The Strength That Moved Heaven And Earth

Disclaimer and notes from Alicia: Most of the characters belong to Marvel, and are used without permission for entertainment purposes only. The movieverse adaptations of many of the characters within are inspired by the X-Project RPG.

Thanks to miss_porcupine for her editorial work, as always.

Salem Center,

Now

"Who made the coffee?"

Pete smiled very slightly as Betsy Braddock rolled her eyes at his question. "Me, of course," she said, sinking gracefully into the chair beside his. Her smile was wry. "We do after all need you alert and coherent or it rather defeats the purpose of the briefing. Incidentally, I have an old family recipe for a hangover cure I keep intending to offer you..." She trailed off suggestively.

"Are you implying that I'm hungover?" He wasn't particularly, although he'd had a few to ease his way to sleep last night. Hadn't helped with the dreams, not that he was surprised about that. It never did.

"Let's just say I'd recommend against anyone using a lighter in your general vicinity." It was just banter, Pete knew. Braddock didn't care what he did in his spare time so long as he didn't let it get in the way of what he did for the team, and he was staying just on the right side of the line these days. He suspected she understood, better than a number of the others did. They did after all technically still work for the same government.

"Who needs a lighter?" he pointed out, and took a sip of his coffee as the Situation Room door slid open to admit the rest. Charles, Summers, and Ororo he'd expected, of course, and he'd been the one to suggest to Scott that he invite Logan along. But Pete's shoulders hunched and he looked down, trying not to scowl at the sight of Cassidy bringing up the rear. Who the bloody hell invited the Mick?

~That would have been me, Peter.~

Pete managed not to spill coffee all over himself, barely. He made a monosyllabic noise that was half-irritation, half-embarrassment. Right, he thought back at Charles, and wiped his expression clean. Only made sense, he supposed. Charles had been very clear about Cassidy's INTERPOL connections being one of the reasons he was here. He just hadn't expected to find the man unilaterally added to this particular group.

Temporary upset aside, he didn't fail to notice Scott sitting at the other end of the table, making no move to take the seat next to Betsy. They were oddly particular about public discretion and professionalism, as if the whole staff and the entire student body didn't know perfectly well what the two of them were doing in their spare time. Pete supposed he ought to be applauding them for it.

"We got visual aids for this briefing?" Logan asked with a smirk as he sat down, his eyes flickering to the darkened main screen behind Pete. "You know how much better I do when there're pictures."

I had to invite him. But Pete, petty bastard that he was, was rather looking forward to Logan's reaction to one particular part of the briefing. He returned the smirk. "Eventually there will be pictures, yes. I figured I'd jabber at you all for a bit first. You know how much I like having a captive audience."

Charles merely smiled faintly at the interplay as he wheeled himself up to the empty spot at the table that was always kept open for his wheelchair. "I asked Moira to join us," he said, "but she informed me I was perfectly capable of relating her part of the story when we came to it and that she had more important things to do."

It was on the tip of his tongue to ask Charles if Moira had used precisely those words, but Pete repressed the impulse, his residual sense of professionalism kicking in and reminding him that he had a briefing to give. "Sounds like we've got everything covered, then," he said. "Braddock made some coffee. Everyone help yourself while I get started."

He took a sip of his, buying himself a moment or two to organize his thoughts as well as the 'visual aids' Logan had wanted. The documents and pictures had come from a friend of his back home, someone who'd been willing to raid certain classified files and make sure the record of her request for the information got 'mislaid'. She'd faxed them over this morning and Pete had augmented them with some things from his own personal files, the ones he had with him here in the States.

"So," he said as everyone got settled again, "Charles knows most of this, and I gave Summers the basics on the flight back last night. Our latest guest, like a number of our recent arrivals, brings with him a few security issues that are best brought out into the open so that no one has any reason to complain after the fact about a lack of full disclosure."

He got a dirty look from Ororo for the comment, but didn't bother pointing out that it was mostly a joke. Around here, there were women who appreciated his sense of humor, and there were women who would rather direct a lightning bolt in the direction of his rear end than crack a smile at one of his jokes. Munroe definitely fell into the latter category.

"His name," he went on instead, "is Nathan Christopher Dayspring. I've known him for ten years. We met in Bosnia during the war. I was there to, uh, gain custody of a Bosnian militia leader. Nathan and his team were there to make sure the same bloke got to Washington."

"He was what, then, CIA?" Cassidy asked when Pete paused. From the look in his eyes, he obviously expected the answer to be yes.

Pete shook his head immediately. "No. It's a lot more complicated than that. I should point out that his team - although I didn't know this at the time - was made up of six other mutants in addition to himself." He paused a beat. "An all-mutant team," he said. "Ten years ago. And they'd been together working as a unit for almost ten years at that point."

