Well, hello, everybody! How are you?

This is a story I've wanted to write for quite a while. It focuses mainly on Cable AKA Nathan Summers, but also characters from the X-Titles Generation X, New Mutants and X-Force. Characters from the X-Men, such as Jean Grey and Nightcrawler, will also play a central role.

You can read my other story, NeXt Genesis, to get a more general idea of this universe, but you don't have to - it reads well as a stand-alone story.

I have always wanted to write a story about a daycare or preschool setting and anything concerning the children of the X-Men interests me. So I hope you enjoy!

Please read and review, my friends!

I want to try and keep the chapters rather short and sweet with this story.

These characters belong to Marvel. Except for Nick. He is mine.

Thanks and cheers,

-Maria

"Raising kids is part pure joy, part guerilla warfare."

-Ed Asner

Episode 1: The Treehouse (Sorta)

"Will they be bigger than me?" Nick asked his father.

Jonothon Starsmore glanced at his four-year-old son peering anxiously at him in the car's rear-view mirror. The little boy had his dad's messy shock of brown hair and large soulful brown eyes. Jono would have smiled if he still had the lower part of his face. His lower jaw and chest had been blown away when his mutant powers had manifested when he was 18-years-old. Since then, he had kept his chest tightly wrapped and his lower face covered to contain the fire he constantly emitted from the cavity in his body.

Needless to say, Jono could not talk verbally, but he had other ways to communicate.

Some of them might be, he replied, projecting his "words" telepathically into his son's mind.

Around the time his powers manifested, Jono had developed telepathy as a means of communication with others since he no longer had a mouth.

Miri will be, but then she's older than you. Almost six … Jono continued.

Nick nodded nervously. Miri was from his play-group. He liked the tall girl with the green eyes; he knew her, but these other kids … he didn't know them and that made him feel insecure. Nick liked a schedule. He liked for things to go as planned. He liked to be surrounded by people he knew and things he was familiar with.

"Miri will bring the Red Monkey Book," Nick said. I hate the Red Monkey Book, the boy's thoughts invaded his father's psychic mind. Miri brings it every time to play-group.

Nick had only lived with his dad for two months. He did not yet know his father could pick up on his "louder" thoughts. Like any ethical telepath, Jono would never intentionally invade the privacy of someone's mind, especially his son's, but if somebody had an extremely strong emotion or thought, he picked up on it instantly. It was like someone screaming at him.

He was only too aware of how much little Nick loathed the Red Monkey Book, but he also sensed his son's relief. The Red Monkey Book was familiar; it was safe. Detestable, but safe.

How 'bout some music, eh? Jono asked his son telepathically. He pressed a finger to the car radio and "Caroline, No" began to play. Nick didn't say anything, but a small smile tugged at the boy's face and one sneaker jiggled happily to the song. Their shared loved of The Beach Boys was rare common ground for father and son; it gave them something to bond over.

"Where is the girl I used to know? How could you lose that happy glow? Oh, Caroline, no …" Nick crooned softly to the music as he stared out the car window at the houses and trees flashing past. A small dog barked and chased them for a couple yards.

Jono felt a burst of happiness at his son's talent, an unfamiliar feeling he was clumsily beginning to recognize as parental pride; already his son was a natural musician.

All too soon, the car-ride was over and the sleek Lexus was pulling up alongside … a tree?

Nick leaned forward to peer at his dad over the front console. "Is this the right place?" he asked anxiously.

Jono fumbled at an address in his shirt pocket and squinted at the writing. Umm, yes … he replied, trying to appear confident and reassuring to his young son, but he could detect the doubt radiating off Nick's mind. Nick still didn't trust his father and it hurt Jono's already weak self-confidence as a parent.

Does he even know for sure? Nick's strongly indignant thoughts whispered through Jono's head. Mum wouldn't make this mistake.

That last thought made Jono wince.

Hiding his own anxiousness as best he could, the man turned around to pat Nick's knee. It's probably one of Nate's jokes. You know how he is.

No, I don't, Nick's silent thoughts replied, but the boy was too well-bred to talk back, verbally anyway, to an adult – even one who really didn't seem to know what he was doing. If Nick knew his dad could "overhear" his private thoughts, the naturally polite boy would have been mortified.

Jono got out and went around to the car's rear to unbuckle Nick from his carseat.

"I got it, Jono … uh, Dad," Nick said quickly, unstrapping himself.

Jono had forgotten his son was capable of that. The man, tall and handsome except for the gaping hole in his chest, rubbed his fingers through his messy brown hair in a befuddled way.

You don't have to call me 'Dad,' Nicki, he stated. I mean, if you don't want …

"S'okay, Dad," Nick said verbally. It's not, his thoughts added. And don't call me Nicki. Gross.

Jono sighed.

He reached for his little boy's hand, but Nick seemed to instinctively flinch away. "Um, I don't need you to hold my hand … Dad," the boy stated in a voice that was both polite, but firm and detached. "I'm four. Almost five."

Jono recalled Nick's wild and beautiful mother, Gayle, and wondered where the child had gotten his reserved personality.

Yeah, of course, Jono replied in resignation.

