Author's Note: Bonus chapter today folks! I'm in an especially good mood since tomorrow is my birthday, so I decided to treat all of you to the next chapter!

Chapter One: Retrieval

"How much more grevious are the consequences of anger than the causes of it."
- Marcus Aurelius

Somewhere, three months later…April 17, 1982

"Sir, I have the information that you requested," the aide approached his boss's desk holding a sheaf of papers. He offered them to his superior, who leaned forward and took them.

"You may go."

"Sir," the aide replied with a smart salute. He turned and left the office, closing the door behind himself.

Leaning back in his chair, the room's occupant turned his attention to the report that he had just been handed and began to flip through the pages, perusing the information closely. "Let me see…"

For a few minutes the room was quiet, save for the sound of paper rustling and the muttered comments coming from the man. "No. No. Too risky. Interesting, but not worth it. High probability, lots of potential here…"

He picked up a pen and made a note on the page he was holding, before setting it aside and turning to the next one. His eyes skimmed over the information before reaching one particular line. He sat up, startled, and reread the information. A slow, cold smile crossed his face. "Well, well…Charles Xavier…what a surprise." He made a note on the paper.

Reaching out, he picked up the handset of the phone and pressed a button on his speed dial. After a moment he spoke into the handset. "Have your men be ready for a briefing at 1600 hours." Abruptly he hung up. Leaning back in his chair, his smile widened and grew cruel as he remembered the last time that he had met Charles Xavier. "It's been a long time, Xavier. I am looking forward to this. Perhaps now I can finally settle our score."

He laid the paper on his desk and turned his attention to his computer, sitting on a table behind him. On the page that he had put down was a picture of two people smiling broadly for the camera, a pregnant blonde-haired woman with sparkling green eyes…and a bald man with blue eyes, sitting in a wheelchair. Next to the picture were several lines of text:

Name: Elizabeth Anne Xavier
Age: Five months
Parents: Father – Charles Frances Xavier
Mother – Elizabeth Anna Xavier (deceased)
Last Known Location: Xavier Family Home, Bayville, New York
Test Results: Positive

And below that text, in the man's obsessively neat handwriting:

Target Identified. Operation to commence at 2330 hours. Objective: Secure subject for further testing.

Xavier Family Home – One Week Later, April 23, 1982, 10:00 p.m.

The night wind blew gently, but steadily across the lawn of Charles' family mansion. Charles paused as he approached one of the large windows in the upstairs hallway. Something didn't feel right about tonight, but he couldn't put his finger on what it was. He had just put little Elizabeth back to bed after giving her a last feeding and she was again sleeping soundly. He sighed and continued down the hall towards his own room.

The first several weeks that Elizabeth had been home had been wearying on him. He'd put her cradle in his own room so that if she had any problems he'd sense it, and his worry for her had made his sleep restless. After the first month, he'd moved her cradle into the room next to his and placed a baby monitor on his nightstand so he'd hear her in the night and he'd slept much better. Since then, the last two months they'd gotten into a steady routine and everything had become much easier. As Susan had told him, each day brought a better chance that his Elizabeth would live a long, healthy life.

Finally passing off his unease as the result of a long day, Charles entered his own bedroom and prepared for bed. The security system had been set and the mansion was locked down, so it wouldn't be possible for anyone to break in without him knowing about it. He shook his head. Why would someone want to break in? This is Bayville, not New York City.

With that he maneuvered his chair next to the bed and slid over from the chair to the soft mattress. Reaching over to his nightstand, he picked up the book he was currently engrossed in and settled down to read for a while.

Two hours later, he reached a reasonable stopping point and, after placing a bookmark in between the pages to hold his spot, laid the book on the end table. He adjusted the volume on the baby monitor, set his alarm clock to go off the next morning, and turned off the lights, sliding painfully down to a prone position.

Reaching out with his telepathy, he touched his daughter's mind with a gentle caress, finding her to be sound asleep. He smiled in the darkness before withdrawing his powers and settling down to sleep.

Same Night, 4:00 a.m.

He paused outside the gates of the large mansion. His keen night vision swept across the visible lawn, looking carefully for any trip wires or sensor pads that were rigged to the alarm. Nothing.

Reaching up, he touched the small device on his left temple, flicking a tiny switch that activated it with a quiet hum, before going soundless. His benefactor had insisted that he wear this device when he entered tonight. This operation was to be clean and quiet. No blood, no bodies, no damage. Just in and out.

According to his orders, the man who lived inside this mansion was a powerful telepath, and he would sense any intruders without the device, which would mask his thoughts and keep him undetected, provided that he didn't trip an alarm.

Taking one last glance at his target, he took two steps to the side of the gate and several steps backward to get a running start. Running forward, he leapt for the wall and caught the edge with his gloved hands.

