Yes, I know.

Hush. The Muse has been plodding along.

You know the drill.

Afterwards, when Sean and Alex had shown Kitty and Logan to their rooms with Scott as their enthusiastic and talkative guide did the boys have a chance to discuss what had happened.

"Well? Do you trust him?" Alex said cutting to the chase. He leaned against a tree and looked back at the house, wary of others listening in. Alex pushed himself off the tree, wandering around before finally sitting down next to Sean.

"Oh, hell no," Sean responded just as quickly. They were sitting on the far edge of the Xavier estate overlooking one of the many ponds dotting the northern edge. The quiet of the woods did nothing to ease their uneasiness. "I don't trust him at all." Sean was quiet for a second or two before saying, "And I don't think that Logan guy trusts him either."

"Yeah, I picked up on that too," Alex said. His hands were itching to do something. But they had been regulated (once again) to back of Charles Xavier's mind. Alex hated Lehnsherr even more for taking away the Professor's attention from them. And yes, if he thought long and hard about it, Alex Summers was intensely jealous of Erik Lehnsherr. But he could not process this bit of information and thus kept it to himself. Alex promised himself to bring it up later with Sean.

"We're going to have to be on our toes around him, you know," Sean finally said. "We can't let Hank know. He seems to have his hands busy with Moira and the new kid," he said a little ruefully.

Alex nodded. He hated keeping secrets, especially from Hank, but he did not see another way out of this current situation. For the time being Alex and Sean sat silently side by side and let the time pass.

Hank worked furiously to stabilize Moira finally succeeding after several hard hours. He sat across from Moira's bed, cleaning his glasses and thinking over what had happened. This certainly does not make any sense, Hank thought as he cleaned his glasses. Moira occasionally jerked on the bed struggling with an unknown dream assailant. She had not regained consciousness since Bobby manifested his powers and that was troubling to young Dr. McCoy.

He glanced over to the other table where Bobby lay prone. His eyes were still closed and Bobby looked to all the world that he was sleeping peacefully. Hank hazarded a guess that Bobby was in fact passed out, exhausted from the manifestation of his power. His forehead wrinkled in thought. Hank had a hard time processing his own physical manifestation of his mutation and that was just about a year ago. How in the world could Bobby, age ten at best, be coping? It would be nice to have another expert on mutation on staff...especially a psychiatrist.

Hank placed the thought on a back burner. These were best researched later. He turned his attention back to Moira who had finally settled, a thin sheen of sweat on her forehead. Hank stood up, taking a warm damp towel and cleaned her face carefully.

Several people had answers that Hank McCoy needed. He opted for Erik Lehnsherr and Charles Xavier to answer his questions first. Hank frowned, deep in thought, dreading the answers he might get.

After the others had departed for various parts of the mansion, Erik Lehnshserr was left with a very silent, very livid Charles Xavier. For several long minutes Charles stared down Erik. But to Charles' credit, he did not use his telepathy to invade Erik's mind to discover the answers Charles surely wanted. And to Erik's credit he took Charles' stony treatment with as much humility and grace as he could muster.

He looked about the library and noticed the chessboard where they had left it. Erik tried not to think about his last night here and the consequences of his actions. His words seemed to haunt him as they swirled around in his head. Erik could not change his past, did not want to change his past. But he could still help shape his own future.

"Erik," Charles said, bringing the other man out of his thoughts.

"Charles," Erik said softly, his eyes snapping to the other man.

"Erik," Charles replied back, his face still hard with anger.

"What do you want me to say?" Erik said wishing he had his helmet on to block Charles' probing thoughts, but knowing that Charles wouldn't invade his privacy.

"I don't know. What do you have to say to me?"

"You're not making this easy," Erik said gritting his teeth and standing straighter.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I'm supposed to make this easy for you, am I?" Charles said, his face beginning to flush with color.

"I...I'm sorry Charles," Erik said and sank into a chair. "I'm so so sorry."

Charles continued to stare at Erik before leaving the room.

Moria was hovering between consciousness and not. She could barely hear what was going on around her. But if she concentrated Moira could penetrate the thoughts of those around her. Is this how Charles uses his telepathy? Can he not shut it off? Moira took a breath. What the fuck is going on?

Hello, Mother.

*shrugs*

I'm sorry for the short chapter. I was spurred into uploading.

Thank you, anon.

As always, reviews are nice, but not necessary to my mental well-being.