"What are they doing here?" Rogue yelled. The building was still rattling in the aftershock of the explosion, and she could smell the faint acrid tinge of smoke. "The code -- it meant December 9th, Professor, I know it did!" Then fear hit her with paralyzing intensity: "Oh, God, Logan -- he's closer to where that thing hit --"

"Logan and Scott both survived the attack," Professor X said. He began turning his wheelchair to the door. "Your perception of the code was undoubtedly correct, Rogue, but someone in the Brotherhood must have been without his helmet at that time and heard my message. They've moved up their timetable accordingly." He sighed. "You tried to warn me, Ororo."

"We can take them," Storm said, which seemed wildly unrealistic to Rogue, but nobody else was arguing. Only that old woman huddled in the corner, the one the Professor had called Shriek, seemed to be frightened or worried at all. The others were all steady, even though it was oh-holy-shit-Magneto-himself coming down on them with God only knew how many Brotherhood mutants at his side. The last time she'd seen Magneto --

Geir's terror of Magneto, his agony in death, echoed through Rogue, as deep and as awful as it had been the moment it happened. As her knees went watery, she began to give in to her fear -- it would be so much easier to drop to the ground, crawl away, pull her arms over her head like poor terrified Shriek.

Then she felt something else -- anger.

Her own rage at Magneto she knew well; she'd made its acquaintance years ago, at the Statue of Liberty, and she knew how it tasted, metallic and vile in her mouth. But this anger wasn't her own; it was Geir's. Magneto had forced Geir to help them fight, to help them kill. He had used Geir in an experiment that cost the boy his life. He preferred to call Geir Screener, the name Geir hated so much. It was Geir who was angry at Magneto right now, and with good reason.

But it was Rogue who was going to get revenge.

"We can take him?" she said, squaring her shoulders. "Show me how."

"Leave that to me," the Professor said. "Dr. Avidan and Shriek will help me to Cerebra."

"And we shall make sure you have all the time you need," Nightcrawler said. "Rogue, shall I take you?"

Rogue shook her head and drew Geir's power up within her, bringing herself off the ground to hover by Storm's side. "I'm my own transportation."

As they streaked toward the outside, Nightcrawler BAMFing his way alongside them, Rogue thought: So much for staying behind with the jets.

Erik had been a boy of 20. Charles had looked up to him as someone so worldly and intelligent, expected him to have all the answers. A boy of 20 -- the same age that Rogue was now.

What could I have been thinking? Xavier thought. To put such a burden on one already burdened almost past the telling of it?

Dr. Avidan pushed him into the elevator; Shriek leaped in quickly, as if afraid the doors would shut on her. She looked down at Xavier, her eyes still childlike behind her thready gray hair. "Erik's coming. He's angry."

"Yes," Xavier said. "Don't worry, Shriek. We'll stop him, and maybe we won't have to hurt anyone."

"Please no hurting," Shriek said.

Xavier closed his eyes, thought of Erik as a boy in his arms. He said the best thing he could say and still tell the truth: "I'll try."

Pyro's eyes narrowed as he slid into the seat of the Condor. The biggest battle they'd had in a long time, and he had control of the plane, and what was he supposed to do? Keep it in a holding pattern. Again. The adrenaline thrills just never stop, he thought.

"Don't pout," Magneto said congenially. "When you disobey orders, you must expect consequences." His attention was drawn by Avalanche and Mystique, each preparing to leave the jet. He called to them: "Remember what I said -- leave Xavier to me. Remind our more bloodthirsty brethren."

"You know we can't guarantee that," Mystique said. "But, if it makes you feel better, we'll remind the others." She dropped from the plane in a long blue blur of motion; Avalanche jumped after her, and the resounding thud of his feet on the ground sent shockwaves rippling through the desert. Pyro stared, fascinated, as a long wave of sand billowed up and washed away from them, spreading out toward the horizon.

Magneto followed Mystique without another word, leaving Pyro to sit out while the show got started. Irritated, he fired up the jet and lifted off, preparing to circle more or less out of harm's way nearby. He let his thumb wander over the missile-launch button -- smooth red plastic, glistening in the bright light -- but even that was only slightly tempting. Firing a missile was just like using his powers, only a little less fun. But sometimes he got so damn tired of scorching plane after plane, house after house; it felt less like fighting than it did like playing some sub-par video game from the dark ages or something. Blasting little SimCity apartment-boxes all in a row. Though even that beat just sitting and watching --

"Pyro?" He turned and saw Iceman standing behind him, already sheathed in ice, looking invitingly cold and wet in the middle of the desert. Moisture beaded slightly along every inch of his hard-chiseled frame. He asked a question he should have known the answer to -- that he probably did know the answer to. "You just keeping the jet out of the way?"

"No, I'm leading the charge. This is an amazing optical illusion. This is M. C. freakin' Escher, blowing your mind." Pyro scowled as he set the jet on autopilot, which was so symbolic he couldn't even pretend to ignore it. "Listen, I'm stuck here. You aren't. So why aren't you out kicking ass?" Two possibilities flickered in his mind, one of them very interesting. "You too chicken to face down Cyclops and Storm again? Or are you just here to keep me company?"

"Sorry, neither." Iceman knelt by his side and let the ice sheath go; white became blue, became clear, then shimmered and was gone. Now Pyro could see Iceman's face, his jaw set, his eyes bright. "Pyro -- Magneto's got his plan for how this is all going to go down. But I've got my own plan, and the others are behind me. Are you?"

Opportunity flashed through Pyro's mind, leaving a warm red glow of feeling in its wake. Slowly, carefully, he let himself smile. "Depends on the plan."

"But you're with me, right?" Iceman smiled back, as relieved as Pyro was himself. They'd known each other for years, Pyro thought, and there was always some lie standing between them. We're all X-Men together, or he loves Rogue, or I don't care anymore, or he's only here to do some good. All lies, all gone. It was just him and Iceman now, circling slowly above the desert; all the people who'd stood between them now lay beneath them, ready to be crushed.

"I'm with you," Pyro said. He breathed out slowly, crossing that boundary inside his head, glad that Iceman was finally ready to follow -- or maybe even lead. "I'm guessing you're smart enough to have figured out that if you're not going to follow Magneto's orders, you'd better be planning to kill him."

Iceman nodded. "I don't like it. But I think it's got to be done."

He'd like it fine once he had done it, Pyro figured. He drummed his hands on the jet's controls, more pumped all the time. "You want to take Magneto out. Take them ALL out down there, head back and take it for ourselves."

"I -- I've been thinking about it -- controlling all of Europe -- it's not going to work."

"No shit. We've all been watching Magneto stretch it too thin. But that doesn't mean we can't take one place and hold it. I admit, I kinda like Berlin. I think you do, too."

"Berlin's -- well, it's something." Iceman smiled ruefully. "Hanging out with you in the clubs -- it gets kind of crazy."

"But you love it. And you know you love it. I'm just glad you finally stopped lying to yourself about it." Pyro grinned. "Iceman, I gotta hand it to you -- this is priceless."

"Yeah," Iceman said. "I love it." But he said it strangely, like he was reading it off a cue card.