Father and son approached the gigantic tree with matching suspicion and trepidation. Nick tipped his head back to try and see the tree's crown. He had never seen a tree this big. It also looked strange. He'd never seen a tree like this one before.

Proper trees grew up, Nick thought. This tree grew out. It might have been his imagination, but Nick thought the tree's branches were reaching out towards him and his father like enormous arms.

But it was very, very pretty. Each of its twigs was tipped with a pale pink blossom that seemed to hold a glimmering red jewel at its center. The wind seemed to shake the tree and its pink blooms seemed to whisper words to Nick he could barely understand:

Come in … Come in …

Nick wondered how something so beautiful could also seem so menacing.

Jono noticed his boy didn't try to hide behind his father the way he would have expected a four-year-old to do. In fact, Jono picked up on his son's frantic mental plan of escape in case this bizarre situation turned dangerous; Nick didn't even consider his father would protect him.

Y'know, Jono spoke to his son psychically, trying to break up the tension that was so thick between them even a non-telepathic person would notice it. This tree is very special. It's a rose tree. They usually only grow in Wakanda-Askani. That is a country far away from here –

"Yes, I know about Wakanda-Askani. Miri told me," Nick replied. "In the rainy season, the rose trees bloom and there are so many that the land turns pink." The boy's tone was carefully polite, but Jono sensed the consternation that belied his informative response. Nick was impatient that his father would assume he didn't know things.

The groove of the giant tree's bark seemed to suddenly swirl into a pattern similar to a face that peered belligerently at the pair.

"I-I'm not wearing my favorite socks! The ones with the whales!" Nick suddenly exclaimed. "I-I've gotta go back to your house and get them!"

The boy scampered back to the Lexus. Jono was alarmed and exasperated when he detected his son's thoughts were consumed with how to possibly drive the car back to the apartment they shared. He was four for Christ's sake!

Nick plastered himself to the driver's side door after frantically (and futilely) trying to pry it open.

Nick, calm down and come back, Jono ordered him, clamping down on his patience.

Nick scrambled under the car and out of his father's reach. "No! No! The scary tree will kill me!"

It's a tree, son, Jono explained.

"Miri's mum said you and your friends are always being attacked by strange things!" Nick said.

Jono's face appeared at eye-level with Nick as the man, on hands and knees, peered under the car at his boy. His big brown eyes were pleading. I've never been attacked by a tree. Honest.

Not taking any chances! Nick's thoughts stubbornly stated as the boy refused to budge.

Come in … Come in … the tree insisted as the wind rustled its leaves. The tree-trunk seemed to reassemble itself and suddenly a door only a few inches taller than Jono appeared in the trunk.

Look, it wants us to come inside, Nick, Jono stated.

And that isn't a trap?! Nick thought frantically . Do I look stupid? Nope. Nope. Nope. His thoughts turned back to his desperate plans of escape. OK, so he couldn't drive the car. But a motorist might pick up a hitchhiker.

Nick … please, Jono begged.

He had no idea what to do. He knew Nick didn't like him, but the boy had never been disobedient to his father. In fact, Nick wasn't at all what Jono expected a small child to be. Based on what the man had heard from other parents of young kids, preschoolers were little monsters, but Nick was meticulous, soft-spoken, fastidious and cautious. He had better table manners than any other four-year-old, Jono thought. Hell, he had better manners than most thirty-year-olds.

Mealtimes shared by father and son were quiet affairs, the silences stretching long between Jono's lame attempts at conversation and Nick's monosyllabic answers. The shy boy was very careful not to get in his father's way or inconvenience him in any way. Nick dressed himself carefully every morning and prepared his own bowl of cereal and milk – or toaster pastries.

However, Jono did hear some scratching and scraping in his bedroom and found, unbeknown to the boy, his son discovering his old guitar and record collection. Later on, Jono had taken Nick into his bedroom to show him his rock memorabilia - the Ramones posters, the signed Jerry Garcia photos.

Nick had feigned indifference, but his thoughts were very open to Jono and anyone, telepathic or otherwise, could have seen the boy's eyes light up when he spotted a copy of "Pet Sounds" in his dad's record collection.

Now, however, Jono had no clue how to make his son obey him. Should he drag him out? Yell at him? No, the boy was frantic and scared enough.

I said come … IN! a voice, presumably the tree's since it spoke in that same weird whispery way like the sound of the wind blowing through the leaves, demanded in a not-so-casual tone this time.

One of its gnarled roots, which Jono and Nick were unknowingly crouching over, suddenly sprang up out of the ground and flipped the car neatly over. Before Nick's shock could turn to terror, the tree's root rolled father and son up off the ground and through the recently materialized door in the trunk.

The boy and his dad suddenly found themselves standing a little dazed and ruffled, but mostly unhurt, in a wide circular room where children and grownups alike stood around chatting and laughing. Huge branches arched high above their heads as their pink blossoms quivered in a breeze; the sky appeared in bright blue patches above. All around them was the smooth wood of the tree trunk.

They were standing inside the tree!

Next time: A Gen X class reunion looms as Jono sees familiar faces again and Nick meets potential new friends. Let me know what you think, readers! Gen X was one of my favorite comics when I was a kid.