercises in the Danger Room made her requirement to get Lucas out so reflexive she didn't even think about it until they were in the car and on the road.

She was thinking about it now, however.

Xavier's question about whether she could help her father on her own, and her own questioning on leaving him behind, had not left her. She remembered his statement in the basement, and the swell of power within as she brought the Reavers to their knees. She thought it best if she never saw Lucas again for the terrible things he brought out of her, none more so than her desire to revisit the experience. Is this what a drug addict feels like?

She did not notice her mother had entered the room until Mrs. Grey spoke.

"Your friend does not seem well," Mrs. Grey said.

Multiple responses floated through Jean's head, but she decided not to act on any of them. She sat there and watched Lucas breathe, in and out, in and out.

"Will he still be able to help your father, do you think?"

"I don't know," Jean admitted. "I'm not sure he ever could."

Lucas began to stir. The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was Mrs. Grey.

"Is this the future?" he asked. "How long have I been asleep?"

Lucas sat up, saw Jean and started to walk to her. One step was all he made before he had to sit back on the couch again.

"Perhaps you should rest longer," Xavier said.

"I'm fine," Lucas responded, ignoring Mrs. Grey's statement about how far he looked from fine. "I'm not the one you should be worried about."

Xavier told him that was an urge about ones children no parent could entirely abandon, and was greeted with another snort in response. Jean was suddenly flooded with images of the Kelly's destroyed loading dock, and the ruins of the Reavers within, images she had been doing her best keep out of her mind. Look how much you've been holding her back. It wasn't an out and out attack but it was sent so forcefully Jean would have needed to really try if she wanted to block it out. However tired Lucas' body may have been, he still seemed to have all of his power on hand. How deep were his reserves?

Deep enough, came the reply and Jean swore to herself to block her own thoughts better.

Xavier provided her cover and changed the topic. If that is what you think she should be developing towards I'm happy to have held her back.

Lucas derided the reply and Jean finally couldn't hold herself back anymore. I am sitting right here.

Lucas didn't respond with words but images of the world coming apart and coming back together again into a glittering utopia where hate and want were distant memories. Something bright appeared over the horizon, spreading its wings over the world, guiding and protecting its children. This is what he's most afraid of, not that his dream fails but that it succeeds and leaves him behind.

Jean turned to Xavier, trying to find some way to assure him none of this was true, that she didn't believe it, without giving Lucas the satisfaction of knowing she was thinking exactly what he wanted her to think. When are you going to stop looking to father for answers? When are you going to accept you've grown beyond him?

Stop it!

I'm not the one you should be mad at, Lucas said. Jean assured him she wasn't angry at anyone. Liar.

It was Jean's turn to respond with images, imagining the utopia; diving through it into its depths until she found Lucas back in his bubble, divorced from the world.

I won't be much use to you locked in a cage. Jean held her ground; she would do what needed doing. She almost believed herself. And what of dear father?Lucas asked. Xavier, Jean noticed, had removed himself from the conversation.

Mrs. Grey watched the silent back and forth between the three. "I'll leave you to it, then," she said.

The sudden statement broke the three out of their dialogue, not least the surprise at how exactly she had met their own thoughts. No one said anything, aloud or otherwise, as she went upstairs.

Jean suddenly realized how much her mother intuited went on among other people, even without the benefit of telepathy. She felt a great increase in admiration for the woman, and more than a little shame at underestimating her so.

Maybe the Professor isn't the only one I'm beyond, Jean finally responded.

"That's the spirit! If it were true you could have done all that you did whenever you wanted, not just lookin' down the barrel of a gun."

"Still think you're wasting your time?" Jean needled him.

"Starting to think you're ready," Lucas replied. "Of course if you did it again you'd probably kill us all." He didn't seem particularly worried about the prospect. Jean reminded him how much he was tempting fate and how close they had all been to exactly the outcome he was describing. Lucas smiled Xavier's same annoyingly secretive smile and Jean realized she had started to hate it on both men. "Why do you think we went out there?"

"You got yourself captured on purpose," Jean accused. Lucas seemed positively hurt, and more than a little angry, at the suggestion.

