"Mr. Worthington!" The commissioner for the Westchester County Department of Public Safety practically exploded out of his chair, offering a hand to Warren, who smiled wanly, politely, and took it.

"Commissioner Louis? Thank you for seeing me."

"It's my pleasure, Mr. Worthington. How can I help you?"

Warren slumped down into the slat-backed chair the commissioner indicated. "It's a small matter, and believe me, I'm well aware that police departments all over the country have been under strain these past few weeks. It's just . . . I wanted to see if you might have any more information on a certain case?"

The commissioner frowned, but not in a completely uncooperative way. Warren had long ago learned how to finesse matters. "What case?"

"Missing persons, for a Dr. Jean E. Grey. She disappeared during the Blackout. Her car ran off the road into the Hudson. The car was found, but no body. I just . . . I wondered if you might know any more? I'm an old friend of Dr. Grey's, and . . . ." He trailed off to rub at his eyes. "Her family - her fiancé . . . they're having a hard time. There's no body. As long as there's still no body . . . "

The commissioner shook his head and settled down on the edge of his desk. "I know. I've seen this before. Without that confirmation -"

Warren looked up. "Do you think there may still be hope? Have all the Jane Does . . . ?"

"I'll check. Stay here."

Warren nodded and then sat back to wait. He was here to do the necessary - nail the lid on Jean's coffin. He was in a unique position. Even a cursory look into his history would show ties both to Jean and to her family, but he was "just a friend," and hadn't even been in the country when she'd disappeared. He could thus play the role of "concerned-with-the-living." No one would be too suspicious if he came looking for information . . . and subtly suggested that some kind of closure be given if nothing was found (as it obviously couldn't be).

And if all this squeezed his heart in the process, well, the safety of the school (and the X-Men) demanded it. Scott sure couldn't do it, and for a multitude of reasons.

It wasn't long before the commissioner returned, his face duly serious as he delivered what he assumed to be the bad news. "I'm very sorry, but no. There've been no more leads in the case. The car was found in about ten feet of water, the doors shut but the driver's window open. The seatbelt wasn't fastened, so either she was able to unfasten it after the crash, or . . . ."

Warren rubbed at his eyes again. "She was on her way to a meeting. She always used to say that seatbelts wrinkled her suits."

The commissioner sighed. "I'm sorry. As we told the parents and fiancé, it's still possible that something could turn up - but after almost three weeks, well . . . . The river was dredged, and we have records of her fingerprints, but all the unidentified patients in the states of New York and Connecticut have been cross-checked. And the unidentified bodies, too."

Warren dropped his head, jaw clenching in a fair imitation of holding back something more volatile. "I think I knew - I mean, we all knew, by this point . . . ." He looked up again. "The family isn't sure what to do about a funeral. We don't want it to seem as if we've given up on Jean . . . ."

"Well, we can't officially close the case until a body is found, but given the situation . . . I'm sorry," the commissioner said for a third time. "I hate to be the bearer of bad news, Mr. Worthington. I wish I could give you something more positive, I really do."

Warren didn't reply for a moment, just stared out a window, then rose to offer the commissioner his hand. "No, I thank you for your honesty. We needed to know. I'll tell them what you've told me, but . . . it's not easy news."

"It never is. Again, I wish I could have had something happier, or at least more promising."

But Warren just nodded, holding his "distressed friend" face and letting the commissioner show him out. Back in the Mercedes he'd borrowed from the mansion garage, he let his head drop against the wheel and closed his eyes.

When at the mansion, Warren's retreat had always been the roof. Occasionally, in their younger years, Scott had followed him up there; but mostly, he had it to himself. Thus, when he lifted himself over the edge only to find someone else already there, he was a bit surprised - and just a tad irritated to have his sanctuary invaded, however irrational he knew the feeling to be.

Kurt Wagner looked up as he felt the wind from Warren's wings. As before in the dining hall, he raised a hand as if to hide himself, or ward off Warren, but then seemed to remember and lowered the hand, watching out of the corner of his eye as Warren settled beside him on the north gable. "I see I'm not the only one who escapes to the heights," Warren said as he crouched down, wings half extended for balance. The sun was warm on them despite the cool air of fall.

Wagner's smile was somewhere between shy and sly as he said, "Every roof should have its gargoyle."

"Or angel," Warren replied, refusing to resort to pity. "We make a matched set, don't you think?"

And Wagner laughed. On the lawn below, some of the kids were taking advantage of a nice day to play badminton while the gardener pruned hedges for the coming of winter. After a while, Warren said, "I've been to Munich a few times. Beautiful city."

