-Rosalina: Noooooooo...Just bum my ass out why don'tcha? Oh, well. My bad.

-Panther: Bishop! That would be both frightening and funny, but it wouldn't work with the premise... or would it? How would he get there, Ms. Smartypants?

-heartsyhawk: I couldn't find his name or back story, either. Just that Rogue was his mom, and that his dad "taught him how to play pocker," so it was assumed to be Remy. I made up the rest.

-untouchablegoth: The details are coming, I promise.

-Ruby631: You'll find out why he doesn't live with Remy in a bit. Couple of chaps maybe. It'll be interesting. (BTW, "interesting" is my all-purpose adjective.)

DISCLAIMER

Remy retreated to his room with the lasagna and ate while having a minor emotional breakdown. Honestly, he'd kind of acknowledged that he might have had some illegitimate kids floating around out there. It was always a possibility that the condoms he used had been defective, or that he'd just been too drunk to remember if he'd used anything. That was uncomfortable to think about, but this was totally different.

There was a fourteen year old boy down stairs from twenty-five years in the future, and there was no way Remy could weasel his way out of some sort of responsibility, even if it was the responsibility of an alternate reality that hadn't occurred yet. Just thinking about it made his head hurt. But the boy was still downstairs.

His son.

That was just creepy. He was nowhere near mature enough to deal with that, he told himself. And...with Rogue...and yeah, she was hot, and fun to be around when she wasn't being very very angry with him, and hell yes he wanted to have sex with her, but the mere presence of that kid downstairs was implying that there was more to it than that.

Remy shook his head. He just didn't feel ready to let things with Rogue progress any further than two friends who could have a real nice time together. It wasn't... Etienne's fault. It's what he meant to Remy's life. He'd done that whole love thing before, and the phrase "didn't work out" didn't even begin to cover the mess that had come out of it. Hell, he couldn't go home because of it! It was pretty damn bad!

He threw the fork into the empty pan and set it on the bed. Stretching, Remy got up and went out onto the balcony overlooking what passed for a back yard at the Institute. After a minute, he dug in his pockets and produced his pack of cigarettes and his lighter- a good one that he'd swiped off St. John before switching teams. Just as he was lighting up, the kitchen door opened a crack just wide enough to let a skinny body through.

Etienne snuck away from the door, watching inside to make sure no one followed him out. Remy wondered how he'd managed to sneak out at all, seeing as the two guys were causing such a stir around the place. He had to admire the skill that took, if nothing else.

Remy backed up into the twilight of his room through the open French doors that lead to the balcony, glad that it was spring and a lot of the double doors were open to let the nice air in, to make sure that Etienne wouldn't see him when he glanced up; and if he was a son worthy of Remy and the LeBeau name that Jean-Luc was so intent upon keeping pure, the boy would look up.

He did, scanning the outside of the building to make sure that no one was there to see him out and about. Once he was far enough away from the windows that no one casually glancing outside would see him, Etienne just flopped down on the grass and tilted his face up to the sun. He basked for a few moments, then reached into the front pocket of his tattered jeans and pulled out what looked to Remy, from his vantage point in the doorway between stone balcony and carpet, to be a wallet. Remy was never wrong when it came to wallets.

Etienne pulled out two thin pieces of paper from inside and held them fanned between his fingers, like holding a hand of cards. He gazed at them for a while, and Remy tried reaching out with his empathy to see what the kid was feeling. His future-alternate son was too far away to pick anything up, unfortunately.

Putting the pieces of paper away, then returning the wallet to his pocket, Etienne got up, brushed off the seat of his pants and his back to make sure that there was no grass sticking to him, he went back inside.

Remy made a mental note to find out what the pieces of paper were, why they were important, and how that could be useful to him.

&

Professor Xavier sat beside one of the tall windows in his office, the tips of his index fingers steepled in thought, and watched as the sun sank below the horizon. He had sent Forge home over an hour ago, resigned that no more work on the problem could be done that day. The inventor would return the next morning, and the time machine would hopefully be fixed by tomorrow night.

Charles was deep in thought when Beast entered the room. Dr. McCoy paused just inside the door and wondered what the mentor for the entire school was doing looking so gloomy.

"Professor?"

The professor started and turned his head to see Hank standing in the room with him. Charles wheeled around to face him.

"Yes, Hank, what is it?"

"I saw Forge to the door," Hank chuckled. "Rogue was glaring at him from the rec. room the whole time. If I may say so, though: I think that those two boys are having a claming effect on her, especially young Charlie. I expected Rogue to jump up and try to strangle Forge, again. "

A wan smile creased Xavier's face for a brief moment, but the mention of young Charlie brought him right back to the thoughts that had been burdening him before Hank had come in.

"I've been thinking...it's strange that just one twist of fate, one decision can change life so drastically for so many people," the professor mused.

Hank nodded. "Mmm. Whatever choice Rogue is going through to create the two worlds, it must be a doozy. No wonder she tends to be in such a chronic bad mood."

This time the Prof. actually chuckled, but that hadn't been what he'd meant. "Yes, that could be one reason. But I meant about what the boy, Charlie, said; that in his world I was dead. Had I died, Erik would have continued with our work to integrate mutants peacefully into society. Instead, he's become...well, what he has become."

"Charles," Hank shook his head, huffing out a great sigh, "had you died, Apocalypse would have been released. I doubt that the world Charlie comes from is a particularly fun place to live. Not to mention, the kids here would have had no place to go- they'd be wandering around, lost, trying to figure out their powers all by themselves. Considering the problems we have around here now, take a second to be very frightened."

Xavier took that moment. To make Hank's point, at that moment Bobby skidded past on a self-created ice flow and crashed into an irreplaceable porcelain urn at the end of the hall.

"I do believe I get your point, Hank."

"Good. Now," Dr. McCoy addressed one of the more mundane problems, "where are those two going to sleep?"