They got the significance, as he'd expected them to. It wasn't that the intelligence communities or armed forces of various nations didn't utilize mutants; they did, and in ever-increasing numbers. Everyone in this room was aware of the fact that Pete had been one of the first such operatives employed by the British government fifteen years ago. But even today, most governments didn't use mutant teams, even covert ones. A single mutant operative could be controlled, eliminated if he or she became a threat. Large numbers of mutants with operational training? The paranoid mind tended to go in alarming directions when faced with the possibilities of that sort of situation, and if there was one character trait that most of the old boys' club that made these sorts of decisions shared, it was paranoia.

"This was an American team?" Ororo asked, the sour look gone and her eyes very intent as she focused on him. "Military or intelligence?"

"There's the question of the hour. I'm not entirely sure. Nathan's not entirely sure. The origin of the program that produced him and his team is one of those mysteries that those of us in the know have been kicking around for years." Pete gave Charles a semi-facetious look. "Any luck I haven't heard about?"

Charles shook his head slowly. "The program in question has been exceptionally difficult to investigate. I've been trying for years," he said with a sigh. "I've run into dead end after dead end, as have a number of my contacts within the American government."

"Files disappear," Pete said, and everyone's eyes went back to him. "People in the know mysteriously forget that they had something to tell you. Or act like they've never talked to you before, which is really bloody disturbing." The implications of that weren't lost on anyone around the table, but Pete said it anyway. "They've obviously got telepaths covering their tracks. Aggressively covering their tracks."

"Telepaths are so helpful for ensuring that your black programs remain a lovely shade of pitch, aren't they?" Betsy murmured. Despite the irony in her voice, she looked troubled.

Logan, Pete saw, was starting to look pretty disturbed himself. "This isn't-" he started, then cut himself off, looking rather baleful all of a sudden as his eyes went to Scott, then back to Pete.

Oh, yes. He was going to enjoy this. "Weapon X?" Pete asked, his voice perfectly even. In the time he'd been at the mansion, he had provided Logan with a few more details about Stryker and his pet program. Charles had asked him to do it or he wouldn't have bothered, and he did rather regret it. Having done Logan the good turn was why the bastard kept trying to be friendly, after all. "No, no worries on that, old son. The program that produced Nate is what Weapon X wanted to be when it grew up."

That got the desired reaction, too: surprised blinks, and a few wary looks. Charles just looked infinitely patient, while beside him, Braddock was tapping a finger against the table, her lips pursed slightly. No one spoke up, though, and Pete shrugged inwardly and continued.

"Mistra," he said. "The name of the program is Mistra."

"An acronym?" Cassidy asked.

"A village in Greece, dating from the Middle Ages," Charles answered quietly, before Pete could. "It overlooks the ruins of the ancient city of Sparta."

---

Bald Mountain, Wyoming

One week later

Seven years ago, there'd been very little left of the Gold Rush-era settlement that had once occupied this site. A few foundations, nothing more, and scattered clusters of trees that had clearly not grown naturally in those configurations. Now there was even less than that. Even the ruins had been cleared away, to make way for the base's necessary facilities. History was only important when it was useful, after all.

Timothy Morgan stepped off the helicopter, tired eyes flickering around the hangar. He took note of the way the crew avoided his eyes as they moved in to look after the aircraft. That never changed. Support staff was support staff and operatives were operatives, and 'ne'er the twain shall meet'. But they seemed to be avoiding eye contact more assiduously today. That troubled him.

He turned to lift the metal briefcase, their 'prize' from this operation, and shook his head at Foley, who'd already been reaching for it. "Let me take it, Mick," he said, bending closer so that his XO could hear him over the dying noise of the rotors. "You get the rest of the team back to the barracks and squared away. I'll report in."

Foley looked distinctly unhappy with the proposition, but jumped down to the hangar floor obediently. "You're sure?" There was a grim awareness in his dark eyes of what the offer entailed.

"I'm sure. Part of the job." Morgan forced a smile, then turned away, knowing that Mick would reassure the rest of the team, if reassurance was what you called it. They'd be waiting for him when he was finished with the directors, at least. That much was comforting.

No one stopped him on the way to the Boardroom. In fact, most of the people he passed didn't even make eye contact. Morgan wondered bleakly what the gossip mill was saying, whether their lateness in returning was going to have consequences. He hated being second-guessed by the deskbound, he thought savagely, picking up the pace. Waiting the extra five days had been the best way to make sure that he brought his team back intact. Of course, that wasn't supposed to matter. Casualties were a non-issue, in the greater scheme of things; there were always more operatives. More cannon fodder. The strong would survive, and it was best if the weak were weeded out early. The organizational philosophy was quite clear about that.

Morgan hated it, with every fiber of his being.

A slender blonde woman did make eye contact as she came down towards the hall, and Morgan managed not to flinch at the warning look she gave him. He nodded jerkily to her, forcing his thoughts back to a state of calm, and there was a trace of satisfaction as she nodded back. Beck was a good sort for a telepath, and her unspoken reminder was an important one. Going in seething was just going to compound the trouble, if trouble was what was waiting for him.

