The dining room felt heavy to Scott as he watched some of the closest people to him leave it. Peter's shoulders were slumped, his face was pale and looked much holder than he was. There had been angry words exchanged before he seemed to simply give up.

Katherine got up almost as soon as Peter did and reached up to him, but he yanked his arm away. She looked at his disappearing back with shock. Ororo stood up and wrapped an arm around her. Katherine rested her head on the taller woman's chest and let herself be guided out of the room.

Scott leaned against the wall and took off his glasses to rub the bridge o his nose. He put them in his shirt pocket and released in breath; this hadn't been a conversation he ever thought he'd have. He opened his eyes to look at Henry. "So Mac," he asked his oldest friend, "what'd you think?"

Henry sat at the end of a large dinning table, looking off in space, clearly lost in thoughts. His expression didn't change at the sound of Scott's voice. And when he finally spoke his voice even seemed to come from far away. "I don't know that to think. This makes very little sense. All the tests I ran show that this is Peter Rasputin, but the scans I took of the grave also show that we buried Peter Rasputin one year ago. There's barely enough here to hazard a guess.

Scott remained silent, waiting for him to continue. "Mac," he said when it became obvious he wouldn't, "I'm Kirk, you're Spock, the fourth movie."

Henry didn't react at first; then he blinked, slowly focusing on the outside world. He frowned slightly as the words registered, and then smiled. He rubbed a hand across his face, after two days of constant test he was in bad need of a shave. "All right, my best guess then." He paused, ordering his thoughts. "Do you remember when we took down Genietech?"

It was Scott's turn to frown. "That's the company that was doing illegal experiments on mutants, two years ago I think."

"Correct. We had to split up. Peter went for the generators. We were out of contact with him for about five minutes before we reached his position. We found him unconscious, covered in blood. And here we are now, Peter appears at our door steps, but doesn't remember anything of the last two years."

Scott left the wall and put his hands on the table. "Are you saying that they replaced him then?"

Henry shook his head. "Even the most generous theory on cloning doesn't allow for something that fast."

"Then what?"

Henry rested his elbows on the oak table and entwined his fingers together. "Even today cloning is still in its infancy. The facilities needed for such an endeavor would have to be enormous. They would also need the best scientific minds and probably an unlimited supply of funds. It's doubtful it could actually be done, but if anyone were to be able, it would be them."

"Except that we took them down."

"You don't believe that any more than I do. You read the reports. We might have stopped Genietech, but they were nothing more than one cog in a very large machine." He paused and looked at Scott. "What I think happened is gained access to his genetic material, either during that fight, or came back for it after we left and started attempting to clone him. They were probably unsuccessful until recently."

"How do you explain his memories then? He knows things only the original Peter could know."

"There are theories indicating that a DNA strand can hold all of our memories, compressed more efficiently than anything we can do." Henry shrugged helplessly. "Or maybe they simply had access to a machine that was capable of making a copy of his mind.

Scott hung his head "you do realize what that means."

Henry nodded sadly "I don't have access to anything that can tell us how it was done, or what else might have been done to his mind. I do know someone who does, but you're not going to like it."

"Tell me," Said Scott after a moment of silence.

"We'd have to talk with Thomas' boss."

Scott sighed, "You're right. I don't like it." He rubbed the bridge of his nose again. "Alright, ask Tom. Tell him only what you think he'll need to know to convince his boss to meet."

* * * * *

Henry drove up to their house, Thomas and he had bought it to celebrate their first year together. Now, a year later, there was still much to be done, but it was slowly getting closer to matching their hopes for it.

The smell of cooking enveloped him as he entered. He quietly made his way to the kitchen, avoiding stepping on the shadows. There he found Thomas, still wearing his dress shirt and black office pants, busying himself over the stove.

Henry wrapped his arms around him and kissed his neck "Something smells very good, and spicy."

Thomas smiled "We're having lasagna a la Black." He presented the wooden spoon covered in sauce to him.

"Tastes promising," he said after a taste, "do I have time for a shower?"

"I just need to build it and throw it in the oven. Forty five minutes. I could even join you." Thomas finished with a mischievous grin.

Henry nibbled on his ear "I'd rather you didn't. We burnt enough food this week."

* * * * *

"How was your day?" Thomas asked as he cut the lasagna on his place.

Henry swallowed the piece he's already stared on. "This is very good. It was good. Did a few experiments, some consulting and helped Scott is one of his private projects. You know; the usual." He took a swallow from the red wine Thomas had served with the meal. "How was yours?"

"Thanks, and it was good too. Processed some bad guys, over saw some operations, you know, the usual." He looked at Henry over his glass of wine.

They could only maintain the serious expression for a second before breaking into smiles.

"You know," Thomas said, "if you joined the Agency we wouldn't have to constantly skirt the subjects of out day. We could actually talk about it."

Henry reached out to caress his lover's face, then laced his finger through the man's jet black hair and pulled him in a tender kiss. "The same would be true if you left the Agency and came to work with us. We could certainly use a man with your expertise."

Thomas looked at Henry tenderly. "You know I can't do that. The agency's in my blood."

Henry smiled. "And I'm not willing to abandon my consulting work. I guess we'll just have to continue dancing around what we do when discussing out days."

Thomas chuckled as he took the empty plates from the table. "It's a good think I like to dance then."

Henry followed him in the kitchen with the glasses. "And you're quite good at it," He said, grabbing the other man's arm when the dishes were in the sink and pulling him close; before dipping him on his back and bring back to his feet.

Thomas kissed him passionately before pushing hi away so they could wash the dishes. They did that by hand. They only used the dishwasher when they had guest over and they preferred spending their time entertaining.

Once the last of them were put away Henry leaned against the counter and Thomas leaned into him. The larger man draped his arms over the chest of the smaller one and they were silent for a few minutes, simply enjoying the feel of their bodies against each other.

"I have a favor to ask," Henry finally said.