Wagner nodded and smiled. "Ja, und danke schön."

"Did you grow up there?"

Wagner nodded, paused, then blurted out, "Were you born with the wings?"

Warren hid his surprise. "No. They . . . sprouted, I guess you could say, when I was sixteen. Hurt like hell. Took about three months to reach their full size." He glanced at Wagner. "Were you born blue?"

"Ja." A pause, then, "I saw you, earlier, arriving. You did not have the wings."

Warren snorted. "Oh, I had them. They were just hidden under my jacket. See, the rest of the world thinks I have a spinal deformity, but the wing bones grow such that I can fold them up and hide them under a coat or suit jacket. It's not comfortable, and it's not perfect, but they can be hidden."

Wagner was staring at him, or rather, at the enormous wings. "But they are so beautiful . . . "

"Not to my parents."

"Ah, yes." Wagner sighed. "Not to parents, genau! Mine gave me away when I was born."

Warren couldn't say he was surprised, but still. "I'm sorry."

"Do not be. It was for the best. I was left with the Zigeuner, the Roma - you call us Gypsies - who raised me. They are not so afraid of difference."

"Wise people," Warren said. He didn't know much about the Rom. What little he did know came from European business partners who mostly regarded them as a source of cheap labor but a social nuisance. Europe's migrant workers. Then again, Warren doubted any of those partners would have taken in a small blue child with yellow eyes and a spade tail. "So how did you end up here?"

At this question, Wagner turned his head on the side and looked away in shame. "It is not to be discussed."

"Sorry. I didn't mean to pry."

"I promise you, I am no danger to anyone here."

"I'm sure you're not. If you were, the professor would never have let you stay." Reaching out, Warren clasped Wagner's shoulder, and if the blue man seemed surprised by the touch, he didn't flinch, as Warren had half-expected. "A lot of our students - and the adults for that matter - have things in their pasts they don't want to talk about. Don't worry about it."

Kurt smiled. It really was a charming smile, once one got past the teeth. "Would you like some coffee, Herr Worthington - real Romani coffee?"

"Please, call me Warren. And sure, if you're ready to go in, we can -" Warren had started to rise, but Kurt reached out to tug him back.

"No, wait here. I will be only a moment -" And he disappeared, just like he had the other morning in the dining hall. It left behind a faint sulfuric stink, like rotten eggs, and Warren wrinkled his nose, but the wind blew it away quickly and he glanced about. There was no evidence of Wagner, yet he'd said to wait, so Warren waited.

Only a few minutes later, that odd popping noise like a sucking of air announced Wagner's return. He was carrying two mugs of steaming coffee. One he handed over. "For you - Warren. And please, call me Kurt."

Smiling, Warren took the coffee. It looked as black as ink, and was hot. He sipped it, finding it strong and sweet, and not overcooked as the coffee too often was in the mansion. "This is good," he said, glancing up. "Thank you."

And Kurt gave that charming grin again, settling in with his own mug, his tail wrapped casually over the gable top. "You should try my Románo tcháyo - fruit tea."

"I'd like to," Warren said, smiling and sipping more of the sweet coffee. Then, abruptly, the smile fell off his face. What was he doing up here on the roof, chatting about tea and coffee with a blue Gypsy? Jean was dead, and that evening, he would have to talk to Scott about her funeral.

Kurt noticed his change of expression. "What is wrong?" he asked, not in a nosy way, but with genuine concern.

Warren hesitated, unsure how much he should share with the newcomer, but in the last few days, he'd gathered that Kurt was now a part of this place, taken in by Xavier just as all of them had been once. "This morning I went down to visit the county commissioner. Jean's disappearance is still an open case, but for a variety of reasons, we need to have it closed, informally if not formally. So I asked the right questions to get the answers needed so that the commissioner can put the case in the cold file box - which is the next best thing to closing it. Doing so will make holding a funeral for her a bit less suspicious." Warren took a deep breath. "Scott couldn't do it, or her family. It had to be Xavier or me. Since I was out of the country when the 'accident' occurred, it made more sense for it to be me."

Kurt was nodding. "It is good to have a funeral. Her soul must know that she is mourned and missed. Otherwise there will be more hauntings."

Warren leaned forward. "What do you mean?"

"I heard what happened in Herr Summers' room . . . ." Kurt turned his head slightly to the side; it seemed to be a peculiar gesture indicating discomfort or curiosity, then he shook his head and hissed through his teeth. "The broken mirror . . . her soul is unhappy, restless - jealous. If we do not show her proper mourning, it will go badly for us."