Humility had never been his strong suit, ironically enough. He knew that, they knew that. It was very often a problem. His competence was a more fragile defense than it should be, and he'd pushed things this week. Maybe too far.

The guard on the door opened it for him as he came down the hall. Morgan paused for a moment, took a deep breath, then walked in. Every seat at the half-circle table was occupied, something he hadn't expected. It was unusual for all the directors to be in residence at the same time these days.

All conversation stilled as he came in. A few of the looks he was getting were definitely on the displeased side. Morgan almost preferred that to the assessing looks. At least he knew what they were thinking if they looked disgruntled. The back of his neck prickling, he stepped forward and laid the case right in front of Joseph Slezak. It was a calculated choice; Slezak tended to put on a paternal act with the operatives, and could be trusted to be more tolerant under most circumstances.

"The hard drive," Morgan said in a neutral voice. "Apologies for the delay. There were more troops on site than our intelligence estimates suggested. Some sort of training exercise." Not meeting his eyes, Slezak opened the case, nodding almost absently as he got a look at the contents. "We waited, and moved in when the exercise concluded," Morgan said.

"Precisely how large an exercise are we talking about here?" Pollock asked from the other side of the table, sounding testy. "You had a ten-man team, Commander. You should have been able to handle whatever number of soldiers the Romanians could muster for an unannounced exercise."

"Our briefing officer stressed the importance of discretion, sir." Calm. Morgan recited a nursery rhyme in his mind, not stopping to think of how thoroughly inappropriate 'Humpty Dumpty' was for this situation until he was halfway through it. "We estimated three hundred troops at the base and in the immediate area." Most of the directors looked unimpressed, and Morgan very carefully did not react. Yes, his team could probably have fought their way through, especially with the mix of powers he'd had at his disposal. But even leaving aside the fact that he wouldn't have gotten his team out intact, getting out undetected would have been damned near impossible.

Someone else had entered as he spoke, one of the nameless couriers who never stayed long enough on the base to be introduced. Slezak closed the briefcase and handed it over to the man, who departed as soundlessly and swiftly as he'd entered.

"Five days," Slezak said into the silence that had followed Morgan's explanation. "It's not disastrous. We're still within a reasonable timeframe. Our contact will understand that these things happen."

"That's a very bad precedent to be setting." The comment, calmly spoken but with a definite edge to it, came from Carmella Ruiz. The only woman in the room eyed Morgan with cold disapproval, and it took every bit of self-control he had to drop his eyes to the floor. Ruiz didn't have a maternal bone in her body. If Slezak was one end of the spectrum in his dealings with the operatives, she was the other. "We requested a specific timeframe. These do not sound like the sort of circumstances that would warrant a deviation."

"I've got to agree," chimed in Morton Fellows, from beside her. Of course. Morgan had always wondered if the man actually had a mind of his own, or what Ruiz had on him that made him bow to her every whim like he did. "Not to mention that it makes us look bad in front of the client. We have a reputation to uphold, people, and under current conditions-"

"I think we can let Morgan get back to debriefing his team," Slezak said abruptly, interrupting Fellows. Morgan didn't look up at him, didn't let himself wonder about the reason for the sudden show of support. "The package is on its way. We can strategize for any unintended consequences of the delay."

After a moment, then was a general murmur of agreement, but Morgan heard a chair scrape over the polished floor of the Boardroom, and barely managed not to flinch as Ruiz strode over to him. "I'm of the belief that an assessment in the medical wing wouldn't be taken amiss," she said coolly. Morgan kept his eyes on the floor. "That is an order, Timothy."

"Yes, ma'am," he said, his voice low. Euphemisms. He hated the damned euphemisms.

"You can go now."

Morgan turned on his heel and headed for the door. Seeing no one out in the hall, he paused, hoping to catch the tail end of the conversation. It was a risk, eavesdropping like this, but he wanted to know if there would be questions directed at the rest of his team.

"-that really necessary?" Slezak, sounding annoyed.

"Of course it was," Ruiz responded coolly. "We gave him specific instructions regarding the timeframe we needed. You don't want to know how he sidestepped that?"

There was a derisive laugh from Pollock. "We probably weren't specific enough, Carmella."

"Pollock's right. Perhaps we're just dealing with failure of imagination on Morgan's part," Fellows pointed out. "He tends to be overly cautious at times."

"Possibly," Ruiz said, dismissively. "He's certainly no Dayspring."

The 'assessment' took the better part of an hour, and left him with a pounding headache and a stomach that seemed to be trying to leave his body of its own accord. Gingerly, very gingerly, Morgan made his way back towards the barracks, one hand on the wall beside him as he walked. He needed it. He felt like the inside of his head had been scoured with steel wool.

