Editor's Note: This one deals with an acrimonious… no, downright EVIL divorce. Having weathered one myself (and from Regis' point of view), I know how touchy this can be. If the subject is going to be especially painful for you, you might want to think twice about reading this story.

Mentors, part 1

Ororo stopped momentarily to watch Isidro as he spoke on the phone. At first the man was sitting in a chair, but then he stood up and paced with agitation. She had no idea what he was saying; his quick, rapid-fire Spanish was beyond her. He wiped his brow and forced himself to calm down. His tone and expression suggested that he was trying to calm down whoever was on the other end of the line as well.

It had been four weeks since Isidro suffered his injuries at the hands of his "former employers", and two days since he and Hank made the decision to remove the implant at the base of his skull. The bullet wounds on his chest were healing nicely, and the scars would be minimal. The implant removal was easily covered by hair, just as the implant itself had been. Soon there would be no physical trace of his slavery. The mental anguish would take far longer to heal, and if this phone call was any indication, it would take a while for his family to get over it as well.

Kurt joined her as she stood there, watching Isidro as he spoke slowly and clearly into the phone. It sounded like he was trying to speak over the person on the other end of the line. Kurt's eyes narrowed momentarily.

"Can you understand any of that?" Ororo asked quietly.

He nodded. "I know some Spanish, though it is not so good as my English or French. He is trying to tell his mother he is safe."

Only recently had Kurt gone back to his teaching duties after a week of recovery. He wasn't quite up to full strength yet, but he had the energy to do an hour of class each day, and an extra half hour with Regis in the evening. Ororo glanced at him and smiled. Not only was he wearing the patchwork denim vest and tie-dye sweats the children had made for him, he had also found a way to wear every single one of those hemp and bead friendship bracelets. He strung them into one long strand, then twined it around his tail between the spade and the set of "rings". It actually looked rather nice.

Isidro sighed as he hung up the phone, then sat heavily in the nearby chair, his hands in his hair. "God, I don't believe it. I just don't believe it."

"What happened Isidro?" Ororo asked, walking toward him. "The last time you called home, everything seemed all right. Are they being harassed?"

Isidro shook his head. "The FBI found what was left of my buddies from work. All they could get were finger bones and a few teeth. Some fuck fed them through a wood chipper." He took another breath to steady himself. "They had to do DNA matching to get anywhere. It took them this long to get the results back. Jesus, they're all dead." He dropped his hands and looked away, out through a window, his eyes moist. "I kind of thought they would have been killed … but Jesus … a wood chipper." He wiped his eyes quickly. "They want to talk to me real bad. I don't know what I'll tell them. It's a capital murder investigation now. They're gonna want to know where I've been for the past month."

"Perhaps Doctor Hank or Professor Xavier can help with that," Kurt suggested as he moved a bit closer. "They deal with the government often."

Isidro nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, I'll do that." He never once looked them in the eye as he left the room. "A fucking wood chipper…."

He passed by Logan, who stopped and watched him as he went.

"His buddies wound up in a wood chipper, huh?" Logan asked quietly as he joined Ororo and Kurt. Kurt nodded, and Logan went on, "Yeah, I was afraid of that. It's a great way to make bodies disappear. It's a good thing they were sloppy. They should've run everything through twice to make sure."

Kurt gave Logan a look of such shock and revulsion that Ororo wondered if he was going to teleport away. "How can you even think of such things?"

"Don't ask me that unless you really want to hear the answer, elf," Logan replied, moving off.

Kurt and Ororo just stood there for a few seconds, watching after Logan long after he left the area. Eventually, Ororo looked back down and motioned to Kurt's adorned appendage.

"I love what you've done with your tail," she said.

That seemed to snap Kurt out of his startled reverie. He looked back down at his tail and raised it a little.

"You like it?" he asked. "I thought it would be different. I will have to rethink it when I start doing more activity, though. It is not so comfortable to grab things with the beads in the way."

"It's beautiful. In the future maybe you could twine the beads further up your tail."

They heard someone knocking on the front door several rooms over. Odd, Ororo thought. We don't have any visitors scheduled for today.

She was about to go to answer the door when she heard it open.

"We need to speak with Professor Xavier, now," said a woman's voice.

"He's teachin' a class," Logan's voice responded. "Is he expecting you two?"

The next voice belonged to a man. "He might be by this point. Could you tell him that the Brandons need to speak with him? It's rather important."

