I don't own these lovely characters, only the plot and my own self-satisfaction.

It was a lovely day, mid-march. So far Mystique's pregnancy was going along smoothly. The incident in Russia had been long forgotten by Mystique after telling Angel every aspect of her international date with her "lyubov", well with the exception of all the dead humans.

Though Mystique had decided to put it behind her, the remainder of the team who knew remained wary of her, being Emma, Janos and Erik. Respectfully the three could hold their own against the blue woman, but that incident in Russia was more than enough of a reminder that, she, though had less experience in hardship than the rest of them, was just as capable in fulfilling the… "Duties" required for their cause.

Janos began listening to Mystique when demanding things during her more emotional periods…

Erik was allowed her on simple missions and harder training exercises

Emma had been noticeably more tolerant of her bouts of mood changes and occasional broad casting of random nonsensical thoughts that she normally could care less about.

Especially one day when suddenly Emma felt a great disturbance in her mind. She was bombarded with sharp, staccato thoughts of pain, panic and fear from none other than Mystique, and then followed by dull, sluggish panic from Azazel – if panic was able to be slow and sluggish.

The English woman turned herself into her diamond form and bolted down the hallway, half expecting guns ablaze or X-men barging in with a fury unsurpassed.

As she crept down the stair case and turned another corner she became more and more tense. Nothing was happening; there was only silence aside from the obvious signs of Mystique's panic from the kitchen.

She finally reached the kitchen and let out a breath of annoyance or relief, Emma couldn't discern which one it could have been, but she hadn't realized she had been holding a breath at all.

Mystique was on the floor clutching the slight bulge of her stomach, her proof of her third month of pregnancy with Azazel crouched beside her silently.

"Emma, go get Erik. We may need a doctor." Azazel stated.

Emma only nodded silently as she telepathically called everyone down to the kitchen, briefly mentioning that it was urgent and to prepare for emotional breakdowns.

The whole group was gathered together within two minutes all around a hysterical blue woman and very stoic frustrated red man. Erik bent down to his only close lady friend's level and tried to get her to look at him with no avail. He kept all his fingers away from her learning from one of Janos's mistakes not too long ago with Mystique and biting.

Instead he gave up and turned to Azazel, "What happened?"

Azazel paused as if trying to recall what happened, by now the others knew better, that the pauses meant nothing concerning Azazel.

"I had teleported into the kitchen and surprised her. She had bumped her stomach into the kitchen counter and started to cry. I believe she had read it in a book that hitting the stomach would kill the baby yesterday… Yes, yesterday, in a magazine comrade."

Magneto turned to Angel and the rest of the group. "We need to find a doctor that will keep quiet."

Mystique stood and growled out, "No humans. I'm not letting those animals touch my baby." remembering the Russian mutant boy from that sad February night.

"Then who" Angel asked, "We don't know any doctors that are mutants." She pulled a chair out for Mystique to settle on.

Mystique ignored the gesture and grabbed the phone, quickly dialing a number. "Lyubov, what are you doing?" Azazel questioned.

His lover rolled her eyes she thought, "Calling someone. DUH" but kept it to herself, knowing that he likely meant to ask who she was calling. "The only person I know will look after our baby."

"Perhaps you would like to share that with the rest of us?" Erik said rather impatiently.

"You guys already know him. Beast. Blue furry scientist?" She said as the phone rang.

Angel reached for the phone, but Mystique turned herself and the phone away from her grabbing hands.

"Why you callin' an X-man? You two may have been buddy-buddy back when we were kids, but you know we sorta ditched them on an island and then paralyzed their good leader."

Mystique suddenly turned and put her finger to her lips and whispered "Shh! He's on the line."

"Hi Henri! Remember me? Mystique? Blue scaly and naked?" She paused to wait for a response.

Emma whispered to Azazel. "Are you sure she didn't smack her head?" Azazel nodded, not quite seeing the joke, or disregarding the joke while Angel shh'd her hoping to catch some of what was being said on the other side of the phone.

"No no nono no! Don't hang up I seriously need your help." Another pause…

"Well can I explain if we meet up?" Some disgruntled sounds came from the other side…

"Well can you make a house call?" A tense pause and then finally…

"Ok, fine I'll be there in five minutes.

The rest of the brotherhood waited for her to explain.

"Azazel, we need to go to the mansion." He nodded and grabbed on to her lover, wrapping his whole body around her, tail included. The air began to shift with his teleport, but was interrupted by four hands grabbing onto him as well.

"You're not to go without us." Magneto said.

"Fine" Azazel growled. He let the unwanted passengers latch on to him as he teleported, all of them feeling the slight pressure of being moved through the brimstone and fire dimension and braced themselves to be spat out to their destination.

They appeared in front of the old Victorian styled mansion, to their relief it was clear of any red alarms, laser beams or bullets flying out at them. But they SO could have taken it.

Mystique felt a familiar sensation in the back of her mind, and told the others "Doctor's in."

They all made their way towards the large doors, though knowing full well they could have just teleported in with just as much ease… The group looked menacing and mob-like as they approached the large mansion.

Not to their surprise the doors opened for them before anyone had knocked or even laid a single hand on the door. The brotherhood was met with the familiar faces of Havok and Beast, along with their own posse of new, young mutants.

Beast looked everyone up and down, feeling the awkward tension between the X-men and the Brotherhood's staring contest. He cleared his throat rather loudly and raised his large furred arm to herd the group in.

"Come in, don't be shy… We'll just pop down to the lab and we can figure out what needs to be done." He chided, attempting to make the encounter a little less frightening for the younger mutants that Charles had just recruited not a week ago.

"Well let's just head down now shall we? Charles should already be there." He led the group to the elevators, letting a new teacher Charles had picked up from Africa to take care of any stragglers that may have wanted to tag along.