He could still taste the blood at the back of his throat, and it was taking quite a bit of what little concentration he had left to keep himself from gagging. The passers-by avoided eye contact just as staunchly as they had on his way to the Boardroom, although probably for different reasons.

Thankfully, he wasn't bothered in the barracks either. Getting cornered by one of the youngsters in a combative mood would have been a little too much to handle just now, Morgan admitted to himself tiredly, and let out a sigh as he saw the door of his room open as he approached.

"I could have told you this would happen," Foley muttered, reaching out to support him and ignoring Morgan's growl of protest. He kicked the door shut behind them and helped Morgan over to the bed. "We pushed it too far. I told you that three days ago."

"I don't feel like debating just now, Mick," Morgan said dully, slumping back against the bed and squeezing his eyes shut. Horizontal was nice. He'd just stay here for a few hours, sleep it off. "Petrov's going to write it off to excessive caution on my part. He told me that. He knew we pushed it, but since we got the mission accomplished he doesn't see any need to stir things up."

He heard Foley let his breath out on a sigh. "Fuck, that's a relief. Want some water or something?"

"No. Don't think I could keep it down." Morgan cracked his eyes open and saw Foley hovering at the edge of the bed. He managed a faint smile. "Stop fussing. I'll be fine," he said tiredly. "I just need to sleep. So do you."

"I'll nap in your chair," Foley said, moving away. The tone of his voice suggested that it wasn't open for discussion. "We don't want anyone causing trouble."

"As if anyone really wants my job," Morgan muttered and closed his eyes again.

---

Salem Center,

Now

The knock on the door of Moira's suite jolted Nathan out of his book and back to reality. He looked up, giving the closed door a long, thoughtful look edged with irritation. It had been four days since Moira had decided he was well enough to leave the infirmary and move into the second bedroom in her suite - I want you where I can keep an eye on you, had been her uncompromising response to his innocent question about what the children would think - and apparently it had gotten around quickly that Doctor MacTaggart was hiding a man in her rooms. He hadn't been bothered by said children, thankfully. Too bad the staff wouldn't stop 'dropping by'.

I'm so tired of this. It was hard enough to be here, unarmed and physically weakened among strangers, without having to pretend he had social skills. Nathan turned the page in his book, deciding to ignore the knock. Maybe whoever it was would assume he was sleeping and go away.

Just to prove him wrong, there was another knock. "Hello? Nathan?" a female voice called, sounding tentative. "I was just talking to Moira and she told me to come up. She thought you might like to get some sun."

Nathan's frown deepened. Moira had sent her? Moira, who'd been scowling at him every time he'd looked like he was even thinking of exerting himself? He gave the door a suspicious look.

"I mean, I see her point. She says you haven't been out of her suite since you left the infirmary."

Nathan's eyes narrowed. I wonder how long she'll go on talking to the closed door if I let her. Making a noise that was half-growl, half-sigh, he got up. Amazingly, the shift in position wasn't accompanied by the usual wave of dizziness. There was something to Moira's idea about staying put and resting being half the battle, Nathan supposed. He walked over to the door and opened it, giving the blonde woman standing on the other side a flat look.

"I could have been asleep, you know," he pointed out curtly.

"Moira said you were awake when she left. I suppose I'd have given up in another couple of minutes." She stuck out a hand, abruptly enough to make him jump. Her smile wavered a bit at his reaction. "Alison Blaire."

Alison Blaire. The name was familiar, and Nathan frowned, curiosity overcoming wariness. "Alison Blaire? You're... a singer."

Her smile turned into a pleased grin. "You've heard of me. That's... kind of ego-feeding, especially given that you don't really strike me as the type to listen to my music."

"I knew someone who used to have a poster of you up on her wall, years ago," Nathan said - and couldn't help a smirk at the pained look he got in response.

"Okay, now I feel old," Alison murmured, then shook her head. "Ah, well. Such is life. So are you coming?" Nathan didn't answer, and she went on encouragingly. "You've been lurking in here for days, surely you could do with some fresh air. And I could give you the ten-cent tour, too? According to Moira, all you've seen is the infirmary, this suite, and the halls on the way up."

Where was Moira? Why was she leaving him at the mercy of random pop singers? "You're not going to go away if I say no, are you?" Nathan asked, and suppressed a growl at the crooked smile he got in return. "I was afraid of that. Fine." He stepped out into the hall after her, closing the door. Mostly because he did want the tour. The fact that this place was unfamiliar wasn't helping his anxiety levels, and it had been bothering him that he didn't have a clear exit strategy. "But don't expect me to be a scintillating conversationalist."

"I'm sure I can talk enough for the both of us."

"... so I keep wondering when Charles is going to give up on leaving antiques around in the main halls," Alison said, her tone still as light and friendly as it had been at the beginning of her tour-guide routine, despite the increasingly narrow-eyed look she was giving the man beside her. It wasn't that she regretted offering to do Moira this favor, but he was beginning to make her nervous. "Fred certainly didn't mean to run into the cabinet, but kids will be kids, and our kids tend to be pretty destructive. I think it's probably inevitable, given their abilities."