"I don't plan on ever being held captive by anyone ever again," he retorted. "I've had enough of bars. But it did give me a chance to see the real you. The one who was going to take that building and everyone in it apart if they had to."

"How did you…" Jean started, before realizing that was exactly the response Lucas wanted. "I would never have done that." She repeated the same thing to Professor Xavier, looking for some sort of understanding. He said he believed her, but then he always said that. Right in the moment

"You can lie to yourself all you want, but you can't lie to me," Lucas said. Jean swore she wasn't, but Lucas just smirked that way he had of saying he knew what she was really thinking. She wanted to hit him again. "Which is why I know we can succeed. You wouldn't have it any other way."

Her father's heartbeat continued on, slowly, methodically, like a metronome.

"Jean, be careful," Xavier said.

"Jean, make a decision," Lucas said, and for the first time ever Jean heard his father in him. Jean stood, but even in standing wasn't entirely sure which way she was going to go. Jean took a step towards her father. Xavier's hand pulled on her wrist.

"It will be more difficult than you know," he said. "If he turns away, if he himself does not go along with it, you cannot make him. Do not try and follow after."

"What do you mean?" Jean asked. She had the faintest itch in the back of her mind, as if Xavier's words had opened some old scab to the air. One she didn't even know she'd had.

"No more talking," Lucas said. "Now's the time, or he'll be lost."

"Alright," Jean said.

Jean and Lucas stood by her father's bed. She wanted to pull her hand away when Lucas grabbed it, but reminded herself that physical contact would make the mental gestalt they were trying to create stronger. She reminded herself why she was doing this.

I think we both know why you're doing this, Lucas told her.

Jean ignored him. Jean reached into her father's mind.

Wait, she heard Xavier say but it was distant, almost a whisper, as if she had already left him far behind. The house, the room, everything in it apart from her father, receded to a singularity behind her. She was left in the darkness, nothing before her except her father and his medical bed.

She was alone, alone as she had never been. Alone as if she had never known anyone in her life, as she had grown up in a void with out even anything to see or hear or otherwise engage her senses. She was a mind which had never been introduced to the world. Out of the darkness, Lucas stepped up beside her.

"I'm with you," he said. She wasn't sure if he'd actually spoken or not, or if she was just able to sense everything he thought, everything he was.

She took his outstretched hand and was not alone anymore. Not just because Lucas was there but because her father was now there as well. She could see him standing before her, but turned away as if looking at something far in the distance. Together they reached for her father. She touched his shoulder and a jolt of electricity went through her fingers, faint but real. He startled as if she had shocked him, and she pulled her hand back. Jean's father turned his face towards her.

"Jean," her father said. The sense of recognition overwhelmed her. She felt her knees buckle, but just as quickly as the moment had come, it seemed to pass. "I'm sorry. I thought you were someone I knew, for a moment."

"You do know me. It's Jean," she said and reached out to him, ignoring Xavier's warning. "I've come to take you home. Take my hand."

"Home," her father repeated. "Home."

For a moment she thought she'd done it. She could feel the proximity of his presence, could tell it was moving towards her. "Take my hand," Jean implored.

Jean Grey's father turned away.

Jean reached after him. She didn't even stop to think what she was doing. As in the basement, the instinct to rescue, to preserve, acted before conscious thought. She grabbed him. He was cold, so intensely cold it burned her hand. She almost let go out of instinct but at the last moment made herself keep ahold of him, keep him from turning away.

"Please!" Jean said. "Please come back."

"I've got to go home," her father replied.

"Don't let him," Lucas said suddenly. Jean had been so focused on holding her father in place she had forgotten he was there. But he had not forgotten her. "You can keep him here. We can keep him here. Burn the cold away."

Jean wanted to believe him and so she did. She reached for the light within herself again and didn't notice that even as Lucas said we he was making sure to only touch Jean and nothing else.

At first there was nothing. Jean was about to tell Lucas that, tell him he'd been wrong after all, when she saw it. A tiny spark in the darkness. Jean blew on it and it grew and grew and grew until it was large enough to hold in her hand. Somewhere along the way, Jean realized the light was emanating from her. It came as less of a surprise than an admission of what had always been true.

Lucas had to shield his eyes and turn his head. "I can barely look at ye!"