Ah, just superstition then. "The professor thinks Scott did the damage, Kurt." That got the other man's attention. "Scott's had . . . a hard life. Xavier thinks it might be a manifestation of post-traumatic stress disorder. Scott did the damage and then promptly suppressed the memory. Don't say as much to him, please, but it's the only explanation that makes much sense."

Kurt's smile was amused. "So the gadje would explain it. Forgive me, Herr Worthington - Warren - but we believe that the soul does not end with the body. It remains. And if we, the living, seem to profit from the death, then the soul will become angry. We do not keep the belongings of the dead, and we do not speak their name. And we always, always give to them a grand funeral, so their soul can see how they are honored. But none of these things have been done for her. It is almost as if she has been forgotten. I know that is not true, but her soul must see that it is not, or she will continue to haunt us."

Warren had to resist getting angry; Kurt didn't mean any disrespect. "I'm afraid our customs aren't the same as yours, and believe me, if there is such a thing as a soul and Jean's is still around, she'd have to see how much we -" He stopped, eyes filling and hands beginning to shake, his features twisting as he tried to keep from sobbing. Wagner reached out and took the cooling coffee mug from his fingers, then just sat beside him while he cried. "We miss her . . . I miss her . . . ."

"You were in love with her," Kurt said softly - and not judgmentally.

"We were all in love with each other," Warren replied. "It's complicated." Then he glanced at Kurt. "You're scandalized."

But Kurt only shook his head. "It is not for me to judge the hearts of others." He smiled very faintly. "Especially not when those hearts are broken with sorrow." He handed Warren back the mug so Warren could take a long drink. Then they sat together, drinking coffee in the sun, and Warren asked Kurt to tell him about life in the Munich Circus.

"Dinner is served." Warren pushed open the (recently repaired) door to Scott's suite, carrying a pair of plates.

Scott glanced up. "What is this?" Then he saw what was on the plates - salmon and asparagus - and let out a bark of laughter. "Friday night cuisine!"

"We had taste."

"We had money."

"That, too." Warren set down one of the plates on a portable tray in front of Scott. "I cooked."

"Edna let you in the kitchen?"

"I know my way around one, so she protested only a little."

Scott snorted in reply. In the week and a half since her arrival, Hank's mother had not only made the infirmary her own, she'd taken over the kitchen, too, appalled to find the mansion had no chef since Xavier's old family cook had retired five years ago. "I don't know how you all survived," she'd exclaimed.

And Warren did, in fact, know his way around a kitchen. When he'd first come to Xavier's, years ago, it had been Scott who'd taught him the finer points of washing-machine operation and how to run a vacuum cleaner, and Scott who'd first taught him the rudiments of cooking, as well. But the student had soon surpassed the teacher when it came to food, and during their time at Yale, the maid had cleaned the apartment and done Warren's wash - but Warren had cooked. Some might have called it an affectation, but Warren genuinely liked it. There was something soothing about it, something simple. One combined ingredients, added spices, and produced results. There was art involved, but not the knife-edge balance of astute risk investment versus conservative assessment of capital required for business. Warren managed the latter art well, too, but it was exhausting. At the end of a day with too many meetings, he could go hide in his kitchen and cook and forget for a little while that in the morning he would need to make decisions that might win or lose Worthington Industries millions, or billions. If a culinary experiment didn't work out, at most he had an inedible dinner.

But his mind was always working, and he'd made some of his best and shrewdest choices while in the kitchen, by thinking at them sideways rather than dwelling on them.

This evening, he'd been thinking about the problem of Scott and his assessment of Jean's death. Something about it didn't gel, even while something about it did. Warren wished he knew more of what had happened between Jean and Logan when Logan had returned. Key pieces of the puzzle were missing, and for all that Scott was a brilliant tactician, his assessment of human motives was sometimes faulty.

Now, though, Scott was focused on the salmon, and dug right in as if he were starving - which he might well have been. Warren wasn't sure when he'd last eaten. Flicking his wings to sit down by Scott on the sofa, Warren pulled up his own tray and began to eat as well. There was a nice Pinot Gris to go with the meal. They'd eaten a little before Scott asked, "You went to the police office today?"

"Yes."

"How'd it go?"

"We can plan her funeral."

Nodding, Scott took another bite of salmon as Warren stole a sideways glance in his direction, but Scott's expression was utterly blank. They may as well have been discussing the fish. Disturbed, Warren frowned down at his plate.

"He thinks she killed herself."