That actually got a grunt; it was the closest thing to a response she'd had in the last fifteen minutes. Alison raised an eyebrow, and then gave in to the perverse impulse. Just a little snark wouldn't hurt, surely. It might even provoke a more human reaction, and she'd even take snark in return to this stony silence.

"You know, Nathan, you can let your face move. I won't tell anyone."

"I told you not to expect conversation," was Nathan's response. He didn't look at her. He hadn't looked at her since they'd left Moira's suite. Did he find her company that distasteful? Moira had warned her about - well, Moira had given her a whole long list of warnings, to the point where Alison had nearly told the older woman to stop fussing. But Don't expect him to be friendly had been near the top of the list, and repeated three or four times in the subsequent lecture. And to think, I was so sure she was exaggerating.

"You said you weren't a good conversationalist," she responded with a sigh. He wasn't enjoying being out of the suite, that much was obvious. She could see the tension in the way he held himself, like he was expecting someone to jump out from around every corner and attack him. He reminded her of Logan, or Pete on his bad days. "I didn't think that meant you weren't going to talk at all."

Nathan finally looked at her, level gray eyes studying her for a long moment. "Well, now you know better," he observed, as if pointing out the obvious to someone who was very slightly slow of thinking. His tone wasn't unkind, just... brusque.

"Right." Alison fought the urge to rub at her temples. Moira had also told her he'd be 'difficult'. "Um, anyway. The library's just down here." He followed along without protest, at least. "So how long have you known Moira?" Alison ventured, hoping it might be a more congenial topic.

It wasn't; his face froze. "Blaire," he said, biting off the end of each word. "If I'm not up for small talk, what makes you think I'm going to answer questions?" The look in his eyes was markedly colder as he glanced down at her. "Because your logic, right now, escapes me. Admittedly I'm not at my best."

Alison opened her mouth, then closed it again, eyeing him. "You are a sour son of a bitch, aren't you?" she said forthrightly. Maybe he'd respond better to that. He seemed like the type.

His slight smile was a few degrees warmer than glacial, but only a few, and the glint in his gray eyes was a little too derisive for her tastes. "Usually people leave out the 'sour'."

Ah-hah. Okay, so he was that type. Alison put her hands on her hips, staring up at him. "Fine," she said flatly. "If you want, I can steer your cranky, tottering ass back in the direction of Moira's rooms and never darken your doorstep again."

"Promise?"

She nearly threw her hands up in the air. "Cross my heart and hope to die. I guess the library will have to-" Nathan's head jerked around at the sound of running footsteps, and Alison stopped mid-sentence, her aggravation vanishing as a flash of what looked almost like fear crossed his face.

"Hey," she said, in a very different voice. "Nathan? It's just one of the kids running. They do that, you know." He took a step back, falling into a defensive position and still staring in the direction of the staircase. Alison reached towards him - then stopped, remembering what Moira had said about touching him. "It's okay," she soothed, unable to keep the note of uncertainty out of her voice as she looked in the same direction, wondering what could be triggering this reaction. It wasn't as if they hadn't passed kids earlier on the tour.

The runner landed at the bottom of the stairs, and Alison wished she could take back every reassuring word she's just said. Oh crap, oh crap- It was Manuel. Manuel de la Rocha was very definitely not just 'one of the kids'. Especially not when he was advancing on Nathan, his eyes locked on the tall man and full of rapt fascination.

"You... who are you?" the young empath demanded, almost excitedly. "I've never seen anything like you." Nathan took another step back, clearly trying to retreat, and Manuel just kept coming, his head tilting and his eyes flashing red. Alison could feel the hair on the back of her neck standing up.

The little bastard's using his powers, oh shit-

"You've known others like me!" Manuel pronounced suddenly, eyes wide with surprise and delight. As if he was a child who'd just been presented with more candy that he'd ever seen in his life, and the thought made Alison's stomach twist. "I can tell. I can see their fingerprints on your mind, the way the colors are woven-"

"No," Nathan mumbled, stumbling backwards. His face was almost gray. "No, go away."

"Manuel, back off!" Alison said sharply, and finally regained the presence of mind to 'yell' mentally for Charles. There were staff members Manuel would obey. She wasn't one of them. "Nathan, it's all right, he's just a student. Manuel, stop already!"

She tried to step between them, and Manuel snarled in frustration, his eyes blazing crimson. Alison stumbled backwards, fighting the urge to turn and flee. "Manuel, no," she managed.

"I won't be brushed off! Not again!" Manuel proclaimed, his voice ringing as he continued to advance on Nathan. "They're all useless here, they don't know how to teach me! They prate about ethics and restraining myself, and nothing about what I need to know!" It wasn't quite a whine, not when there was that much force and frustration behind Manuel's words. Nathan jerked back against the wall, his head hitting the wood paneling hard, and Manuel swore. "Let me see how it was done - hold still!"