The light reached out for her father and he stopped moving for a moment.

"Jean," he said, and she knew he recognized her. "Where did you come from?"

"I followed you," she said. "I told you I wouldn't let you go. I love you."

"Love you," he responded. "Always love you."

He half turned towards her, putting one hand on hers like he had done when she was a little girl.

"I love you, Jean," he said. It would work. She knew it would.

Then the moment was lost and her father turned away again. Jean had to work harder and harder to hold onto him.

"I can't hold him," Jean said. "I can't. I can't hold him."

"You can do it, Jean," Lucas said. "I believe in you."

She could do it. She could force him to come to her. She could hold him by the force of her will alone. She could do anything. She reached for more and more of the light and more and more came but it started to burn her away in its search for fuel. It seemed to be infinite but Jean realized she was not; eventually her father would pull away and there would be nothing left of her. Already she could barely hold him without calling on more power. She knew if she did she would be lost.

"Lucas," she called out, not bothering to hide the panic in her voice.

Lucas was gone.

She called his name again, looking around wildly for her anchor but nothing was there. She saw the way she'd come from far above, a tiny light which was shrinking faster and faster. Jean reached for it, part of her realizing the danger she was in. As she did so she was yanked downwards, back towards her father. He retreated further and further into the darkness, and he was dragging Jean along behind him. The further into it she went the less panic she felt, though. She wasn't sure why she had been afraid of it at all. She thought maybe she heard a voice far behind her, someone calling her name perhaps? She wasn't sure and it probably didn't matter, anyway. Whatever it was had become so unintelligible she couldn't be sure she'd heard it in the first place. It was more of a steady beeping getting fainter and fainter and fainter.

Jean slumped over and collapsed as the beep on the EKG transformed to a permanent whine.

"Lucas, what have you done?" Xavier asked, placing two fingers at the base of her neck. To his relief he quickly found a strong pulse.

Lucas didn't answer at first, he just stared at Jean, collapsed on the floor. His face was mask of marble, unmoving except for a small twitch under one eye. Then it passed and his smirk returned.

"Queen Sacrifice," he smiled at Xavier. "It hurts but it also brings the king out into the open, unprotected."

"This is not a game," Xavier said.

"For the first time you and I agree, old man," Lucas said and thrust his mind at Xavier with all the force he could muster.

It wasn't the greatest pain Xavier had ever felt but it was certainly up there. Lucas' mind was like a charging bull, rushing forward to destroy everything in front of it. Xavier had known he was powerful but the fact of him was far greater than he had ever expected. Within moments Xavier knew he'd been eclipsed.

The downside of all that strength was Lucas had clearly never learned subtlety because he'd never had to.

Xavier gave up shielding himself, focusing instead on moving out of his opponent's way, aiming to be wherever Lucas wasn't. The initial elation Xavier sensed at his shields crumbling gave way to frustration at a lack of victory. The pace of the attacks grew, but Xavier still managed to stay out of their way. He knew he couldn't keep it up but he was conserving energy by not attacking himself. It was a stalemate. Is this the best you can manage? David taunted, but Xavier thought he sensed the younger man flagging. He dodged another probe and another.

It's the result of long experience, Xavier returned. Experience I'd shared if you'd let me.

Lucas' attack pulled back. Xavier was able to catch his breath for a moment. In the living room neither had seemed to have moved and yet both were drenched with sweat.

If I took you up on that I'd be as big a fool as you.

The seat of Xavier's wheelchair caught on fire. Throwing himself against the side of his armrests as hard as he could, Xavier toppled over and pulled himself from the flaming chair.

Lucas stepped towards his father. It took Xavier a moment to realize this was happening in the real world and not just on the mental plane they had been struggling within. Xavier concentrated again.

Lucas took another step forward, and another, and another. No matter how many steps he took, the distance to Xavier refused to close. The living room stretched to an infinite space between them.

"Still keeping me at arm's length!" Lucas sneered. "How typical."

His strides become longer and longer, greater than physically possible. Xavier knew he couldn't keep him back much longer. Finally Lucas was able to grab Xavier around the throat with both hands. Xavier fought and pried but he couldn't loosen Lucas' grip.