Xavier looked up from his desk to where Warren was leaning into the door jamb. It was far too early on a Saturday morning for most of the students (much less Scott) to be awake and about, but Xavier still gestured for him to come in and shut the door. "I know," the professor replied.

Pacing over to one of the office windows that overlooked the front garden, now dead or dying after the first frosts of November, Warren asked, "So did she? You were in her head at the end."

"No, Warren - she was in mine."

Surprised, Warren turned. "What - exactly - happened? You told me some, or showed me, I suppose, but I want to hear what you actually think happened."

"I think Jean finally tapped into her full potential. She was always cautious, you remember, and when she went to medical school, she lost much of the ground she'd gained."

"She was always studying, or later, doing rounds."

"Yes. And by the time she came back here, her powers had atrophied considerably."

"But she had shields. And she never had any trouble bespeaking Scott or me."

"Her shields were necessary, and she had bonds already with you both. Her skills mostly remained in place - it was her actual powers that were weakened. And she still resisted Cerebro. Or more properly, Scott resisted it for her."

"Scott's too damn protective."

"Indeed. And although it certainly caused a crisis at the time, I can't help but think my incapacitation during the Statue of Liberty incident was a blessing in disguise for her - and perhaps for Scott as well. It forced her to use Cerebro."

"Or gave her an excuse."

Xavier's answer to that was a faint smile, then he tilted his head slightly. "In fact, I wonder if using Cerebro may have unlocked something."

"A jump-start?"

"Of a sort. It was after, that her nightmares began, and the fact she was able to keep them from me is a testament to her growing strength."

Warren leaned his chin forward slightly in surprise. "You didn't know about them?"

"Not until after, no. Scott told me. But at the time, she didn't discuss them even with him. He knew about them because they woke him up, but he'd assumed she was talking to me - as I'm sure she intended. He only broached the subject with her on the very day of the attack on the president. Things spiraled from there."

Warren just shook his head. He was starting to wonder if he'd been the only one she'd been talking to in her last few months - and perhaps that was because he hadn't been physically there. If he had been . . . .

"If wishes were horses, Warren . . . ."

He frowned. "You're reading my mind."

Xavier ignored the rebuke. "The 'what if' game is a natural response to grief, but if we follow it too far, it leads us only into unanswerable recriminations. If I had been less busy, I might have noticed Jean's growing distress. If Scott were less reserved by nature, he might have confronted her about her nightmares sooner. If you had been here, you might have seen us all avoiding the big pink elephant in the mansion. But none of that was the case, and blaming ourselves for it now won't bring her back."

"So he's right? Scott's right? She suicided?"

"No, I don't believe that she did, although as I said, I can't be entirely certain since, at the end, it was she who entered my mind to speak to Scott one last time. I didn't enter hers. Thus, I saw only what she let me see, and she was far more focused on him. What I can say is that I felt from her an . . . overwhelming confidence. She knew what she was doing, Warren."

"But what was she doing? Scott has a point about the plane. If her powers had suddenly trebled -"

"Make that closer to increased a hundredfold, or perhaps even a thousandfold. The power that she exhibited in those last moments was . . . staggering, quite honestly. I've always known that Jean harbored far more potential than she'd even begun to tap, but I would never have predicted anything like what I saw and experienced at Alkali Lake. I am the most powerful telepath on the planet - that's a fact, not a boast." Reaching out, Xavier touched his model globe resting in its oak stand, spinning it gently. "But Jean not only reached out to my mind, she overwhelmed it. Scott seems to think I could have forced her to return to the plane. I couldn't." He looked back at Warren. "I was to Jean, at that moment, the same as she'd once been to me - like a child."

Even Scott's description of everything Jean had been telekinetically manipulating right before her death hadn't struck Warren as powerfully as that simple statement from Xavier, and his wings arched almost unconsciously. "Holy Christ." What had she become? But he didn't ask the question aloud; he was sure Xavier had already asked it of himself. "Adrenaline?" He was hoping for a less frightening explanation than the obvious.

"I do not know. Perhaps. But when she spoke through me, I felt as if . . . as if I'd been possessed." He looked up, his face stony serious. "I have not shared that with Scott. He has enough on his mind."

Warren sat down in one of the chairs - or more properly, sank down because his legs would no longer support him. "Charles, if she was really that powerful, there's no reason at all that she couldn't have survived. She could have . . . lifted herself, flown; she could have wrapped herself up in a cocoon when the water hit; she could have done anything."