---

"I'm bored."

Wanda Maximoff rolled her eyes at the slightly sardonic pronouncement from her brother. Pietro was sprawled in the chair across from hers, gazing at her almost contemplatively. She'd gotten to the library early enough to grab one of the long tables; she liked them, they gave her plenty of room to lay out the materials for her current chapter. The library didn't have the resources she needed, but it was her favorite place in the mansion to work, and the Professor had been more than kind in facilitating some quiet interlibrary loans. There was no reason, he'd said, for her doctoral studies to come to a standstill simply because she and Pietro had been forced to seek sanctuary here. Wanda only wished that her supervisor was so understanding about the challenges involved in having a megalomaniac for a father.

"Then go for a run," she suggested, but not unkindly. She knew how much it bothered Pietro to be penned up here. Powers like his didn't lend themselves to a sedentary lifestyle.

"Xavier asked me to stay on the grounds," Pietro muttered, with what wasn't quite a pout. The grumbling was mostly for show, Wanda knew; they both knew they were safest here, even three months after their falling out with their father. If you can call a refusal to be recruited a 'falling out', Wanda thought dourly, not for the first time. "There's not much in the way of running to be had, on the grounds," Pietro went on. "And Summers lectured me for nearly running down one of the children last week. He enjoyed it far too much, I don't plan to give him the opportunity to do it again."

"Perverse man," Wanda said fondly, finally looking up from her photocopied articles for long enough to catch the spark of mischief in her brother's eyes. At least they were refugees together. It made the whole situation nearly tolerable.

"Your point?" Pietro slouched farther in the chair as he went on. "I'm still not sure the questionable safety of Xavier's protection is actually worth the bother."

"You weren't the one facing down Sabretooth in that alley," Wanda said, and didn't quite manage to suppress the shudder. There were some things it was still too hard to banter about. She'd escaped relatively intact, but while the injuries had healed, some of the fear lingered.

Pietro's faux-pout turned into a real scowl. "I should have been."

Wanda shook her head. "We could have that conversation about you blaming yourself again," she said challengingly, hefting a very large nineteenth century tome on Roma customs. "Or I could just throw this book at your head and save the time."

"Violent woman," her brother chided her.

"Always," was her immediate response. Before she could say anything more, there was a very audible crash from the direction of the hall. Wanda half-rose from her chair, a curse escaping her. "That was something getting broken. Or someone." The students around here liked their powers accidents.

Typically, Pietro didn't wait to discuss the possibilities. He was out of his chair and gone in a flash, faster than Wanda's eyes could track. She followed him, of course. If one of the children had suffered an accident, better that it be her who dealt with it. Her brother's was not a nurturing personality.

When she reached the hall, it became perfectly obvious that the accident was ongoing. Every piece of furniture, the objects that had been sitting on those pieces of furniture, even the paintings off the wall were in the air, and spinning in violent patterns. Telekinesis? Wanda thought, focusing on the tall man slumped against the wall, his gray eyes blank and a faint golden radiance filling the air around him. That had to be Doctor MacTaggart's friend, the newest addition to the mansion.

"Any suggestions?" Pietro barked, standing just clear of the flying furniture. Manuel de la Rocha was huddled against the wall on the other side of the hall, arms shielding his head. When he looked up at the telekinetic, his eyes were glowing fiercely red, pulsing. Whatever he was trying to do, it wasn't working; the furniture only spun faster, a delicate antique table shattering against the wall.

"Get the boy away," Wanda said sharply, and swore as she saw Alison on the other side of the telekinetic storm, struggling to get back to her feet and clearly dazed. "Now, Pietro!" Her voice cracked like a whip. Pietro didn't respond aloud, but merely blurred into movement again, dodging the flying furniture easily. He hauled Manuel up off the ground in one smooth motion, only visible because of the half-second pause it took, and then was gone again.

There, the student was safely out of the way. I swear someone ought to take a blunt object to that boy's head... She didn't have a doubt in her mind that Manuel had caused this. Chaos was what he did, after all. Wanda turned her attention back to the telekinetic, gesturing at Alison to stay back. The younger woman was still working on finesse with her powers, and Wanda had a certain versatility her teammate did not.

Letting her eyes unfocus, Wanda studied the scene for a moment, mapping the bright red lines that told her where the chaotic variables were and weren't. Her brother could run through this shifting maze and escape unharmed by virtue of his reaction time. For her, it was a question of pulling there, and there...

But before she could take advantage of the opening she'd created, the lines changed, flashing a brighter red. The leg of the shattered table flew across the hall and struck the telekinetic in the head. He crumpled, sliding down the wall, and everything that was in the air dropped immediately. The storm was stilled.