With a grunt his body began to shift and change, growing into something sharp and monstrous, great quills growing from its skin and piercing Lucas' hands and arms, causing them to bleed copiously.

Lucas held on.

The quills wilted and flowed down Lucas' fingers like melted wax, sticking to every crevice and beginning to smoke and bubble, trying to melt through Lucas' skin like acid.

Still Lucas held on.

The liquid wrapped around his fingers, binding them together and pulling tighter and tighter, crushing and twisting them out of shape into something broken and inhuman. Instead of release the grip grew tighter. Then, almost as an afterthought they flexed and the pieces of Xavier went flying away, broken into a thousand pieces. Xavier gasped at the pain.

The Grey living room slowly rebuilt itself, the faux world dripping away like wax from a candle and reforming into the everyday until the only thing which remained was Lucas holding Xavier by the throat.

Lucas looked down at Xavier's limp form in his hands. He dropped Xavier back to the floor, but clumsily. Xavier smashed into the end table and brought it down with him, sending the lamp, phone and other bric-a-brac upon it crashing to the floor with him.

Lucas stood over Xavier's prone form, doing nothing at first except breathe heavily from the exertion. His shirt stuck to him with sweat and more of the same was seeping down his brow and into his eyes. He felt no more probes coming towards him, no more attacks. He wiped the sweat from his eyes and toed Xavier with his foot. There was no response. Lucas' breathing had slowed and his smile had returned. It was the smile of a great cat, standing over its kill.

"Don't think this means I'm done with you," he said. "I'll never be done with you. I'll drape this house with the remains of you - a nice surprise for the Grey woman before I add her to the pile. I'll burn Jean's past down and leave it in the ashes. I'll make her like me."

Lucas' kneeled down to sneer at the unconscious man in the face. He knew it made no sense, knew Xavier wouldn't be able to hear him, but he didn't care.

"And next I'll find your precious X-Men and deal with them one by one. I'll tear down everything you've built and burn 'no hope for anyone' into the sky. What do you have to say about that?"

Xavier reached up and grabbed the phone – an old AT&T classic rotary with a base like a block of granite – and smashed it into the side of Lucas' head. He collapsed the ground and felt his forehead where blood was matting his blonde hair to his forehead.

"Is this the greatest telepath in the world?" he laughed. "I'm so disappointed!"

"I'll get over it," Xavier replied. He smashed Lucas in the head again. The younger man collapsed.

It was Xavier's turn to get himself back together. He knew he didn't have much time until Lucas regained his wits and outright refused to make the situation permanent. He also knew he didn't have enough strength to continue their fight much further. Rather than sit and gloat as Lucas had, Xavier immediately pulled himself over to Jean, who was laying still. "Jean? Jean, are you still there?"

There was no response.

Jean. Here me, Jean.

There was nothing. She had followed her father too far and could not come back. Xavier pressed harder, intent on finding Jean no matter how far she had gone. Was there a faint flicker? Before he could find out he was yanked away from her, Lucas standing over him once again.

Blood had matted Lucas' hair to his head and fallen into his face, creating a grotesque mask offset by his unhinged smile. Instead of grasping Xavier's throat, this time Lucas wrapped his hands around the older man's head.

"Once I thought about dragging you around with me, make you watch what I did to your world," Lucas cackled. The derangement on his face was terrifying and Xavier began to wonder at the depth of his mistake. "But now I'm thinking why wait!"

Xavier was assaulted with images: of his mansion being blown apart, of each of his students being savagely tortured and killed and calling out to him to save them, of flames expanding outward and outward consuming the world. He felt the pain of each victim as if what was happening to them was also happening to him. It was too much; the weight pressed him down. Darkness crawled in at the edge of Xavier's world. The last thing he saw was the great flame, spreading its wings and reaching out to the night sky.

Jean realized, almost too late, how dark her surroundings had become. She had only seen the light for so long she'd blinded herself to the world around her. Her light had dwindled as she'd followed her father further and further until her vision began to clear. She realized there were no landmarks around her, no way to tell which way she'd come or even which way she was going.

I'm lost.

"No, you're just going the wrong way," her father said.

She'd almost forgotten he was there, he'd been silent for so long. With her light dimmed she realized there was light now coming from him, the only thing allowing her to see.

