Disclaimer: I don't own or claim to own any recognizable characters, places, etc. and am not making any profit here.

With thanks, as always, to Hoodoo for beta-reading.

This story is the third in a series. I've tried to write it so that it can be read on its own; for related events, see 'Broken, Discarded Things' and 'In a Place Like This'.

Prologue - 1958

Khan el-Khalili burned bright under the midday sun. Cairo's outdoor market burst with color, woven rugs and burlap bags of spices so vibrant the sight of them tasted wonderful. Metal glistened, spires of brightness perched atop green and blue glass bases on dozens of waterpipes. The smooth curves of Arabic graced signs. Many were in English, many not, and some were in something like English but not coherent English.

Voices mingled, the confident Arabic of shopkeepers beside the hesitant, heavily accented Arabish of tourists. Children raced along alleys and called to one another in the universal tones of youth. Standing close to a pay telephone, one man spoke softly in English.

He needn't have opened his mouth to mark himself a foreigner. Sunlight bounced off his white linen trousers and sweat dampened his shirt visibly at the neck and back and under his arms. Although he held his head proudly, his face was bright red. He had no tolerance for the heat.

"Raven," he murmured, "how are you? Is everything all right?"

Charles Xavier heard his sister rolling her eyes all the way back in London. "Because you've been gone more than five minutes you assume something must have gone wrong?"

That was the trouble with women. Nearly fifteen years he had known this one and still she spoke a language about as familiar to him as the calls to prayer he heard every morning. After a few days he had perfected the smooth motion that allowed him to roll over, pull a pillow over his head, and close his eyes again.

"No, I don't assume anything," he placated into the telephone.

"Then why would you ask like that?"

"Because you're my dear little sister and I care how you are."

"Little?" Raven demanded.

He chuckled. "Well, whatever you are, I care about you so indulge me this one last time."

"Last?"

"Raven."

"I'm fine," she admitted, her tone softening as the anger drained.

He smiled, though he stood so close to the pay phone no one noticed but the ages-old brick wall before him. "See, was that so hard? I'm doing well, too."

"How's Cairo?"

"Quite hot! It's at least 35 degrees."

She rolled her eyes again. "Yeah, Charles, I was asking about the weather."

"Well, I'm sorry, it's made an impression," he said, laughing. Back in the hotel, he would all but peel the shirt from his skin. Raven didn't need that detail. "There's history here, but of a different kind. It's very old and the customs are very different from ours, it's fascinating. Jim's having the time of his life."

"And how many women have you brought back to your hotel room?"

"Now, Raven, what would you say if I asked you that?"

"We can't know unless you ask me."

"All right, I call your bluff. How many men have you brought home?"

The answer from London was a long drone: Raven had hung up.

In Cairo, Charles laughed once more, hung up the pay phone and wiped the sweat from his forehead. The holiday had been a friend's idea, a friend who—unlike Charles—studied history and who—very like Charles—came from money and could easily afford to float off to Egypt for a couple of weeks on a whim.

Charles found Jim examining an archway.

"Special, is it?" he wondered.

"Not that I know of," Jim admitted. He was physically an unremarkable man, average height, a little plump around the middle but never enough to keep him out of a scrum, with a boyish face that lit with glee at his studies. "Isn't it wonderful? Can't you imagine the thousands, perhaps millions of feet that have walked beneath this arch, stood where we stand now?"

Charles couldn't. He concerned himself more with the future. A fellowship awaited him in a few weeks, a genetics laboratory and then he would begin courses at Oxford. He saw answers and understanding unfold before him, a broad truth of all people, not individuals with their tiny lives.

Jim was not a scientist and Charles humored him, "And our genetic imprint would be all but indistinguishable from theirs. Or theirs!" he added as a gaggle of children rushed past. The girls wore scarves over their hair but had no trouble keeping up with the lads. They laughed and called to one another in Arabic.

Their minds were difficult to grasp. He could have chosen one, delved into it, adapted his thoughts to their language, but basic concepts flitted through. Most were happy. One girl thought of a pretty scarf with golden embroidery and a boy wondered about lunch, one child thought of his sister and another—

Charles's eyes widened in surprise and his hand caught a bony wrist. He generally did not restrain strange children on the street, but made an exception for the little thief who slipped her fingers into his pocket.

It was a strange situation and, in truth, not one from which he knew how to proceed. The child was small, a little more than half his height, and he realized that her face held no hint of the question in his mind. Alerting the authorities seemed harsh. They still cut off thieves' hands in this part of the country, didn't they? He couldn't subject a child to that, especially one whose dirty clothes and hollow cheeks suggested this might be a matter of survival.

He was unwilling to let her steal from him, either.

For a moment, their eyes locked. He realized hers were blue. Vaguely he noticed that her scarf had slid back to reveal a shock of white hair and he thought that this girl, like himself, was a mutant. It was not a beneficial mutation, however, something alluring about her unusual appearance unlikely to help her at all in a land of hidden women.

He thought of his sister back home. Even in England her true appearance would never be accepted by others—

A burst of pain interrupted the thought. Charles doubled over and the girl fled: she had jabbed him in the kidney! And made off with his money, he realized. A few coins scattered and were quickly snapped up by other children.

The whole exchange took only a few seconds. Then the pickpocket girl was gone and Jimwas at Charles's side, steadying him. "Are you all right?"

Charles waved off his concern. "Yes, yes, I'm fine." He forced his hands away from his side, knowing they only made him seem injured when nothing had been so bruised as his pride. "Did you see her? The one who picked my pocket."

"I didn't get a good look," Jim admitted. "Mind you, they all look the same under those scarves. Did you want to find the authorities?"

"No, no," he easily rejected the idea, "it wasn't much."

They carried on with their trip, but even after he had returned to London and resumed his studies, Charles thought of the girl with her unusual appearance. He thought of her as an example of mutation everywhere and how his mutation brought him to notice hers—he never would have noticed the girl but for her thoughts.

It was a damned shame, he thought from time to time, that he would never see the girl again.