Wanda stood there for a moment, shocked. He did that himself. He knocked himself out. Her hesitation lasted only a moment; she was at the unconscious man's side only a step behind Alison, who reached out a shaking hand to check his pulse.

"I'm going to kill him."

"Manuel?" Wanda ventured.

"Yes! He came running down the stairs and did something with his powers..." Alison let the air out of her lungs on a shaky sigh. "Moira's going to kill me. I was supposed to look after Nathan for her."

Wanda shook her head slightly, unsurprised to hear that Manuel had precipitated this. The young empath was dangerous, and she had said as much to Pietro on more than one occasion. He needed help, yes, but he didn't belong here at the school. Not until he could control himself so that he wasn't a danger to everyone around him.

"What a mess," she murmured, and might have said more if Xavier hadn't spoken in their minds right then, reassuring them that medical help was about to arrive.

---

Whiteness. Nothing but whiteness, and that alone told Charles how much damage had been done by Manuel's outburst. No mindscape should be this blank, let along that of a broad-spectrum psi. There should be depth, complexity. He should be looking at different levels of symbolism manifesting as imagery. This featureless emptiness wasn't just wrong, it was withdrawal, and Charles was becoming increasingly worried. He'd found no trace of Nathan's conscious presence anywhere.

It reminded him too much of the catatonic minds he'd worked with over the years. The parallel gave him an idea, and Charles let his shields down, revealing an astral form identical in every way to his real body. "Nathan?" he called 'aloud'. Sometimes you needed to let them come to you. He kept his astral form carefully self-contained, not reaching out onto the mindscape. He didn't dare try and manipulate his surroundings, not when doing so risked even more damage to an already-wounded mind. "Nathan? It's Charles. I need to speak with you."

In response, there was a breath of wind. Only that, but it was enough of a change to give Charles hope. He walked in a slow circle, staring into the whiteness, looking for some shift, some sign of activity. Of life.

"Nathan," he went on, steadily but gently. "I'm here to help. Only to help. I'll wait for you until you're ready."

Another, stronger gust of wind - no, a push, Charles realized. There was unmistakable hostility behind it, and all at once, a presence coalescing here in the void. A dark-clad figure strode out of the whiteness, a look of cold fury on his face, and Charles stayed very still as the image of Nathan leveled a gun at his head.

"Hello, Nathan," Charles said simply, not moving. The gun was no threat to him, even if the trigger was pulled. While astral death was disconcerting, the younger man's shields, such as they were, were wide open; Charles could retreat back out of Nathan's mind before the bullet ever reached him. "Or should I call you that?" he went on calmly, getting a better sense of what he was facing. Not quite Nathan. Nathan seen through a dark mirror, stripped of everything but cold purpose.

"Get out," was the icy response.

A defensive projection? It seemed the likeliest answer, yet Charles wasn't certain. There was too much substance to the projection, too much depth. It was almost Nathan, and that was puzzling. "It's all right," he went on patiently. "You've been hurt, Nathan. This is... psionic first aid, that's all."

Nathan made a noise of incoherent rage and surged forward, the muzzle of the gun icy cold as it pressed against Charles's temple. "Get out of my head, telepath!" he said, contempt and loathing seething beneath the words.

Not for the first time, Charles ached for the self-hatred he sensed in the other man for what he himself was. "You need to listen to my voice, Nathan," he went on softly, raising a hand and pushing the gun downwards. Oddly, Nathan didn't resist. "Listen to my voice, and remember where you are. You're at my school. You're safe."

"There's no such thing!" The look in the gray eyes that met his was suddenly stricken and shocky. The hand holding the gun was shaking visibly, and Charles could sense seismic shifts going on within the mindscape as Nathan's conscious mind fought to reemerge. "There's no such thing," Nathan repeated, choking on the words.

"You're safe," Charles repeated. Safety was the key, to bring him out of this. "What happened with Manuel... I'm so terribly sorry, Nathan." He didn't even try to keep the pain out of his voice. The school was supposed to be a safe refuge, and he'd failed to make it one for Nathan. His failure, not Manuel's.

Walls slammed up in Nathan's eyes, and the gun rose again. "The empath," Nathan ground out. "You didn't tell me you had an empath here. You tell me I'm safe, but he was in my head, pushing... just like them!"

"He's very young," Charles said, and hesitated a moment, before he went on. "He's been very badly treated. Abused and manipulated. Rather like you."

The attempt to evoke sympathy worked far better than Charles had dared hope. The gun lowered again, and Nathan blinked at him, confused. "Did I hurt him?" he asked, almost forlornly. His clothes flickered from unrelieved black to street clothes, an outward sign of his continuing progress towards lucidity.