"I'm going this way," her father pointed, off into the dark. With his other hand he gestured the opposite direction. "You need to go that way."

I'm not ready yet.

"Yes, you are. It's time for you to go home," her father said. "I love you."

He was becoming more and more of a blur as he spoke, or maybe Jean's eyes were clouding. She wasn't sure. Before she had even realized it he had gone, the darkness turning instead into a gray haze. I love you.

The world returned, blurry and out of focus. Jean blinked and looked around her. The first thing that registered was her father's body, lying in the bed. She tried to reach out to him, to sense any spark of life left in him, but she was far too tired. For a moment she wondered if her gift had left her entirely, the world had gone so silent. She'd stretched herself too far and the muscle had snapped. Was that what the Professor had been warning her about?

Professor!

She looked around for him, her living room beginning to take shape again, the world reforming itself around her. She saw him, finally, lying on the floor with Lucas crouched above him. There had been some sort of fight. She stretched out with her mind and found her mother upstairs, alarmed but unharmed.

Lucas noticed her.

"Jean," he said and walked to her with his hand outstretched and a brilliant smile on his face. Before he'd heard her she'd gotten a glimpse of a different face, however. One contorted and inhuman, an animal savagery. As soon as he'd heard her the animal savagery Jean had seen had completely disappeared.

Not disappeared, covered up.

"I knew you'd be able to find your way back," Lucas said. She thought he was genuinely happy to see her awake and getting to her feet. He was not at all prepared when she shoved him back with her mind. His face was a perfect description of shock.

"What have you done?" Jean asked.

"Freed us," the thing that was not Lucas replied. Whatever it was about him that had convinced her he had some idea what he was talking about, that he had some concern for the world around him, had died. All she saw in front of her was an animal with its face covered in blood. "We don't have to worry about having him in our head ever again."

Jean reached out to the Professor, searching for some sign of life but he was a blank. If she hadn't been able to see him with her eyes she wouldn't know he was there. He was no different than her father, lying on his bed a foot away. For some reason that didn't hurt as much as the moment her father disappeared did; perhaps she been getting used to pain. But that didn't mean Jean Grey felt nothing.

She'd had a lot of the bedrock under feet removed over the last 24 hours. Her father, her belief in the Professor's infallibility, her knowledge of her own limits. She had been certain of so much coming back to her parent's that she now needed to re-examine. There wasn't much she could hang her hat on right at the moment. But, Jean Grey was sure, was absolutely certain, that she was very, very angry.

She felt the flames rising in her chest and for the first time did not turn from them. She stalked toward Lucas, she towered over him like a lion hovering over its catch.

"There's no we," she told him.

He started to speak and Jean closed his mouth. Lucas' eyes widened and dilated, becoming almost all white as he struggled against her. She could see the flame of his power wrapped about him. She could see everything. The world glowed with color; it was overwhelming. The glow around Lucas brightened but Jean brushed it aside with a simple wave of her hand.

"There's just me," Jean said.

She clenched her fist and Lucas sank to his knees and clutched his chest, his face first turning white and then blue. She could feel his heart beating the way she'd felt her father's and finally understood what Lucas had meant about the connection between creation and destruction. More importantly she understood what he'd meant about embracing her own power. Why had she run from this? Why had she been scared? She'd never felt so centered, so aware that all was as it should be. The euphoria of being herself was almost more than she could bear.

The light from before had returned and her vision was obscured again. For a moment she saw the flames expanding and expanding and expanding, filling the entire world while she stood at the center. It was glorious. Lucas was still trying to speak but Jean couldn't hear him. She could only hear the final sigh from her father as he said 'I love you.'

Jean.

The shock of Xavier's mind nearly knocked Jean sideways. She let go of Lucas and the world rushed back at her. She gasped a lungful of air, as if she'd been drowning and had barely made it to the surface in time. She saw Lucas in front of her; he'd sunk to his knees and was gasping like a gurgling fish. She dropped him to the ground and left him, curled in a ball on the floor, and checked on the Professor. His breathing was steady she noticed, and the last ounce of anger left her. The euphoria stayed, however, and some part of her wondered at how strong she felt. Usually using so much of her power wiped her out, but instead she felt better than she ever had. She didn't have time to think about that.

