The first time I woke up, I was in a daze. I did not know where I was and I tried to sit up. The effort threw me back into near-unconsciousness. Voices I knew were talking, rising up out of the water that was drowning me.

"… do so much in her state of malnutrition."

"I know. I was surprised … these past few months."

"How could you have …?"

"There. The I.V. is in. Now, I'll have to ask you to leave my patient alone, meine freunde."

I let the voices go away and dropped deep into darkness.

I awoke again, but kept my eyes shut. I heard no one. I felt bonds on my wrists and started shifting to slip free, but could not. I tried again and failed.

I opened my left eye slightly. I was in a dimly lit room, and apparently alone. I opened both my eyes fully. It was not a standard hospital room. The metal bonds themselves showed that. I pushed to find out what was keeping me from shifting. I could not localize what it was.

Jean Grey came into the room and took one of my wrists. "How are you feeling?" she asked, looking at her watch.

I stared at her. "I might feel better if I could shift to heal my body."

She shook her head. "It would waste resources you need for healing your injuries. You have a sprained shoulder, a broken ankle, a few cracked ribs, and contusions from here to kingdom come. You're malnourished, you have a kidney infection on top of your anemia, you're feverish, and you barely survived as it is. You're not shifting any time soon."

I closed my eyes and ignored her. She shuffled around and touched my right arm. Wet, cold…probably a blood draw. I let her take it. The pain helped me feel alive, rather than the living corpse I'd been for months.

"I hear my patient is awake." I screwed my eyes shut. Of course, it had to be my son who was my doctor. How fitting. "Unless I was mistaken."

Jean removed the needle from my arm. "No, Kurt. She's awake. I can feel it without even trying to read her."

I opened my eyes. Kurt was watching as Jean labeled the vial of blood she took from me. He came over to me and looked at my eyes. "Feeling better now?"

"In some ways." His gaze traveled up and down my body.

"Good. We will have to keep your I.V. in for your medicines and vitamin supplements, but we should be able to give you some food soon. Are you hungry?"

I laughed. I was always hungry. I had just learned to ignore it, along with everything else. I looked down at my wretchedly thin arms and pulled at the cuffs a little. "What do you think?"

"I think perhaps you and I should talk." Jean took the vial of blood and passed a syringe to Kurt, then left the room. He slowly injected the contents into my I.V. while he talked. "Ja, I think you know Destiny has been very worried about you."

I frowned. "Destiny? What has she to do with anything?"

"Much." He finished and withdrew the needle. "She set us all up that day. She called us and said the Brotherhood was trying to steal public records so you could take mutants from their families and expand your ranks by raising your own replacements. She said we had to stop you, that you were crazy."

Destiny? But Destiny would never betray me...

"So we came there, ja, and we all fought. She confessed what she had done once we had her." He sighed.

How could she? How dare she!

"Now, I think you need to tell me some things." He leaned over my bed and looked into my eyes. "What relationship do you have to me?"

I shuddered. Of course. The boy had not done what I told him to, and asked Margali. So I had to be the one to tell him. Fine. I would confess my guilt, and he would destroy me. I said, with a touch of my usual confidence, "I am your mother."

He quirked an eyebrow. "Are you," he said quietly.

"Yes." I was not going to offer more.

Kurt blinked. "So what happened?"

He would have to ask. I could tell him, but he would reject me. So I drew what remained of my tattered pride around me, and rejected him first. "I threw you away. I did not want you any more." I turned my head to keep the tears from leaking out. "Now, go."

Silence. No movement, no sound. I refused to look at my beloved son. I would not appear weak before him. He said, finally, "I do not believe you."

A tear leaked out of my left eye. I would not crack. I would not let him see my bleeding soul. Why could not he just get angry, why could not he punish me? I was evil for throwing my baby away. Could not he see that? The tears fell faster from my closed eyes, but I would not look at him.

A gentle hand touched my face. "In time, perhaps, we can talk again. Meanwhile, rest." He walked to the door. As he opened it, a body burst through it and called, "Mama? I'm here...what did you do to her?"

I could not help but laugh through my tears. My little Rogue was still alive, and still loved me, to turn on her new friends this way. Before Kurt could reply, Rogue was at my side, releasing my right wrist and hugging me tight. I held her and struggled to hold my tears back.

Kurt said gently, "I will go now. Don't stay too long, Rogue. She is tired." He closed the door, and I cried myself out in my daughter's arms.

"Now. What did he do to you?" She still cared for me. I did not expect that. "And why the hell didn't you come to me if you needed help? Damn it, Mystique, I thought you understood that we're still family!"

Ah. The anger in my baby's voice helped me recover more than anything else. I responded to it eagerly. "I could not. I felt you had rejected me, that you did not want me any more."

She snorted. "You sound like a jilted lover. Family isn't like that."

I sighed. "Mine was. So was yours."

She stilled and watched me. "Tell me about yours. Go on."

I smiled a little, remembering how she used to prompt me when I told her bedtime stories. "Once my parents knew what I could do, they threw me out. My grandmother tried to help, but she got sick. My ... one of the few people I ever cared for, he also could not handle me being who I was, or..." I broke off. I was not sure I could tell Rogue anything about that time, when I loved Count Wilhelm Wagner.

"And he was?" My Rogue was nothing if not persistent, though sometimes I could wish otherwise. I gave up. She was stronger than I, and seeing our last parting and its harshness...I had to make it up to her.

"He was...a good man, but weak. He could not accept me or our child, when I could not hide any more what I was. He just left me and..."

"Victor Creed?" Rogue looked puzzled. "He musta been real different when you knew him, mama...and what happened to Graydon?"

I frowned. Did she not know? "Not Victor Creed, child. Count Wagner."

Rogue sat back, a stunned look on her face. "You gotta be kiddin' me. Kurt?" I nodded. "All right, Mystique. Give it all up. Oh - got any other kids out there I don't know about?"

"No," I said cautiously. I did not want to try to make things up, though I wished I could to delay Rogue finding out...

"So what happened?"

The 'throwing away' story probably would not work on Rogue. She knew me too well. I sighed. "I transformed to my real form while giving birth to him. His father could not handle the change in me and he could not handle his son looking like he did. The midwife ran off and stirred up the townspeople. I only had a few hours with Kurt and had to spend most of those cleaning him off and getting him fed. They came with weapons. I did my best to get away, but there was no way I could with him. So I threw him over a waterfall." I hoped she would let it go at that.

She cocked her head. "And how did that make you feel, Mama?"

I shook my head slowly. Tears came too easily today. With the awful tickle of tears running down my face again, I whispered, "I have never forgiven myself for that. I should have died rather than try to hurt my baby."

"Oh, mama..." She held me as I cried again. The door opened.

"Rogue, you should go now." My boy, coming back to check on his evil mother. I sobbed. "This is bad. I will have to administer a sedative."

Rogue pulled away from me reluctantly. "I'll come back as soon as I can, mama. I won't leave you. Believe me." She walked out as Kurt injected my freed arm.

The world started fading away, and my sobs turned to sniffles, as my golden-eyed son sat quietly with me. "Is it true?" he asked suddenly. "What you told Rogue, I mean."

My mouth went dry. "You listened...you should not have...why did you..."

He closed his eyes and nodded, then smiled at me. "It is true," he stated. I nodded as he blurred before my eyes.

As I finally slipped into oblivion, he touched my hand and murmured, "Mother."