"Better act fast." Pyro took the missile control into his hand, gripping it hard. "Who am I not supposed to kill? No guarantees, this high up, but we're gonna need somebody to play guard duty while we're having fun."

"We're not going to -- I mean -- no." Iceman straightened up, now standing above Pyro, his eyes as bright and impenetrable as they had been when he was sheathed in ice. "I don't want to just do what Magneto's done."

"What do you want to do? What's this brilliant innovation? Fill me in.:"

"I want to help Professor X and the others."

Pyro stared. "You're kidding."

Iceman shook his head. "No. That's what I really want." He breathed out heavily, as if he couldn't believe his own words, as if he were as surprised to be saying them as Pyro was to hear them. "We can take Magneto down and then help the X-Men out. That's the only way to stop this war."

For some reason, he was picturing Der Katzenkeller, but it was empty. No partiers, no girls, no Iceman. Just Pyro standing there by himself. Whatever new hopes had filled him turned to ash. "You know -- Bobby -- some of us kinda like this war."

Iceman brightened at that, like all he'd heard was his human name. "You don't like the war. You like feeling important." That was so true it felt like a slap in the face. When Iceman lay his hand atop Pyro's arm, it was so cold it stung. "They'll take us back, and it'll be different this time. You'll see."

"I'll see," Pyro said. He grabbed his lighter, flicked it and flashed a pure, red-hot torrent of flame and rage at Iceman, who cried out in pain as he was slammed across the length of the jet. "We'll be different breeds of lapdogs," Pyro said. "Thanks but no thanks." He rose from his seat and met Iceman's blank stare. Even as he watched, Iceman coated himself in ice once more -- but he was weak, and the sheath wasn't thick. Pyro could still see the red-charred skin beneath, could still see Iceman give him a faint smile.

"Sorry it's ending like this," Iceman said, weakly holding out his hands. A wall of ice began to form between them, not fast enough, not thick enough. Beneath the plane, the shifting landscape revealed the compound, the desert, the compound again, lit here and there by lightning or fire.

"I'm sorry it's ending at all," Pyro said, and he meant it, because killing Iceman was going to hurt, but that was what he was just about to do.

He heard the suction before he felt it -- the air rushing through the plane, the creak of metal strained past endurance. And then the plane's door pulled open -- no, pulled off -- and wind blew in a thousand directions, tugging them both slightly toward the door. "What the hell?" Pyro yelled.

A dark shape flew inside and dropped easily to her feet. Pyro stared at the black boots, the blue jeans, the black T-shirt, the long, dark hair with one white streak whipping in the furious wind. He knew the face as well as anyone's, and yet it seemed to take him forever to say, "Rogue."

She said, "Hey, guys. Slight change of plan."

"Can you breathe?" Logan said, squinting through the black haze that stung his eyes as they crawled out of the smoldering remains of the bombed corridor. Scott could probably see through this shit, Logan figured, unless the guy was dying of smoke inhalation.

"Breathe, yeah. Walking, I'm not so sure about." Scott coughed thickly, giving the lie to his first statement. "My ankle feels broken."

Logan pulled one of Scott's arms over his shoulder and pulled them both up. "Fine. I'll do the walking, you'll do the seeing, and let's get the hell out of here and help Professor X."

"The way we came won't work," Scott said as he peered through the almost impenetrable gloom. "Go left and maybe --" he paused to cough again, "-- maybe we can get into that courtyard, cut across."

The fires licked closer; the smoke got thicker. For one moment, Logan let himself wonder where Rogue was, what was happening to her, then pushed it aside. She could take care of herself, and it was time for him to do the same. "Left we go," he said, pulling Scott along with him. Sure enough, after a couple seconds he could see the faint outline of a doorway --

-- with someone standing in it. Logan wondered for a split second who it might be before he heard Scott curse. And then he felt it: bone-deep, searing pain, splitting him down the center of his arms, his legs, his ribs, pushing against every single bone in his body --

Logan shot backwards, propelled at unnatural speed, pulling Scott with him. They hit the far wall, searing-hot in itself, so hard it knocked the breath out of Logan. Next to him, he heard Scott retch, then gasp.

"Well, well," Magneto's voice said through the gloom. "I would've thought Xavier would have his best lieutenants at his side. Not so, it seems." Then, more sharply: "Xavier is NOT in this area, I take it?"

Logan gave Magneto his best, most thoughtful response. "Fuck you."

"A charming suggestion, but perhaps later," Magneto said. Through the smoke, Logan could hear female giggling.

"No, no," Mystique said, calling to Logan. "That's my job. Among others." Her words grew closer as she spoke, and he could see her, blue-on-black, golden eyes flashing like the sparks that filled the air.

"Not you," Scott growled, and Logan heard the visor click. Mystique dodged the blast easily, losing herself in the smoke. Then Scott yelled out in pain as the metal visor was ripped from his face, skidding away into the fire and the dark.

"Attend to this," Magneto said, already sounding more distant. "Enjoy yourself."

"Oh, I will," Mystique said. Her voice was different somehow, though Logan cared less about that than the fact that he felt the grip on his adamantium skeleton weaken, then vanish. He jumped to his feet, determined to face Mystique head on, soon as he could see her.

But Scott whispered, "That voice."

Logan frowned. "What voice do you --"

He trailed off as she stepped forward, out of the smoke. Pale skin, flashing eyes, red hair soft and loose, her body sleek in black leather.

Jean Grey's face smiled at Logan. Her lips whispered, "I'm going to enjoy this a lot."

Rogue stood in the middle of the plane, wind whipping around her, the floor tilting wildly as the autopilot tried to compensate for the pressures caused by the missing door. Bits of metal and paper tossed around them all, blurring the scene: Bobby sprawled out, obviously hurt, and John standing next to her, fury and suspicion battling in his face.

Geir's telekinesis steadied her as the plane shifted. Geir's memories of the plane told her where she needed to go. And her own knowledge of John and of Bobby told her what had happened here, what she should do next.

"I'm taking this plane, John," Rogue said, as calmly as she would have told him, a few years ago, that she'd save him a seat at the movies.

"Rogue -- how did you --" Bobby's gaze was unfocused, maybe from confusion, maybe from pain.

"Flew," Rogue said. But she stared at John as she spoke, raising her voice as the din in the airplane increased. "Just like Geir. Remember Geir? Or maybe I should call him Screener. Would you remember him then? He really, really hated that name, you know. About as much as you hate being called John." No grief clouded John's suspicious eyes; Geir knew he hadn't been missed or mourned, and the pain twisted up into a hot, sharp dart behind Rogue's eyes. She added, "He looked up to you, you know. Admired you. God knows why."

John said only, "Who are you here to kill first? Me or your boyfriend?"

It didn't occur to her to correct John about the "boyfriend" part. "Bobby was fighting you," she said. "That means he's on the right side when it counts -- and you aren't."

"Might makes right," John said with a grin. "Magneto tells us that all the damn time. You oughta know that by now."