"Professor. Professor, are you alright?" she asked. With a gentle prod of her mind she woke him.

"Jean," he said, but groggily. Slowly he became more awake. "I saw … I saw a great bird of flame … all around me. I thought it was going consume me."

"So did I," Jean replied.

"You could have killed me! I think you really could have," Lucas said, rolling on the floor and laughing like it was the funniest thing he had ever heard. "I knew you were the one for me."

Jean looked at him as if he were something foul and rotten that intruded in her life and which she'd managed to forget for a moment.

"Don't hurt him," Xavier said. He sounded so weak. Jean didn't think Lucas deserved such consideration. "That's why we should give it to him."

Jean stood over Lucas again and as he slowly became aware of her and calmed down she started see strobes and after affects following his movements on the floor. Other faces and arms and legs, a million bodies tied to his, forced to go wherever he went and do whatever he did.

"Are you going to kill me again?" Lucas asked.

"I would never do that, David," Jean said deliberately. "I'm not like you, David."

"Don't call me that! That's not my name!" Lucas snarled. "David is dead."

"Of course it's your name, David," Jean replied. "And I'm not interested in playing this game anymore."

She pushed into his mind, looking deep into him and all the pieces of himself he kept hidden inside. Show me David. She could feel him resisting, trying to push her mind out of his. Not long ago he would have been strong enough to do it, too. But now Jean could see how to get past his defenses, how easy it would be to get past them all without him even realizing she had done so. She could see exactly how to do it. She could see how to do everything, but she didn't have the patience to bother.

I said show me David! Jean shouted, and Lucas wilted.

"Please," Lucas said, and for a moment he was David again.

Jean reached down to him and stopped. She recognized how weak and vulnerable he was in that moment, how much help he needed. She also heard Lucas' voice in the corner of her mind, telling her how easy it would be to stop a major threat right then, how this might be her only chance to do so. Part of her was surprised that she was even having the thought, but a larger part of her started weighing the pros and cons of following the notion through.

Then the moment passed and Lucas returned. Something he saw, looking up at her, made him draw back from her. And then he smiled.

"I told you," he said. "I told you that you were like me."

Jean recoiled from him as if he were snake rearing back to strike. If he had physically struck her, she would not have reacted more.

"You take that back," she said, and advanced on him once more. "Take that back or I'll make you."

Lucas stood, shakily but stood, and for a moment Jean thought he would actually take her up on it. Instead, he launched himself into the air, crashing through the second floor and then the roof, transforming into a missile and flying off into the sky. His laughter filled her ears long after he had disappeared from sight.

Jean assured her mother she could easily repair the house herself, but Mrs. Grey had insisted on using the same contractors she'd been using for thirty years.

"It's just the way I like things done," was all she would say. Jean resisted pressing the point and Xavier agreed it was best. Everyone grieves in their own way.

Her father's body had been removed by the very efficient EMTs who said nothing about the destroyed room or the hole in the roof. Neither did the sheriff or coroner who had to pronounce cause and death as if it required an official saying to make it real.

No one said anything, as people so seldom did during preparations for a funeral, though this time Jean was fairly sure the Professor was dampening everyone's curiosity.

"No need to bother your mother when she's so busy," was all Xavier would say.

And she was busy, organizing this and straightening that and making sure the contractors did indeed do things the way she liked things done. Jean took the Professor's advice, at least at first, but as the day of her father's funeral approached she grew antsier and antsier finding reasons to help her mother with her checklist and yet never really speaking to her. She stood now at the door of her father's study, watching her mother box up the last of his books for consignment.

"Are you going to hover there all day or are you going to spit it out?" Mrs. Grey finally asked.

"Mother! How do you do that?" Jean was amazed.

"Oh please," she swatted the idea away like it was an errant fly. "I may not be a telepath but I've lived with one my whole life. I have picked up a few things."

Jean went back and forth another minute on whether she actually did want to say what she wanted to say.

"You haven't asked me what happened with … with dad."

"I know what happened. He died."

That stung worse than anything Lucas had said, or she had even said to herself. "I—"

"Don't be ridiculous. I don't blame you for not being able to perform miracles."