Pulling himself up and over, he landed silently on the grass. He crouched there, in the shadows beneath the wall, looking for any signs that he'd tripped an alarm. Still nothing.

Rising to his feet like a shadow himself, he began to sprint towards the mansion, staying on the grass in order to mask the sounds of his footfalls. It took only moments for him to cross the wide expanse of the lawn and press himself up against the shadows at the side of the house. He paused again, listening. No sign that he had been detected.

Edging along the side of the house, he checked one of the ground floor windows. Locked, and wired. He could see the sensor that would trip if the window were opened. Frowning, he stepped back slightly, considering. It was likely that all the windows would be equally wired, and he certainly wouldn't try the doors. That left one option, and his personal favorite, actually.

He moved along to the back of the house, grateful that he'd studied the intelligence that the others in his team had acquired over the course of the past week. He knew every detail of this house, including where to find his target inside the house. As he came to the back of the house, he smiled to see the sturdy trellis with the climbing roses winding their way up the back of the house to the roof.

Quickly grasping the trellis, he climbed up smoothly and quickly, ending on the roof. Moving silently, he crossed the slanting roof to a level area where the access to the duct work vented outside. Pulling out his favorite utility tool, he removed the screws securing the duct panel and set it aside. It was just wide enough for his compact frame.

He slipped inside, landing on the balls of his feet and slowly shifting into a crawling position, moving inch by inch so that there wouldn't be any banging noises from inside the shaft. Once he was in, he snaked a hand back up and slowly pulled the panel back in place. He loved these covert entries. He was the best at them on the team by far, and nine times out of ten could manage a silent entry.

Such was the case this time as he maneuvered through the ventilation system and dropped lightly down into the hallway on the third floor of the mansion. He landed in a crouch and paused, making sure no one had heard him. There was silence. He assessed his location and compared it to the mental map that he had of the house, discovering, to his satisfaction, that he was right where he should be.

Looking around he spotted a chair just a few feet from where he was standing. He walked over and picked it up, moving it back to where he had emerged from the ventilation shaft. He quickly climbed on top of the chair and used it to reach up and slide the vent cover back into place.

Climbing off the chair, he replaced it in exactly the same spot, and then rubbed his gloved hand on it to erase the marks on the cushion from his feet. Rubbing his foot lightly over the carpet he also removed the marks from the feet of the chair.

Pivoting on the balls of his feet, he took several steps down the hall before entering a door on the right. He eased the door open and slipped through, silent and stealthy. He softened his breathing so that it was barely perceptible and looked around the room to make sure he hadn't been detected.

He stood in a large, spacious bedroom. The furniture was made of oak, stained a dark brown. There was a four-poster bed with a canopy, two identical nightstands, a dresser with a heavy mirror mounted over it, and a heavy, overstuffed wingback armchair with a floor lamp behind it. Off to his left was a door that led into a bathroom. The bay window on the far wall let in plenty of moonlight for him to see by.

He located a small control panel on the wall next to the door and easily pried the cover loose. Once the wires were exposed, he adjusted them ever so slightly, just as he had been instructed. The system was ridiculously easy to bypass, and a moment later, he had slipped the cover back in place.

He glanced over to the bed for the first time, at the man sleeping soundly. A wheelchair was parked next to it and a metal framework hung over the bed to enable the man to get out of the bed more easily the next morning. His lip curled in a sneer at the man before he left the room and closed the door quietly behind himself.

He moved further down the hall to the next door and opened that one, easing inside. In the dark, he could make out a room decorated in soft pastel colors, with all the basic necessities for taking care of a baby scattered around the room. The arrangement didn't fool him. He knew exactly what the man in the bedroom intended to do with this child. In the center of the room was a low cradle. He stepped forward and looked down at the baby nestled inside.

She lay curled up under a white blanket. Her faint wisps of hair were a pale blonde, and at the moment she was sound asleep. He watched her for a moment before leaning down and picking her up. She shifted in his arms before her green eyes opened and she looked up at him, blinking as she came fully awake.

"Ssh, little one," he whispered softly to her. "I'll take you out of this horrible place, don't worry." He shrugged out of the backpack carrier that he was wearing and gently slipped her into it, closing it securely. His employer wanted the child alive. That was the whole point of his mission, after all.

Slipping the bag back onto his back, he moved to the window and opened it. The alarm didn't sound, thanks to the bypass that he had done on the control panel. Just to the right of the window was the rose trellis that he had used to get to the roof. Moving slowly, so as not to jar his tiny prize, he eased out of the window, his feet finding the trellis.

Once he was fully out of the house, he descended rapidly and landed on the grass. Moving quickly, he made his way back over to the wall and climbed up as carefully as he could, before sliding to the ground. Once he was over the wall he removed the carrier from his back and held it in his arms as he ran to his extraction point. His employer would be pleased, but more importantly, the child was safe.

Author's Note: Remember to read and review! I need the encouragement for this story!