Even in the rushing wind, she heard the lighter flick, the faint click of metal on metal. Rogue flung her hands out even as the fire exploded into being and arced toward her; she sent a telekinetic wave out in a chevron, praying it would work. The fire split in two, streaking on either side of her so closely that she could feel the heat on her face. Then Rogue squinted, focused her mind's energy on the lighter and gave it a sharp tug. She heard John swearing as it hit her palm with a satisfying smack.

"Geir gave you his powers," John growled. "He's supposed to be dead."

"He gave them to me permanently," Rogue said, all sweetness. "They're my powers now. If might makes right, John, then I'm right. Got it?"

Bobby had pulled himself to his feet, unsteady with the plane's whirling. He de-iced himself, and for the first time she could see his burns. Pain lashed through her as though it were her own skin, red and twisted. "We've got to get this plane down," Bobby said.

"To help the others," Rogue said.

"That, too, but mostly I was thinking about not crashing," Bobby said. "I'm in favor of not crashing."

Despite everything, Rogue laughed. "Okay, good plan." John made a sudden move and she held her hand out, ready to throw him telekinetically into the wall as hard as necessary. "Don't even."

"What's going on?" another voice shouted. Rogue turned to see another mutant -- somebody she didn't know, Brotherhood most likely, clinging to the open doorway. She looked sort of lizardy, and Rogue knew she wasn't supposed to judge mutations, but, still, gross. "Pyro? Iceman? Do you need help?"

"They're working for Xavier!" John yelled.

Flash-fast, Rogue pulled her energies inside-out, ignored the powerful vise of pain in her head, found her old powers again and grabbed John's arm. He cried out in pain, his skin blistering black; then Rogue turned toward the lizard woman zooming toward her and flicked the lighter. The fireball blossomed through the plane, making Bobby duck back, but scalding the lizard woman into shrieks of pain. "Sorry," Rogue said, meaning it.

"Jesus, Rogue," Bobby said. "What CAN'T you do?"

The ground kept wobbling beneath them, and Rogue realized their altitude was -- slowly, but definitely -- getting lower. "Well, for instance, I can't land a plane."

Damn Dr. Avidan for rebuilding here, in this same compound.

Magneto found himself assaulted by memory at every turn: the courtyard where Hazim made his last stand, the kitchen where Marcellina tried to coax them all into a love of garlic.

And everywhere Charles -- a man even at 17, wise eyes in a young face, strong shoulders, strong legs, his English skin becoming brown over time. In this corridor they had run from the soldiers. Magneto had to fight the urge to turn to his left, to go to their old quarters, to stand in the room where Charles had kissed him for the first time. It seemed to him as though those two boys would still be in there, as though they were other people, better, happier.

Then he realized: In the basement closets, we kept our experiments. Cool, dark, quiet. The best place, really, for anything sensitive.

Can you kill him? Mystique had asked, and Magneto had never been surer of his answer than at this moment, when he realized where Xavier would be and quickened his steps. The sooner done, the better.

"It's so good to see you again, Logan," Jean Grey's voice purred.

Logan didn't even see her move, just felt the crack of her foot into his ribs. He stumbled back, gasped in a painful breath and punched Jean -- Mystique -- hard in the jaw. Weird, how he could know it wasn't Jean, yet it could still hurt to see her head snap back, to see the spray of blood from the corner of her mouth. "Scott!" he shouted. "Get out of here!"

"As soon as I can walk or see, you're on," Scott said, which of course meant he wasn't going anywhere. Behind him, Logan could hear Scott crawling across the floor, searching for his visor. Logan would've liked to help him -- some laser vision could come in real handy right around now -- but even he couldn't see through this thick, oily smoke, through the falling orange sparks. He couldn't make out anything farther away than Jean's beautiful face, looking at him sadly, as if she couldn't understand why he was so angry.

Then, of course, she punched him again, squarely in his nose so that he could smell blood, then taste it thick down the back of his throat. Logan showed his claws, ignoring the razor cuts within his hands, on his knuckles, as he slashed toward her. The black leather tore, not the skin, and yet it bled -- of course, the black leather was her skin too --

She spun up over him, leaping in pure defiance of gravity, her red hair fluttering behind her. Logan wheeled around to face her again, but not fast enough; her hands grabbed his shoulders and her knee slammed into his spine with a sickening crack.

Pain rushed upward, waist to shoulders to head, so searing that Logan thought for a moment he'd caught fire. But then he realized he felt nothing beneath the waist, that he was tilting and falling.

As he hit the floor, Logan muttered, "Shit." Hell of a time to have a broken back.

"We heard you left," Jean's voice said, musical with humor and curiosity. Then she kicked him in the middle of the chest, hard enough that he nearly vomited with pain. "Why did you come back? Just to die here? Seems like a shame."

"We -- don't agree -- about what somebody oughta be ashamed of," Logan began to feel the first twinges of sensation below his waist: a kind of bone-deep ache, the groan of injured nerves.

"We don't agree about what's worth dying for," she said. The heel of her boot slammed into his jaw, cutting through his skin, and once again he swallowed blood. "Your friends outside are dying for a patch of sand they're going to lose anyway. For a man who sells you lies about the way the world should be."

"Yeah, and Magneto would never steer you wrong." Logan said. He could feel his legs now, but when he tried to move them, his muscles tensed for only a moment. Best to wait until he was himself again, to make her think the healing was taking longer.

But Jean's face was near again, just out of his claws' reach, her smile bright in the boiling darkness. She held out her hands -- slim and white, just as he remembered them against his arms -- and slowly extended claws just like his own. "You're not getting up again," she said. "But aren't you glad you got to see Jean one last time?"

Scott said, "I know I am."

Logan heard the visor click into place one instant before the room erupted in brilliant red light. The point of the beam caught her in the shoulder, pinwheeling her back into the smoke. It was still Jean's voice screaming, but then he heard a thud, and the scream stopped short.

Groaning, he sat up; Scott had crawled to his side, visor again in place. "Good timing," Logan said.

"Maybe," Scott said. "Can you walk?"

Logan bent his knees once, ignored the twinges of pain. "Don't ask me to run."

"Walking's fine, as long as we're walking out of here now."

Pulling Scott's arm around his shoulders again, Logan struggled to his feet and began steering them out. On the ground, through the smoke, he could see Mystique's outline on the ground, and though he could tell no more, he could still see her red hair.

Xavier slid Cerebra's metal helmet onto his head, ignoring the shock of cold against his scalp. Dr. Avidan shook her head. "What you're trying -- using this at full strength --"

"-- is our best option," Xavier said quietly. "I am aware of the risks, Yeshara."

"You said no hurting," Shriek said. "That means you too."

He smiled at her and took her small hands in his. Somehow the age of her hands was more shocking than anything else; each vein could be traced beneath her fragile skin, each bone. "I'm not afraid to try," he said. That seemed to satisfy her, and with her fear abating, Xavier could at last focus.

Slowly, carefully, he began opening his mind to Cerebra's power, and he felt the minds of the mutants all around him. Some of them were clear and distinct: Scott leaning against Logan as they stumbled into the sun of the courtyard, free from smoke. Kurt's ferocity -- always surprising, yet undeniable -- as he battled Spiral, vanishing before any of her many knife-wielding arms could slash him.

