As Max led the kid- her son, she thought, disturbed but warmed by idea - back to the infirmary, she wondered about all she had heard about the kid. He seemed all right. She didn't see emotional problems, just a scared angry kid with a bad childhood, and she could sure understand being that.

She was careful with him, now that he was calm and, well, non-patricidal. She smiled at him and tried unsuccessfully to make small talk as they walked, but he didn't seem to mind her efforts. Eventually, she even got his name. "The other kids call me Torch."

"Torch, huh? Do you like that name?"

The kid shrugged. "Yeah. Got it 'cuz when I was one, I lit the trainer's hair on fire."

"On purpose?" she said, suddenly not sure if it's okay for moms to smile at things like that, but smiling anyway.

"No," he said, returning the smile, "But he was fine, so I didn't exactly get all mopey about it."

Max smiled. Again, she reassured herself. Nice kid. Sense of morality. Confused and sarcastic and angry, but that's probably the correct response to life in this century, transgenic or not. She almost wanted to reach out and hold his hand as they walked, but she was still a little afraid how he would react to sudden contact. And wouldn't most teenagers be mortified at that, regardless of the normalcy of their upbringing? she thought. Or should I think of him as a really precocious three-year-old? Is he scared to walk around, no one holding him, no one feeding him? How am I even going to know the difference between a murderous rage and a temper tantrum? If there even is a difference.... Damn, she thought, How on earth am I ever going to figure this kid out? she wondered as they neared the infirmary.

With time and strategy, she reminded herself. Just like any other civil war, you take your family back with time and strategy. Regardless of her thoughts, though, she kept smiling reassuringly to Torch.

Finally, they went reached their destination, the various staff and patients giving respectful waves to the general and her son.

The kid hesitated outside Alec's door. "Do you think...." he asked her, not finishing his question.

"He'll be happy to see you," she promised.

Logan was sitting by Alec's bed when they walked in. Alec cringed as he sat up and tried to smile pleasantly at his kid, but Logan had stood and given just a hint of frown, as he asked delicately, "Max, are you sure you want to-"

Torch lost it. "I knew it! You're all trying to destroy me!" he yelled as he lunged at Logan. Alec managed to get there in time to stop Torch from reaching Logan, though he tore a stitch (and without his enhanced healing abilities would have probably died from the impact on his recent injuries.) She yelled at Logan to leave, to get out of the kid's sight so they could calm them down, and went -again - to help Alec hold down a volatile child who was stronger than either of them. They were better the second time around, or maybe the kid wasn't really trying to kill them this time, but it still wasn't easy, and as they gave each other a quick glance, she and Alec both knew. This would be their life now. They would still fight the good fight, but they would also have to be there for the kid - for their kid - to protect him, and to protect others from him. To teach him how to live as a person and not just a weapon. And from the looks of it, it would be a heck of a lot harder for the kid than it was for the X-5's, and that was really saying something.

But it was clear. He was their responsibility, hers and Alec's. He was theirs, period. They were a family, now, and maybe they were bound with attacks and lab experiments instead of mortgages and diamond rings, but they would be stuck together, at each other's sides always. And she knew she should feel appalled at this, but somehow, as she felt Alec's strength next to her own, holding their son tight and safe, she was relieved.

Alec managed to get a hand free then and, eyes watering, placed it on the kid's face, a right hand cradling Torch's jaw and cheek. He tried to be gentle, comforting, to avoid making the kid think he was being attacked.

Instead, the kid froze. He looked at Alec in confusion, bewildered. Alec's chest tightened and it put even more pain into his wound, but all Alec could think of was that first time someone had touched him for a reason other than medical care or training, on a missions they had sent Alec on where some oblivious old woman had patted him on the cheek to say he was a nice boy. Alec remembered how strange and terrifying it felt, even as it had warmed him, made him feel like more than a carrying case for a blade and a bomb.

Alec said, then, voice breaking, keeping his hand on his son's face like his life depended on it, "Please let me act like your father. I know it's awful. Everything's awful, especially that it's me, and I don't deserve to be anyone's father, but please let me. Please let me, please let me, please let me...." he kept repeating.

Max was shocked that his voice seemed to soothe the boy - her son - and his bucking and rage turned to sobbing and thrashing, and then eventually to whimpering. They kept him on the ground, beneath them, a covering over him to serve as barrier between a boy and a world who aren't quite ready for each other. And as she thought about all they would have to do, all the things all three of them would have to go through, as she told herself - as she always did - to replace despair with determination, she wondered for an instant about all the possible ways this could turn out. And the soldier and the general and the realist in her knew that not all of them were happy, but there was a chance. They had a chance. And as her mind went through those hundred possibilities, there was one she didn't expect to even imagine, just the briefest glimpse of something like a fantasy passing through her mind as she continued to grip the arm of the soldier-son beneath her. And she was astounded when she realized that in her half-second fantasy image, she and Alec shared a full and happy home, and the boy struggling beneath her was just their first child.

As she continued holding him down, she was followed, shadow-like, by the image of this future her, this future them, by this fantasy of family. She tried to put it out of her mind, tried to bury it or laugh at it or ignore it, she tried to wash away clean that absurd and desperate image. She tried so damn hard, but she just wasn't able to forget it.