Jean frowned again. "Would you please let me be the one to finish sentences? It's freaking me out."

Her mother told her she it didn't hurt to understand how others felt around her and Jean had a moment to flash on a different life, one where she never left with Professor Xavier, never met the other students … but that wasn't what happened.

"Actually … actually, I think I could have performed miracles. But the cost would have been … I don't know how much of me there would have been left if I had."

"Then I think you made the right decision," Mrs. Grey said, absently straightening Jean's hair. "Even if it cost what it cost. Or did you think I would chase you away with a broom and tell you never to darken my doorway again?"

"No, that is not what I have been thinking." It was in fact exactly what she had been thinking, but she clamped down on that thought just in case it turned out her mother could read minds. "I've been thinking I shouldn't come back, at least not for a while. Especially after …"

Jean gestured at the only partially repaired living room, now lacking its former occupant, but she wasn't really looking at it. She couldn't shake her vision of a world engulfed in flame, herself at the center of it.

"Stop making that face. If you haven't destroyed the world yet I have faith we're safe with you."

Jean stopped herself from again remarking on how her mother could do that, mainly because it was clearly what the woman wanted to hear. She we still trying to figure out what she would say when they were both interrupted by Professor Xavier wheeling into the room. No matter what else happened, he maintained his ability to enter an awkward conversation as if cued.

"I apologize for interrupting, but Scott has called several times this morning and I think he's tired of speaking to me, even though he'd never tell me that," the Professor said.

Jean's face flushed and she nearly jogged out of the room. Mrs. Grey observed how neatly done it had been.

"Not at all," Xavier said. "Just trying to head off any extra drama, however futile the effort may be."

Mrs. Grey's thanks only hurt him more. "It was very much the least I could do. I was hoping for more, but I shouldn't have put that on you. I'm sure it's made this worse than it had to be."

"More the holes in the walls than anything else," Mrs. Grey smile. "Actually, I've been preparing for today for a while now. John hadn't been well for some time. We hadn't told Jean because we didn't want to worry her. Maybe that was a mistake, but we can't go back and change things now."

"No, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try from time to time."

"Sometimes I think she's more like you than her own father." Xavier had no response to that and before he could formulate one, Mrs. Grey had changed the subject. "This boy, Scott, is that something serious?"

"I believe so."

"And he's good for her?"

"I very much believe so."

"Then I guess it's time that I met him," she tried to say, but the end came out as a sob she just managed to hold back. Xavier already had a handkerchief out for her to dab her eyes with. "That's the first time in weeks I've done that. I thought I'd have fallen apart by now. This Scott is another of your students, I take it?" Xavier nodded. "I've never said, but it was much more John's idea to send Jean to your school. I never wanted to."

"I suspected."

"Seeing her now, though … I think maybe it was for the best after all. That doesn't change the fact that she's grown up now and I suddenly realized I'm not ready for that." Ms. Grey frowned, then gave it up. "But I guess you can adapt to anything with enough time."

"That is the idea, Mrs. Grey," Xavier said.

No snow fell during the funeral, but it was still chill enough for everyone to bundle against the cold.

The minister finished speaking and the casket was lowered into the ground. Only a small group made up the funeral party. Jean's father'd had no brothers or sisters and only a few close friends, nor had he wanted a large funeral (any more than he'd wanted a large wedding, Mrs. Grey kept saying). Jean didn't notice, the crowd or the cold. Her mind kept drifting, back to the darkness and the flames stretching from her and the great void she'd felt when she turned away from them, and finally Lucas' grinning face: I knew you were like me.

Then her mother threw a spade of dirt into the grave and Jean did likewise, and it was all over. As she followed her mother down the hill she saw a familiar van with a bright 'X' on its side pull up to the cemetery corner in a clear no parking zone by a driver who obviously didn't care. Scott hopped out and sprinted up the hill. She ran to him.

"I'm so sorry," he said. "I never wanted you to go through this alone."

"Happens to the best of us," she said and froze for a moment. Scott felt it and asked her what was wrong. "Nothing. It's … it's nothing. Just hold me, please."

He did, for as long as he could.

Next: "Curfew"