Others, however, were faint, almost beyond his ability to perceive. He knew John's anger and pain, Kitty's confusion and hope, Magneto's avid curiosity -- but they were shielded from him, no more than emotions, their locations unknown.

Time, Xavier thought, to wield this sword.

He dropped the last of his mental shields, letting in all Cerebra's power -- so much power it could have been felt by a human, so much that it shocked him down to the core of his mind, so much power that it hurt to hold it. As though the sword were still hot from the forge, burning his skin, his mind, his soul.

Xavier forced himself to focus. He could see them now, each of the Brotherhood mutants -- the helmets that had held his power back for so long were nothing now. Scraps of metal.

Heat was flowing up through his hands, into his veins, into his head, pulsing with white-hot pain.

Quickly, he sent his message:

-- Remove your helmets. Use your powers to destroy them. Then surrender. --

He felt the helmets going, one after another, exposing the minds within them in even brighter relief. At once he knew Kitty and Bobby and Sam's guilt and remorse, the fact that they had been trying to help him in this fight, not Magneto, and rejoiced in their return. He knew the blank compliance of Spiral and Avalanche, incapable of questioning why they did what they did. But they obeyed. At last, they obeyed the will of his mind.

The pain began to reverberate within him then, stronger and stronger, like a physical force in itself. Xavier cried out, and then the world went black.

Bobby fumbled with the controls, wishing for the eleven-thousandth time in the past five minutes that he'd insisted on Cyclops teaching him how to fly sometime. They weren't going down fast, but they were going down, a few feet lower with every spiral they made over the compound. "Okay, attitude control. What the hell is attitude control? Rogue, maybe you should just use the new powers and fly us out of here."

Beside him, Rogue was squinting uncertainly at the panel in front of her. "If I do that, the plane crashes on top of our friends. No good. Come on -- last time we did this, I just guessed, and it turned out okay, right?"

The plane spun more violently, tilting them sharply to one side; Bobby had to hang onto his seat to keep from falling into Rogue and then the far wall. "This would be a good time to start guessing," he said.

It was Pyro who answered him. "How about you guess what I'm going to do?" Bobby and Rogue turned to see Pyro, who had held up -- another lighter. Pyro grinned. "You think I'd ever be caught with just one?"

-- Remove your helmets. Use your powers to destroy them. Then surrender. --

Bobby automatically complied, pulling off his helmet, then concentrating ice on it until it froze to the point of shattering. Pyro quickly set about melting his, and in the back of the plane, Bobby could hear Chameleon weakly trying to crumple hers beyond wearability. Simultaneously, all three of them said to Rogue, "I surrender."

For her part, Rogue stared at them. It occurred to Bobby what a weird thing he'd actually done, and then he grinned. "Professor X -- he can get through the helmets now. He's got everybody under control!"

Pyro and Chameleon didn't seem to react to that; Bobby guessed that Professor X was keeping a grip on their minds, and thank God. Unfortunately, Rogue didn't seem to share in his delight. She was instead staring fixedly on the ground below --

-- which, holy shit, was only about a hundred feet away -- they'd be on the ground in another few minutes, and they'd hit it hard --

"No time to learn to fly this thing," Rogue said, holding out her hands. She closed her eyes and pressed her lips together until they turned white. Slowly, the plane's circling stopped; they were still moving toward the ground, though, and too quickly for his comfort.

"Looks like we need more than one telekinetic mutant," he said.

To his surprise, Rogue smiled. "You're right," she said. "We need two."

She grabbed his arm, and instead of the expected agony, he felt a jolt of pure power, lancing up through him, making the pain from his burns and the panic in his heart go away. Bobby stared at Rogue, who held her arms back out toward the ground. "Do this," she commanded, "and just kinda -- push back. Use what I gave you and push. That's all you have to do."

Bobby pushed. To his amazement, he felt the plane slowing, slowing further, leveling off. They hit the ground with a thud that tossed them both into the windshield, but nothing more. "Rogue, you did it," he said. "We did it." She rubbed her nose and smiled.

"What was that?" Pyro said, suddenly alert again.

Bobby answered him. "That was power."

Xavier could hear the world again before he could see it. "Charles?" Shriek called.

"The machine -- you've overloaded it," Dr. Avidan said.

He wanted to suggest that, perhaps, the machine had overloaded him rather than the reverse, but that would have involved talking, and therefore moving, and his body seemed disinclined to do either.

"Charles!" Dr. Avidan called again. He managed to open his eyes and see her kneeling over him, her wrinkled face furrowed even more with worry. "You need a doctor."

"I don't think -- no," Xavier said. No doctor on earth would have been able to help him, save perhaps Jean. Whatever psychic injury he had suffered was, he sensed, temporary -- but the fact remained that, for the moment, he was not only unable to influence the battle but even to sense any of the minds around him. For a few moments, for the first time since early childhood, Xavier was completely mind-blind. It was disconcerting, and yet so blessedly quiet. He said only, "This won't last. Let me rest a moment, and perhaps I can do some good again."

"I'm afraid I can't allow that," Magneto said.

Xavier turned his head to see Magneto standing in the doorway, his helmet gone -- he, too, had been forced to obey -- his face sorrowful. But he held out his hand and made the room's metal begin to shiver uncontrollably all around them.

There was nothing to do. Nothing to say.

In the courtyard, Logan handed Scott off to Kurt, which he figured suited each one of the three better. "So, the Professor got something to do with this?" he said, gesturing at the many Brotherhood mutants standing next to crumpled, charred or split helmets. Most stood still, as if wiped blank -- but a handful of young ones looked relieved, worried or bewildered. Shadowcat stood before Storm, whose eyes were flashing gray. The sky seethed above them, clouds rolling in from God knew where to cover the desert. Nearby, one of Magneto's jets was spinning toward the ground in a slow, not-quite-graceful arc. "Please, Storm, we were going to help you guys out," Shadowcat insisted. "That's been the plan all along!"

"Helping me out," Storm said. "Leaving me shut up in a cocoon of ice so small I couldn't move my arms, stranding me in a hostile country with no way home. Great plan."

Shadowcat winced, but she kept pleading. "Lock us up if you have to, but you have to know the truth. That's all we want, for you to know the truth."

Quickly, Logan looked at Shadowcat and Cannonball and Sunspot -- all of them free to do what they wanted, standing their ground to deal with the X-Men. The Brotherhood mutants, meanwhile, stood rigid, as if frozen into statues. "Professor X knows the truth," he said. "And he let these guys go free."

Storm shot him an angry glare, and Logan hoped he wasn't about to get struck by lightning. (March 15, 1995 -- absolutely god-awful.) "And YOU'RE the one we ought to talk to about loyalty?"

"Maybe," Logan said, lifting his chin. "Because it's not always about doing exactly what you're told."

The jet whined even louder, then landed hard in a cloud of sand. Thunder rumbled, but Storm seemed done with arguing, at least for the moment. "Help us restrain these guys," Storm said to Shadowcat, who breathed out a deep, shaky sigh. "No telling how long the Professor will hold them."