The man was much calmer, and much less rude, than the woman. Quick footsteps echoed down the halls, growing closer. From the sounds, it was a woman in high heels walking so swiftly. She must have shoved by Logan to get inside. A white-hot fist clenched around Kurt's heart and did its level best to yank it out of his ribcage. Those were Regis' parents, and at least one of them was angry. Dear God, what would they think if they just bumped into him? What if they realized who had been teaching their son? What would they do? A look of pure terror flooded his features, and he was gone before Ororo could say a single word. Two seconds later, Mrs. Brandon strode into their hallway.

Ororo had seen Mrs. Brandon several times before. Both she and her husband would pick up and drop off Regis when vacations arose. Both of them were also aware that he was a mutant, and knew the other students were likely mutants as well. Like many of those who sent their children to Xavier's Institute, they were wealthy people, well-educated and well-placed in society. The impression Ororo had of Mrs. Brandon was of a polite, somewhat formal woman, one who did not warm to strangers easily. That stood in stark contrast to the seething shrew in business attire that stomped down the carpeted hallway, fists clenched and eyes hidden behind mirrored sunglasses.

Her husband ran up behind her and grabbed her by the arm, trying to turn her around. "Jennifer, you're not going in with that kind of attitude."

She spun on him, wrenched her arm free, and spat, "And just what gives you the right to tell me what I can and can't feel?"

"And this from the woman who takes pride in keeping her cool!" he snapped back.

She poked him in the chest with a painted fingernail. "Don't push it, mister! Don't even start with me!"

Logan was slowly making his way into the hallway behind them, his face as cold and hard as the metal that lined his bones. Ororo ran to the Brandons, who had clearly forsaken everything else for the sake of their heated argument.

"Have you no sense of propriety?" Ororo hissed at them both. "This is a school! You can be heard throughout the ground floor!"

Mrs. Brandon spun on Ororo and pointed to Logan. "Who the hell is that? He wasn't here in the beginning of the term!"

Ororo thought to herself that this woman had approximately ten seconds before she drenched her with a microstorm.

"Misses Brandon, will you kindly keep your voice down?" Ororo said through clenched teeth.

"He's one of the faculty, Jenny, who the hell do you think he is?" Mr. Brandon told her at the same time. "He could be the grounds keeper for all we know."

"That's right, I don't know!" Mrs. Brandon shrieked. "I want to speak with the headmaster, and I want to speak with my son!"

Make that two seconds….

"Don't you dare involve Regis in this!" Mr. Brandon bellowed, grabbing his wife roughly by the arms and brutally spinning her to face him.

"Mister and Misses Brandon, that is quite enough!" Xavier's voice shouted from the far end of the hall.

He sat there, wheelchair positioned in the center of the archway, as stern as Ororo and Logan had ever seen him. The Brandons ceased their fighting instantly. Mr. Brandon let go of his wife, and both turned to face Xavier.

The professor went on in a more quiet tone of voice, though no less commanding. "If you wish to continue your argument, you will do it outside the confines of this school. If you wish to speak with me, then I suggest you follow me into my office."

He turned his wheelchair about and exited the hallway. Mrs. Brandon briskly strode after him. Mr. Brandon hesitated just long enough to give a mumbled apology to Ororo before following Xavier's lead. Logan walked up next to Ororo and watched the others go.

"All hell breaks loose with Stryker seven months ago and she doesn't say a thing," he growled. "Now she's screaming her lungs out about seeing 'her son.'"

Ororo crossed her arms, her voice icily soft. "Seven months ago I bet they weren't having a divorce."

Logan glanced at her. "You sure?"

"I hope I'm wrong, Logan, but it isn't that hard to figure out."

"It'd explain a few things, wouldn't it?" He put his hands on his hips and shook his head. "Jeez, the poor kid. He's gonna get so screwed by this."

Ororo silently agreed. She didn't even want to think of what a custody battle would be like. Mrs. Brandon was acting very much like the kind of person who could use her son as leverage.

"One of us better warn Regis," Logan continued. "I'll find him. Not that the whole school hasn't heard the two of them by now…."

He stalked off, flexing his fingers as a substitution for extending his claws.

:

Kurt laid on top of his bed, staring up at the ceiling. He knew very little about Regis' parents. He had only seen them once from a window during Christmas holiday, and Regis didn't talk about them much. However, from the mood at least one of them seemed to be in that day, he had better stay clear of them while they were at the institute.