The elevator was filled with soft music that didn't help the situation any further and nor did the near silent walk to the lab, seeing as the only sound was Azazel's tail swishing softly behind him.

They entered the sterile, white room. Instantly the smell of antiseptic washed over them and most were blinded by the bright, over bearing lights. Erik was immediately more than displeased with the current setting, but decided to wait it out for the sake of Mystique's mental welfare.

"Charles!" Henri called out. "You have visitors."

Xavier pushed himself out of his own work area in his wheel chair, and smiled kindly at everyone. "Mystique, Erik… Didn't expect to see you so soon, what is the trouble?" Charles asked politely.

Mystique stood forward and gestured at Beast and to her group. "Perhaps we would all like to sit down."

Azazel nodded at everyone, obviously not liking being on enemy grounds and each Brotherhood member took a seat on random lab beds, stretchers and tables.

Once again all eyes were on Mystique, much to her discomfort, it was apparent that her plan to make everyone friends for a moment wasn't going to work. "Ugh, I might as well get on with it then. I hope Charles doesn't lose too many hairs over this…" Noticing her brother's thinning head of hair.

"Well, Beast… Charles…. Umm… Not to sound irresponsible, but I'm pregnant!" She looked at her two old friends, trying to gauge their expressions.

Her fellow blue mutant looked absolutely overjoyed, either with the prospect of seeing something he'd never seen before or just out of happiness for Mystique herself. Most likely the former of the two.

Charles looked shocked beyond belief. "W-What? Wait… With who?"

Mystique rolled her eyes a bit. "Ok, Charles, I know the blue and scaly skin is a bit of a turn off for you, but you know some guys like that sort of thing!"

She winked at Azazel, who once again may or may not have been thrown into a fit of blushing, he most certainly rose in temperature when the powerful telepath' gaze settle on him.

Azazel shot him a devilish smirk that said "Yeah, I did. What do you wanna do about it?"

Charles coughed awkwardly, "I'm very happy for you... Mystique can we talk in private?"

"No, you may not!" Angel said spontaneously, not quite liking were that road may lead. "You wanna say something bad bout' the daddy of the baby you gunna haf't to say it in front of ALL of us."

Charles let out a sigh. "I was just going to say if you were sure if you were ready for a baby, that's all!"

Mystique rolled her eyes. "Of course I am. After all it's been in my stomach for three months now! It's a bit late to back down now!"

Charles looked like he was going to faint in his wheel chair. "T-three months? Already? You were planning on telling me this when?"

Mystique scoffed in annoyance. "Like I would have told you at all! If it weren't for Azazel scaring me into a kitchen counter, I would have never called in the first place. I have to get an ultra sound now just to make sure the little thing living in me is ok!"

Henri's focused on Mystique more intently. "An ultra sound? Do you want to do it here?"

Charles turned to his friend. "Henri you can't be serious you want to give them an ultra sound?"

"Well by all means yes! After all it's the third month, the zygote is already a fetus, its brain and spinal cord is already formed and soon we'll be able to hear the heart beat with a dopple! Just imagine what that would be like Charles!"

Before the crippled man could even protest Henri was already leading Mystique and Azazel into a private room, leaving Charles to be stared at by the remainder of the Brotherhood.

"Eh… Well, it's been a while Erik…" The room remained awkwardly silent as Charles attempted to get back to his important genetic research and plan more donors for his mutant training program.

Meanwhile inside a private examining room with Mystique and Azazel, "Hold still Raven this is going to be a little be cold!"

"Don't call me that Be – Holy shit!" She cursed as the scientist spread ultra sound gel over her stomach.

"Ok, this will be very quick. I just need to prepare a couple of other things, run a scan over your stomach and you'll be seeing your child in real time video."

True to his word in a few moments, a few heartbeats really, a dark image with outlines of reds, oranges and yellows popped up on the screen by the bed.

"Well your baby seems to be fine regardless of the bump to your stomach… It seems to be a bit small for three months and it is still hard to distinguish the sex of your child. Perhaps it is still early in its growth… It must be it. The tail hasn't started to disappear yet… How intriguing. The eyes seem to be giving off more heat than the rest of the body, no eye lids yet…" Henri commented to himself while he let the two parents marvel at the sight of their little spawn twitch about in Mystique's womb.

"Oh my god, look Azazel I think that's its heart…" She pointed at the screen erratically.

Henri shifted her finger on the screen far to the right. "That is the heart… You were pointing at a half formed ear."

Mystique turned to Henri mouthing a "Shut up." Azazel would have laughed at his lover, but was too busy; watching what was his move around like an acrobat in the air inside the dark cavern that was Mystique's body.

When they had decided to leave, after some calmer, more placid conversation between the two teams and a dinner cooked by some of the newer member of the X-men Charles pulled Mystique into an embrace.

"Remember, you are always welcome back here. If you EVER have doubts about your child living with the brotherhood you can bring him here. We'll treat him right." He whispered into her ear.

Mystique gave him a light kiss on the cheek and an affirming nod. She wrapped an arm around her red lover's neck and the brotherhood left with a subtle popping sound, leaving only a ring of fire in their wake.

My box - Whoo~ It's been a while. Labs and stuff have been piling up! I had a recommendation to add in Charles and I did. It did seem right, after all he was practically family! I'm going to make Charles regret saying to Mystique that they were welcome at anytime.

02AngelBaby75: Thank you for the review! I'm glad you liked the diner! I have a thing for difficult to pronounce pastries so I'm glad someone else liked it too!

Sheherazade's Fable: Intense indeed ;) (And finally not in the dirty way for my fics...) Yes... Very cute until the killing bit. I believe there is less killing up for the next little while!