"Not long," Avalanche said, whirling around, free again. He lifted his foot to stomp it down, and Logan wondered whether he ought to drop to the ground right away and get it over with --

Scott's visor clicked. A beam of red-gold light slammed into Avalanche's chest; he fell, and though the thud of his body shook them all, nobody fell. But other Brotherhood mutants were shaking off their stupor now. "Battle's back on," Logan said.

"The Professor's in trouble," Storm said. She turned to Kurt and held out her arms. "Take me to him. Scott --"

"I can stand if I have to," he said, letting Kurt go. In an instant, Kurt and Storm had BAMFed away, leaving only blue smoke behind.

"Do me a favor," Logan said to Scott, sliding his claws out again as he prepared to charge. "Take out the big guys first."

Magneto gathered the metal together, combining atoms, recombining, forming his missiles. He wanted them straight, sharp and true. He wanted death to be instantaneous.

The old woman he could hardly recognize as Dr. Avidan continued to cradle Xavier's head in her lap. Magneto said quietly, "I owe few humans anything in this world. You are one of them. If you wish to leave, Dr. Avidan, I won't stop you."

"That's the best return you can give me for saving your life?" Dr. Avidan said.

"I couldn't care less about what you did or didn't do on my behalf," Magneto replied. "But you saved Charles' life, at a time when that mattered very much to me. And because you did that, you have three minutes to run."

"Do I really have to run from you, Erik?" she said. So transparent, thinking to win him over.

It was Xavier who answered her. "I'm afraid you should run, Yeshara," he said weakly. "This man is not the Erik we knew."

Magneto forced himself to continue concentrating on the metal -- needles, now, fine enough at the tip to pierce a single cell. "Am I the one who changed?" he said, keeping his voice steady. "I rather thought it was you."

"Both of us," Xavier said. His face was sad and almost calm, as though he had expected to die like this all along, as though he were relieved to be reading his lines at last. "Those boys we once were, when we were together here -- they're gone now. Lost forever."

"Nothing is lost forever," Magneto said. "It only changes shape." He believed that, needed to believe it as he poised the needles, positioned them to drive into Xavier's heart, into his brain, to silence that mind for once and for all.

"Erik?" A girl's voice. No, an old woman's, but somehow like a girl's.

Magneto looked over his shoulder and saw her: bent and stooped with age, her shoulders hunched from osteoporosis, her gray hair thin and lank. But her dark eyes were clear, the tilt of her face as she stared at him, curious and frightened all at once, was familiar. He'd learned to shut himself off from the past when he looked at Charles -- but when he saw her, those defenses fell away. He was a boy again, in this compound. In Auschwitz. Cold and frightened and helpless. Slowly, he whispered, "Shriek?"

"Don't hurt Charles," she said.

"You don't understand," Magneto said. "You never did."

He couldn't look at her anymore. She made him remember, and he couldn't bear to remember. Not any longer. And above all not now.

Quickly, he shoved her away as hard as he could, ignoring her whimper of pain as she fell with enough force to crack old bones. He couldn't be in her range, lest she decide to --

Shriek screamed, her voice like metal on concrete, silvery and solid at once. Magneto realized, though, that something was different; the harmonics within her scream were complex, where they had been simple -- as much as song as a scream.

And then his eyes widened as he saw his metal needles turn to stone and drop to the ground, shattering into gravel. Felt the metal bolts in the wall turn to stone. The wheels of Xavier's chair. His own belt buckle, suddenly cold and heavy. All the metal in the room was turning to stone -- and only the metal. Magneto realized, at once, that he was powerless; in a room without metal, he was like any other man.

But, as he well knew, any man could kill.

Hundreds of thousands had died in his war. He'd left Xavier to die at Alkali Lake, chained Rogue up to a machine that would suck her life-force away, pulled iron from the bloodstream of a prison guard and watched in delight as his skin turned to pulp. Magneto had no fear of killing. But not once, in all his years, had he murdered another human being with his hands.

And it was Xavier -- Charles -- that it fell to him to kill this way.

Mystique's voice echoed in his memory: Can you kill him?

Yes, he realized. If I must -- then I will.

Magneto stepped forward and grabbed the first thing that came to hand: a bar that had been metal and affixed to the wall, but was now stone and on the floor. Its heft strained his arm, but he could lift it up high if he had to, bring it down hard. He tried to imagine splitting Xavier's head open, destroying that unique mind, casting out every shared memory into a ruin of blood.

He walked toward Xavier quickly, determined not to think about it, just to do it --

The air in front of him rushed back, pushed aside, and in a BAMF of blue, was replaced with the forms of Nightcrawler and Storm. Storm's eyes flashed gray as she held out her hand; the air crackled, sharp with the tang of ozone. "It's over," Storm said.

More than anything at that moment -- which was saying a lot -- Magneto hated seeing Xavier's eyes, and seeing not triumph, but pity.

Then Storm's fist slammed into his skull, and he didn't have to see anything any longer.

Rogue knew John was free again, knew he was going for the lighter, and just had time to draw her telekinesis up again and push out at him. The flame licked up toward the roof of the plane instead, and John tumbled backward. She prepared to fight again, but instead, he rolled toward the door and tumbled out onto the ground. The lizard girl hissed at them once and followed suit.

"Where do they think they're going in the desert?" she yelled, sort of to Bobby but really just in general. She plopped back down in the pilot's seat, determined to at least figure out the missile controls.

"Rogue, don't," Bobby said. "You'll hit one of the X-Men."

She hated it when Bobby was right. "Then I guess we'd better get out there and fight with our powers," she said. Then she looked closer at Bobby, how much pain he was in now that the immediate crisis, and the endorphin rush, were fading. "No -- you stay here. Keep them from getting back in this thing. I don't think it can take off, not after that, but I bet the missiles would still fire."

He nodded, then glanced back out the windshield. "Wait -- no. Don't go."

"I have to," she said, then realized what he was looking at. Though a few mutant battles were still taking place, most of the Brotherhood mutants had either fallen or were running or flying for it. "You're right," she said. "Main thing for us to do now is guard the plane." Rogue thought about what had happened, thought about it again, and tried to make the words in her mind make sense. They wouldn't, so she spoke them aloud: "We won."

Bobby laughed. "Looks like it." He grew more serious as he rose carefully to stand with her. "Rogue, you were amazing."

"We won," she said again. Exactly what that would mean, she wasn't sure, but the joy of it began to bubble up inside her. "Bobby, we won! We beat Magneto!"

Rogue started laughing, weak with happiness and the sudden absence of fear. Jubilant, she threw her arms around Bobby; she could do that now, and nobody could stop her.

Bobby's hands -- still cool, despite the burns, despite the desert air -- cupped her face, and Rogue scarcely had a moment to realize what was happening before he kissed her. Cool lips, cool tongue, like a sweet gulp of icewater on the hottest day of her life. The pleasure of it mingled with her happiness for what seemed like forever -- then shattered as memory took its place. "Wait," she gasped. Bobby looked down at her, his face still so close, his arms around her. "We shouldn't."