Why were they here so unexpectedly? Xavier encouraged all guardians to arrange at least a day in advance for visits. The Brandons arrived so quickly that they nearly caught Kurt off-guard. His heart was still pounding from that. He had very few rules that were not given directly from God, but there was one he had learned to keep the hard way: never let an outsider see you. Even more important was never startle an outsider. And finally, never startle an angry outsider. Rules that safeguarded his life, and had very nearly been broken. The last time any of those rules had been violated, the results had been ... unpleasant.

Kurt rubbed his face with both hands, trying to force the painful memory out of his mind. You can teleport now, he reminded himself. There's no way anyone can tie you up like that ever again. You're not a child anymore. You're not alone. Just calm down. Calm down....

He sat up and perched on the edge of his mattress. With his right hand, he picked his rosary up off of the bedside table, from where he placed it for safekeeping during his gym classes. He bowed his head and ran his fingers over the beads as he prayed, trying to quiet his beating heart.

It was so troubling, the way old fears lay so close to the surface....

He heard a buzzing sound, almost electronic in nature, accompanied by a blur of light in the corner of his room. He spun around in time to see Regis materialize several feet up, close to the ceiling, and fall clumsily to the floor.

"Regis?" Kurt asked quickly. "What are you doing here?"

"Mister Wagner, can I hide out in your room for a while?" Regis asked timidly as he stood up. "My mom and dad are here, and they're screaming at each other, and I really don't wanna talk to them right now, okay?"

"Do you have any idea why they are so angry?" Kurt asked him.

Regis shrugged, hands jammed in his pockets, his feet shuffling nervously. "Idunno."

That means 'I don't know, but it must be my fault,' Kurt thought. When parents fight, it is always the children who are hurt. And if I do not give him permission to stay, he will hide somewhere else, and we will have to search for him later. Aloud, he said, "Of course you can stay, Regis. Let Herr Professor speak with your parents. He knows what to do."

Regis nodded, wincing as he limped over to Kurt's side. Though he remembered to materialize high up to avoid possible objects on the floor, he had not landed correctly. He knew better than to let his legs fold up under him like that; Kurt had seen to it. Whatever was happening with his parents, it had him so rattled that he had forgotten half his training. He would have to work harder on that. It should all be instinctive.

"Did you twist something?" Kurt asked, moving aside to make room for Regis to sit.

"No, I just bumped my knee," he said, still wincing. "I'll be okay."

"Do you need ice?"

Regis shook his head and looked back at Kurt with eyes that said please don't leave me. He had never seen the poor boy so upset. Kurt sighed and put his left arm around Regis' slender shoulders.

"It would seem we are both outcasts for now."

:

Ororo had just dismissed her physics class when Scott showed up by the doorway, waiting for the flood of students to subside. She went to him instead of letting him come to her.

"How's it going?" she asked softly.

"Not good," he answered. "This is just the opening strike of a custody battle. I can smell it. She's demanding Regis leave the school and come to Colorado with her, and the father is insisting he stay. The professor's trying to mediate, but the damn woman's not being even remotely reasonable."

Ororo pinched her nasal ridge. "Great."

"It gets worse," Scott warned her. "She's insisting on seeing Regis and she's not about to take 'no' for an answer. She's also demanding to see his 'mentor.'"

"We're not going to let her do that, are we?"

"Not if I can help it. She's got the right to see her son, but she can't force Kurt to see her. The problem is I think they're together somewhere."

"You 'think?'"

"When Regis heard the screamfest in the hallway, he teleported out of my classroom. The poor guy was mortified."

"Have you checked with Logan? He said he was going to find him."

Scott snorted. "Logan's being quiet about it. Says he knows where he is, says I know, too. I take that to mean Regis is probably hiding out in Kurt's room."

"And if she goes looking for her son, she'll probably find Kurt as well," Ororo finished.

Scott nodded, mouth set in a grim line. "That's about the size of it."

"Well, it looks like Regis is off practicing somewhere on the grounds, and Kurt is out on errands," she stated, lifting her chin. "If she had let us know she was coming, maybe we could have made sure all the teachers were here for her perusal. Maybe this'll teach her this isn't her private house."

Scott nodded once again and looked over Ororo's shoulder, off in the general direction of Professor Xavier's office. "That's what the professor said, too, though a bit more politely. It's a shame none of us know where Kurt went, isn't it?"

"Just an absolute shame," Ororo agreed. "Are they still hacking away at the professor?"

At that point, both of them heard the distinctive clicking of high heels on the marble floors. Scott caught a brief glimpse of Mrs. Brandon walking briskly to the back of the mansion, and then heard the rear doors open and shut.

"I don't think so," Scott muttered warily.

TBC…