"No," Charles said immediately, soothing him. "Not so much as a bruise. You knocked yourself out, Nathan, to prevent him or Alison or anyone else from getting hurt - do you remember that?" It told him a great deal about the man. Threatened, backed into a corner, Nathan had still acted to preserve the safety of the people around him. "I felt what happened, when Manuel tried to force his way into your mind. He stumbled across a post-hypnotic trigger, a defensive mechanism. It switched on your telekinesis, but removed it from your control. It's amazing that you managed to regain control for long enough to knock yourself out, Nathan. It must have taken immense willpower." He hesitated. "The trigger - I think it must be an anti-tampering measure, to keep a hostile psi from trying to coopt you."

A wince from the other man, and Nathan half-turned away, shuddering. "Don't. I can't hear this," he muttered, his shoulders hunching. His clothes stayed street clothes, and Charles realized that for the first time in the 'conversation', he was talking to Nathan's conscious mind. Finally. "I can't fight you right now. Please don't make any adjustments. I'll do as I'm told."

Charles felt ill at the weary, hopeless-sounding plea. "I won't," he murmured. "I swear I won't, Nathan. I will never hurt you. Never." The other man looked up, a spark of something almost too weak to be recognizable as hope in those dull gray eyes. "Come back with me," Charles urged softly. "You don't need to stay here."

"This is all there is."

"That's not true. Not at all." Charles smiled gently and projected the last image he'd seen before entering Nathan's mind - Moira, bending over Nathan's prone form, a look that mingled tenderness and worry on her face as she smoothed back his hair. "Moira's waiting for you," he said, his smile growing slightly as Nathan met his eyes. "I think she'd be very upset if you didn't come back with me. She might even come in here looking for you herself."

"... you know," Nathan said after a long moment, "I wouldn't put it past her."

"We both know her far too well," Charles said with a relieved chuckle as he sensed Nathan's acquiescence. #Just relax, Nathan,# he sent. #Let me do the work.# Charles let his astral form fade as he set himself to the task of coaxing Nathan's mind back into its proper patterns.

It would have been impossible had the other man not wanted to come back. There was a great deal of work to be done with Nathan's battered mind, however, and as Charles repaired the damage done by Manuel's clumsy intrusion, he lost track of time. Minutes might have passed, or hours, as he labored over patterns and structures he knew were almost certainly an artificial imposition on Nathan's mind. But now was not the time to try to undo any of it; he needed to understand what had been done more fully before he did that. Right now, the most important thing was to stabilize Nathan. As he finally withdrew from the other psi's mind, the extent of his own weariness shocked him.

"Charles?" Moira's voice was hushed, tense.

Charles managed a reassuring smile as he looked up at her. "He's sleeping," he said softly, his gaze going back to the man on the bed. "It's for the best. There was some damage done, but I've done what I can. Rest will finish the work."

Moira's jaw tightened. She looked very pale still, despite the good news Charles had just delivered. It had been a long and frightening afternoon for her. Charles didn't think the look of terror on her face as she'd seen Nathan lying unconscious on the floor would ever leave him. "I should have thought," she said, under her breath. "I knew, I knew how badly empaths frightened him. I just didn't think."

"Don't blame yourself. I should have thought to make sure they didn't meet, at least not like this." Charles moved his wheelchair back away from the bed and took a deep breath. Time to tend to other concerns, now that Nathan was stable.

"At least the lad wasn't hurt." Moira gave a shuddering sigh, folding her arms across her chest. "I need to do a blood test," she said, somewhat feebly. "Who knows what this strain will do to the virus levels."

"Moira," Charles murmured, meeting her eyes and holding them. "He'll be all right."

Moira didn't respond, just turned to the medical supplies laid out on the table behind her, and started to assemble what she needed for the blood test. "You should go and speak to Manuel," she said more briskly. "I imagine he's quite put out by his near escape."

'Put out' was putting it mildly. On his way down here to the infirmary, Charles had heard Manuel's tirade about 'assassins', as well as the running internal monologue that had accompanied it. For a psi, the young man had truly abysmal mental discipline. "Oh, I fully intend to speak to him," he said simply. "He and I need to have yet another of those conversations about ethics. This was assault, Moira. Not just Nathan, but Alison as well... I have to find a way to teach him that he can't do this." From what he'd seen in Nathan's mind, they were only fortunate that Manuel hadn't provoked an even more violent reaction. A telekinetic of Nathan's strength could easily have leveled the mansion.

"Difficult to teach someone who won't learn." There was a definite edge to Moira's voice.

"If he's reminded to look, but not touch, what he sees in Nathan's mind could perhaps serve as a very pointed lesson," Charles said. "I've seen psionic behavioral modification before, Moira. Most often it's very limited. Strategically placed memory blocks, simple post-hypnotic suggestions..." He stopped, sighed heavily. "I have never seen anything like what's been done to Nathan. We're looking at the work of years, and multiple telepaths and empaths."

"I always wanted him to agree to meet you," Moira said, still not looking at him. "To see if you could undo any of it."

"I believe I can, with time and trust." Trust would be the key, and unfortunately, today's setback was a serious one.