She heard the footsteps at the plane's door and whirled, ready to blast anybody who was trying to take over this plane. Instead, Rogue saw Logan, who was staring at her and Bobby like he'd just been punched in the gut. Even as she opened her mouth to explain, though, Logan said only, "You guys are okay. We gotta make sure the Professor and his crew are out of there."

"Logan," Rogue said, hurrying to him. She could see bruises on his face, cuts that hadn't yet healed, and she knew that was a sign of how seriously he'd been injured before. Her fear for him outweighed her fear of what he thought of her, and she put her hand on his cheek. "Are you okay?"

She thought he might yell at her, push her away. What he did was both better and worse; Logan just smiled at her and said, "I'm gonna be fine."

Pyro could not even believe this.

The X-Men were celebrating, shouting about Magneto being a prisoner -- how the hell did they pull that off? -- and the battle being over. The soldiers he could see -- some kind of Israeli secret police, he figured -- were helping the X-Men round the Brotherhood up. Everybody with the powers to do so had gotten away; people who weren't quite as strong had gotten left behind. He could see Spiral struggling with her three sets of handcuffs even as his own arms were yanked behind his back by a swarthy trooper.

This is what you call better? he asked the Iceman who couldn't hear. We could've ruled Berlin. Or Rome. The two of us. Instead, you're back on Xavier's leash, and I'm getting dragged off by this asshole. Then the trooper gave him a malevolent stare, and his eyes flashed a familiar yellow.

Pryo managed not to smile until the trooper had pulled him into a jeep.

Mystique's voice was weak, which sounded funny coming from the trooper's mustached lips. "I'm hurt. I'm not going to be able to drive far."

"Just get us out of sight," Pyro said as she started up the engine. "I'll take it from there."

"We can get Erik back," Mystique said. "I know we can."

What is it with people wanting masters? Pyro thought. But Mystique was the one driving him away from prison, so he said only, "You're right. We can."

After a while, the fire was out (thanks to some well-placed rainstorms, courtesy of Ororo); everybody who needed to be dragged off in chains had been, and everybody who needed medical attention was getting it. Logan could see Scott wincing slightly as he tried to walk with one makeshift crutch and a splint around his broken ankle.

Rogue wasn't around, and Logan was pretty sure she was back with Bobby.

He wasn't going to rage or sulk or demand explanations. Logan figured if Scott could handle some competition without cracking, he could too. He'd tell Scott that, if Scott wouldn't enjoy his problem so damn much.

All along, Logan hadn't been sure whether their world of the previous two months could be a reality, whether what they'd been together could survive when they were part of the outside world again. Seeing Rogue with Bobby again had hit him hard; weird, really, considering how many times he'd seen her with Bobby and not thought anything about it. But at the same time, Scott's words and Mystique's tricks had brought Jean's memory back into focus once more, fine-edged and fragile.

The past three years, he'd lived with Jean's memory as a kind of beacon; Logan still couldn't put words to exactly what she'd meant to him, but he knew how much she'd mattered. Had he done what Scott had said? Had he forgotten her? Jean didn't deserve the most of the bad cards she'd been dealt, and she didn't deserve to be forgotten, either.

Logan made his way through the various groups of mutants, some of whom were attending to each other's injuries. Others were telling tales of the battle they'd just fought, individual feats of heroism getting bolder with each go-round. Logan could've joined any of the groups -- a number of them gave him encouraging smiles, showing that as far as they were concerned, bygones were bygones. But that would mean talking about fighting Mystique as Jean, which was not something he was in a big hurry to talk about, and so he kept walking.

Logan finally made his way into the undamaged part of the building, where some of the more seriously injured people were set up. On one makeshift cot, he saw Professor X, propped up with pillows to watch the small TV, clearly still weak. "Hey," Logan said, walking to his side. "How are you?"

"As well as can be expected," Professor X replied, then held the side of his temple in a way that gave the lie to his words.

"Cerebra sounds like a bad idea," Logan said. "Good thing you don't have to use it again -- and you're gonna use it again, aren't you?"

"Not in its current form. However, Forge is gathering together the surviving component parts for us to take back to Cuba. We should be able to assemble a version that will work more or less the same way Cerebro did."

The TV showed images of parties in Berlin, Rome, Paris. People held up makeshift signs, hugged and kissed. A small, papier-mâché effigy of Magneto burned as it dangled from a stick. Logan watched Professor X's face carefully, but he showed no reaction. The Professor said only, "Many world governments took a while to make up their minds about what we'd done here. But now they understand that we helped them."

"So, is this gonna be that big ticker-tape parade I've been waiting on?"

"I doubt it sincerely. But we have safe passage back to Cuba, and after that -- I suspect we'll have a few new chances to talk. What happens after that, we'll have to see."

Just speaking for that long seemed to have tired the Professor out. Logan said, "You want us to move you someplace quieter? You look like you could use sleep more than anything else."

"No doubt," Professor X said with a faint smile. "But the kind of quiet I need is of minds, not sounds, and there's no chance of that anytime soon."

"Never thought of that."

Professor X shrugged. "No matter. I wouldn't want to sleep through this. It's good to have everyone with us again." His hand patted Logan's arm, and for a moment Logan dreaded a personal welcome-home. But the Professor said something a lot worse: "You realize that Rogue is very much younger than you."

Logan raised an eyebrow. "Is this the whole you're-an-adult, she's-a-kid speech? Where I get warned off breaking her heart?"

"That doesn't worry me in the slightest," Professor X said. "As a telepath, I learn all sorts of things that don't concern me, including how deeply you have come to care for Rogue."

"You don't have to get embarrassing about it," Logan muttered.

Professor X just smiled, but the light didn't quite reach his eyes. "However, she's not done -- I want to say growing up, but that would be untrue. Rogue is a grown woman now, but she is not yet the woman that she'll finally become. What she wants, who she is -- all of that will change for her in the future, far more than it will change for you."

It occurred to Logan that the Professor could look inside Rogue's mind too. And Bobby's. And his own. He asked, "Are you telling me to walk away?"

"Anything but. And you'd never listen to such fool advice in the first place." Professor X pushed himself up on his elbows, the better to look Logan squarely in the eyes. "I'm just reminding you that love -- changes shape. Takes different forms and paths over time." He smiled sadly. "Even love isn't always enough. If it were -- history might be very different."

Logan nodded, disconcerted by the Professor's words but unwilling to show it, even though he understood that the Professor knew. He forced himself to smile. "You gonna cheat and tell me what's going on inside Rogue's head?"

Professor X laughed. "There, Logan, you are on your own."

"You -- and Logan," Bobby said, trying to wrap his mind around the concept. He got a mental picture, then pushed that aside as quickly as he could.

On the floor of the plane they'd sort-of landed earlier that day, Rogue sat in front of him, hugging her knees to her chest. Night was falling, and the main illumination in the plane was the green and gold lighting of the various dashboard panels. It was still enough light to see her face as she blinked hard and shrugged. "Yeah."

For all her obvious discomfort, there was a kind of energy about her he hadn't seen before -- no, he realized, he had seen it before. When Logan came back after those three months at Alkali Lake, those three months she'd spent sleeping with Logan's dog tags wrapped around her wrist. But he hadn't seen it since then. It had never been for him. "You two," he said, trying to be worldly about it. "There always was something going on between you two. Even when -- always."

"Bobby, listen to me," Rogue said, her Southern accent stronger, the way it got when she was emotional. "I spent years in love with you. Not with Logan. What happened between you and me -- that was real. I don't want you to think any different."

A handful of stolen kisses. Nights of wonderful frustration, hands felt through cotton or silk, faces turned away from each other so they'd be sure not to touch. Everything he'd told her about his parents, his brother, John. "I know that," he said, then repeated more strongly, "I know it was real."

He sat on the floor of the plane beside her. Rogue smiled at him warmly, but her next words were hard: "You should have told me what you were planning with Magneto."

"You would've said it was stupid and told us not to do it."

"Exactly."

Bobby sighed. "Okay. You won that one."

"It's not about winning," Rogue said. "I just meant -- if things had been right between us, you WOULD have told me. But they hadn't been right, not for a long time."

"I know." Storm was, as he had anticipated, giving them one hell of a hard time -- but everybody was letting them back in the group. Weirdly, the reason why seemed to have more to do with Logan than with Professor X. It felt weird to have to owe Logan anything, especially now.

Rogue said, "What are you thinking?"

He weighed the merits and flaws of telling the truth, then figured that they were at a point where nothing but the truth would do. "I used to think that the reason we were growing apart -- that it was the not-touching. That I was just tired of wanting so much more." Rogue winced, but he kept going. "Now I think that's why we stayed together. Because we could be with somebody but still not have to be too close. You were holding something back, because of Logan. And I was too." He wasn't ready to name what it was that had held him back, not even to himself.

She breathed in sharply, considering that. To his relief, after a moment she nodded. "It wasn't just Logan. I never thought anybody else would want me, not if they couldn't touch me. I didn't want to find out."

"Guess you didn't have to."

He'd tried to keep the bitterness out of his voice, but apparently he hadn't succeeded. Rogue touched his hand -- a soft, warm touch, without pain, without need -- before she said, "I know it's not fair."

"I'm the one who went over to Magneto. It's fair enough." Bobby tried to remember if he'd ever had that kind of fire, the light that was illuminating Rogue from the inside out. And then he remembered a night on the town in Berlin, Pyro's laughter, a fingertip that brushed across his lips to catch the numbing glow of whisky. "I've got plenty to figure out on my own, anyway."

"You mean I didn't break your heart?" Rogue gave him a sideways glance, and he could see the play mingled with the concern.

He kicked at her feet. "Not for lack of trying, you -- shameless hussy." Bobby heard her start laughing and laughed with her, and the day felt a little bit better already.

"You don't have to leave tomorrow," Dr. Avidan said. "The government's gratitude will last longer than that. In fact, you probably should stay a while just to meet up with all the mutants who are going to answer your call. Just in the last hour, we've heard from -- what were the names -- James Proudstar, Betsy Braddock and -- is Jubilation Lee a real name?"

"They'll leave with us tomorrow," Xavier said as he allowed Kurt to help him into a standard hospital wheelchair. "Send the others after us. We need to begin rebuilding, as soon as possible. How long should it take us to get everyone to the ship in the morning?"

"A few hours, perhaps," Kurt said. "Time enough for everyone to rest." The emphasis on "everyone" would have made it clear, even to a non-telepath, that this specifically referred to one Professor Charles Xavier.

"Soon," Xavier promised. "After this."

Kurt scowled; for someone who didn't scowl often, Kurt was remarkably good at it. But it would have taken far more than Kurt's worst to deter Xavier from what he meant to do. He said easily, "We'll have to leave the wheelchair many yards from the door. Can you carry me inside, wait for me until I call?"

Resigned, Kurt said, "As you wish it, Professor." Then he brightened and smiled politely. "If, of course, there is nothing I should be doing for the fraulein."

Xavier had felt Shriek coming closer; now he turned and held out his hands to her, holding them close again. Fraulein, Kurt had called her, despite the hard years that showed on her frail body; Kurt, as usual, had seen deeper than most around him, through to the truth. "I never thanked you," he said. "For saving my life."

Shriek smiled, and for a moment the brightness in her eyes made all the years fall away. "I never could save them, before," she said. "This time I did." She lifted her chin with a child's pride, and Xavier realized that the shadows he'd always sensed in her were gone. Whether rescuing him had healed something in her, or whether time had finally done its work in erasing hard memory -- Xavier didn't know, and it didn't matter. Shriek was finally free of her past. Her childlike happiness would be her cocoon and her playground, from now until the end of her days, and for that he was grateful.

His buoyant spirits lasted until Kurt took him out of the wheelchair, when the reality of what he was about to do sank in again. That, and he could feel Magneto's presence, furious and miserable and, of course, fully expecting him. "Don't come in if you -- if you just hear shouting, perhaps," Xavier said as Kurt adjusted him in his strong blue arms.

"With Magneto, what else would I expect to hear?" Kurt said, in a tone that suggested there was very little that would surprise him. "I shall leave the both of you alone until you call, Professor. You must take your time. Do not worry for me." Xavier realized that somebody (Ororo, most likely) had shared a few key facts about the past with Kurt -- who was only concerned about Xavier's heart.

One of the most difficult parts of being a telepath was not being able to thank people for those moments -- those small flashes of generosity, of beauty. If only Erik could have seen them.

As soon as they entered the corridor, Magneto's bright eyes met his, watching his progress down the hall as a predator might watch its prey. But he said nothing, not while Kurt settled Xavier into the stone chair, not until after Kurt left them alone. Then, he said lightly, "Come to gloat?"

"You know better."

"Never stopped me before." Magneto gestured around his cell, with walls and ceiling and floor and bars of stone. Only a thin cotton pad and pillow shone white amid the gray. "I take it I have Shriek to thank for my accommodations?"

"They'll put you someplace more comfortable as soon as they can build it," Xavier said. "But Shriek was able to improvise on short notice."

Magneto cocked his head. "'They?' Are you not to be my gaoler? I had some interesting thoughts about that possibility."

Damn him. "I don't have the resources to imprison you in Cuba, and we cannot stay here. Israel is one of the very few nations on Earth that will want to hold you prisoner instead of execute you. This is the best place for you."

"Half a world away from you," Magneto said. "And you will finally be free at last. No more chess games, no more painfully guilty visits."

Xavier remembered those chess games, the elegance of Magneto's hand poised over the black bishop, the elegance of that mind revealed in every move, every victory, every loss. "I never came to you out of guilt or pity. You should understand that at least." But then, Magneto would have to understand so much more about the world, about humanity, to understand even those visits. And by now, Xavier realized that Magneto would never understand.

"You think that this will change things," Magneto said, gesturing vaguely with one hand and somehow encompassing the entire compound and the battle they'd fought. "You think humanity will be so grateful to the 'good' mutants for locking up the 'bad' mutants that they'll hold out their hands in friendship. Perhaps you'll get an honor escort back to New York."

"I've never been as naive as you'd like to think," Xavier said.

Unexpectedly, Magneto laughed. "Never, Charles? Not when you were a boy with your steamer trunk and three port stickers? The world traveler." He did not speak from cruelty. It would have hurt Xavier less if he had. But the laughter was gone as he continued, "You're forever chained to this future you believe in. This future that's never going to come to pass."

"Perhaps I'll shape the future," Xavier said. "Perhaps I won't. But if I am chained to the future, you are chained to the past. And that you'll never be able to change, Erik. No matter how hard you try."

Magneto sighed. "You never read Faulkner, did you? The past isn't dead. It's not even the past."

"I have read Faulkner," Xavier said. "And mankind will not only endure, but prevail."

They said no more after that. After a few minutes, Xavier put his hand on the stone bars -- not explicitly asking Magneto to touch him, but making it possible. Magneto did not move, did not even acknowledge the motion. But after Kurt had been called, once he was being borne away in Kurt's arms, Xavier glanced back and saw Magneto rest his hand where his had been.

Storm told them all to get some sleep, and Rogue was exhausted enough to want to do as she was told, for once. Just as soon as she found Logan.

But that was turning out to be hard to do.

He didn't take off again, did he? Rogue thought, half-annoyed, half-panicked, as she walked out of the compound to try another search outside. He wouldn't do that. He might want to do that, but he wouldn't do it. Not without telling me goodbye.

Goodbye. Was that he wanted? What she wanted? Rogue shook her head and told herself it would all get a lot easier once she FOUND him. So she kept walking, not calling for him but circling the compound in wider circles. The farther she went, the more she found herself appreciating the surroundings: the palm trees next to the white stucco building, the soft, fine sand, the brilliant array of stars unmasked by city lights or clouds. Her face tilted up toward the sky more and more as she went, as though she would find Logan in the constellations, instead of on the ground.

Which was why, when she circled around an outcropping of rock, she was surprised to actually find him. He sat with his back against the rocks, his knees up so that he could rest his forearms on them. If Logan was equally surprised to see her, he didn't let on; he just raised an eyebrow and said, "You're still up."

"Looking for you," she said, plopping down to sit Indian-style beside him in the sand. "How come you're out here?"

"Wanted some time to think," he said.

"What about?" Rogue said, as casually as she could manage.

Logan shot her a look. "Pretty much the same thing you're thinking about." He breathed out, not quite a sigh. "What do you want?"

Rogue wanted to ask him what it was he wanted and why. Then she wanted to kiss him and make all her fears go away by getting close to him, letting their bodies take them over. But what Logan had said cut to the heart of it, and she forced herself to concentrate. To be honest, with him and with herself. What did she want?

Slowly, she said, "I want to go back to Cuba with Professor X and the others. They're really fighting again, and maybe what happened here will make a difference. Even if it doesn't -- I can't hide out anymore. The last two months -- I needed that time with you so bad, and I can't ever be sorry. Not ever. But that's not how I want to live anymore."

Logan nodded, then said, "I guess Bobby's going back to Cuba."

"I guess he is," Rogue said. "But that's not why I'm going."

"I know."

"And I'm not going to be with Bobby anymore," she said. "That was over way before he went to Magneto. We just hadn't admitted it."

Logan said, "Scott said some stuff to me about Jean. Made me remember -- I don't know what. Just remember."

The name Jean struck her like a slap, and Rogue wanted to snap at him; she'd never understood Logan's preoccupation with Jean Grey. They'd known each other for, what, three months? And she'd been with Cyclops the whole time, so whatever Logan felt had to be half something he'd dreamed up.

Then she saw the expression on his face as he looked toward the horizon, recognized his sorrow, and kept her silence. Whatever Logan felt for Jean Grey was real to him, and that meant it was real, period. Accepting him meant accepting that. She'd never realized that could be part of caring about someone -- allowing him his own past, the history that didn't include her. "Did what Scott said change your mind?"

"About you? No. You and me -- Rogue, we --" He breathed out, almost a snort. "In case I hadn't mentioned it, I hate this kind of talk."

"I'm not real big on it either. We'll make it fast, okay?" Rogue leaned forward. "I'm going to Cuba, Logan. If you're not coming with me, then -- well, it was great. Better than great. But it's over. But -- well, if you WERE coming to Cuba with me --"

"Do you want me to?" Logan said.

"Yeah," Rogue said. "I do. But only if -- it has to be what you want. If you'd just be coming because of me, then you shouldn't." More quietly, she added, "I hope you do."

Logan studied her for a few moments, his face unreadable in the dim moonlight. Then he said, lazily, "You know, they've got great cigars in Cuba."

"Cigars?" Rogue stared at him.

"Romeo y Guilettas, Cohibas, you name it." Logan was grinning now. "You think I'm gonna pass up the chance to get some Havanas cheap?"

Rogue realized she was laughing. "You never admit anything if you don't have to, do you?"

"Just this once," Logan said, catching her chin in his hand. "I love you." And he kissed her too quickly for her to tell him she loved him too, for her to do anything but kiss him back.

Haifa, Israel, 1956

Erik leaned against the rail of the ship, close enough that his arm brushed against Charles', not so close that any of the other passengers would notice. Charles noticed, though, and gave Erik a bashful smile. He hadn't been so bashful last night, Erik thought, with a carnal thrill that was all the better for knowing Charles could feel it too.

Charles took a deep breath and stared resolutely out at the harbor, receding rapidly in the distance. "Say goodbye to Israel," he said.

"Good riddance, more like," Erik said.

"Do you really mean that?"

Erik nodded. "The only thing I found there worth having is leaving with me."

Charles met his eyes then, so tenderly that Erik found himself hoping they weren't being observed very closely. But he said only, "We also have Dr. Avidan's notes, at least the memory of what we learned to do with the machine. And the knowledge that there are hundreds of mutants out there. Maybe thousands."

"All information we'll put to good use," Erik said. "Do you really think we can rebuild the machine? Start over from scratch?"

"What else can we do?" Charles said, with a carefree shrug that revealed how easy he thought it would all be. Erik loved that about him -- the way he trusted the world, like a tightrope walker who almost seems to think the very air will hold him up. As long as Charles was there, looking at him with that light in his eyes, Erik could almost trust the world too.

"You really expect to keep me as your manservant while you're at Cambridge?" Erik said, nudging a little closer so that their shoulders touched. "I should warn you, I'm far too lazy. My uses around the house are quite limited."

Charles said, a little sternly, "I expect you to pass the entrance exams yourself. And then we can be very respectable roommates."

If only they knew, Erik thought; as he'd hoped, Charles laughed as though he'd spoken. The sunlight laughed with them on the water, frothy from the ship's motor, and the sea breeze caught Charles' dark curls, ruffling them the way Erik longed to do. Charles caught the mood and whispered, "By the way, everyone on this ship just became acutely interested in the view off the port bow."

Erik kissed Charles quickly, enjoying the taste of his mouth, the fact that it was familiar. They'd been lovers for one day, and it already felt like forever. Charles brushed one hand through Erik's hair, then leaned back on the railing, no doubt releasing the passengers from their violent need to examine a different corner of the horizon.

"I love you," Erik said. "Never leave me."

Charles said, "I never will."