Xavier simply nodded. "I think that is probably true. But you must remember - we are looking at all of this with 20-20 hindsight. Jean was not concerned with herself in those last minutes. If I can say anything for certain about her state of mind, it was desperate with fear for us, but also utterly determined. She had mere minutes - or less, really, when she finally tapped into her full potential - and she was concentrating on lifting the ship and running the engines, as well as on holding off the water. I very much doubt - in the crisis - she gave thought to what she might do. She was too busy thinking about what she had to do. You understand?

Warren nodded. He did. And it sounded just like Jean - impetuous, full of a fiery conviction, but not really thinking beyond the moment.

"She was not afraid, or not for herself," Xavier went on. "I do not believe that she elected to die when she might have lived, but that she honestly did not realize she had the option."

"Scott -"

"- is angry. And in pain. And all his insecurities have come back in full force. Furthermore, Scott has extensive experience at surviving crises that Jean did not. The way his mind works under pressure is quite different from the way hers did - or yours, or mine. That's why he commands the X-Men. The children sometimes call him 'fearless' in jest, but he is full of fear in his normal life. Yet in a crisis, he thinks more clearly than most - it's what makes him a survivor. Jean and Scott were good for one another because she knew what it meant to be normal, and he didn't; she taught him. Yet he knew how to be calm in the crunch, which she didn't. He was her strength."

Warren nodded. It was, in fact, why, all those years ago, he'd stepped aside gracefully, encouraging Jean to go after Scott. Jean knew "normal" better than Warren, who'd been an orphan in essence if not in fact. Jean had been able to give Scott what he needed in a way Warren never could have. (All of that had stood quite independent of Scott's issues regarding male attraction.)

But now, he said, "Scott told me he did think of how to save her, but she wouldn't listen to him."

Xavier sighed. "That is, to some degree, his own fault. And I say that not to blame, but as the truth he doesn't want to hear. He's always been so protective of her that she severed her ties to him before leaving the plane, so he wouldn't sense what she was contemplating, and he was too distracted to notice until she was already gone. That is why she used me to speak to him; she was afraid to open herself to him, afraid she might lose her resolve - and her concentration - under the assault of his own panic. He is, normally, an excellent commander."

"Except when it comes to Jean."

"Precisely."

Inexpressibly sad, Warren looked away. Jean had cut off the one person who might have been able to save her life because, while he'd trusted her with his weaknesses, he'd never quite trusted her with her own - and she'd let him wrap her in felt. And Warren hadn't been there to knock sense into either of them, if he'd even have had time. "So she really didn't commit suicide."

"Not beyond the choice of her life for ours - and I do believe she saw it in those terms. I wish that Scott could believe that, as well."

Nodding, Warren stood up and straightened his slacks. "Thank you."

"You're welcome."

But even as he left, he still wasn't sure that he'd really reached the bottom of the matter.

It was later that same day that Warren took the professor's Bentley into the city to pick up Hank at JFK. He'd offered to take Edna, but she'd declined, saying she'd see Hank soon enough and, "You two boys need an hour or so to catch up." Meaning Warren could fill Hank in on Scott's precarious emotional state.

The zoo of JFK reminded Warren why he kept his own plane, and perhaps he should just have sent his pilot down to pick up Hank at Hartsfield, but at least they were able to coordinate via cell phone, and he was in and out of the central terminal drive as quickly as possible. With Hank and luggage in tow, they were back on the Van Wyck Expressway through Queens, headed north. Hank turned in his seat then and said, "All right, the low-down please. Between your emails and Mom's, I'm concerned."

So Warren told Hank everything that had happened since his arrival, almost three weeks earlier, up to and including his conversation with Xavier that morning. When he was done, Hank sat silently for a while and watched the passing scenery. They were leaving the Bronx, crossing over into Westchester County. It had taken that long for Warren to relate the recent news. "Your leaves are all done, I see," Hank said while he watched out one of the windows. "Ours are at their height. I was just up in Rabin's Gap last weekend, to see the fall colors, and bought boiled peanuts for Scott."

Warren shook his head. "What do boiled peanuts have to do with anything?"

"Why, nothing at all."

"You're the non-sequitur king, Hank."

"I have nothing in particular to offer on the situation, although I am inclined to agree with the professor. Jean and I were not in regular correspondence, these last years, but we did talk at least semi-regularly. Nothing she said to me would have indicated a level of distress, depression, or anxiety that might lead her to choose death when she could've lived. Yet I can see Jean choosing to sacrifice herself for others. There was always a part of her that felt . . . inadequate, I think."

Warren glanced over, curious because he'd sometimes caught a sense of the same thing. "What do you mean?"

"She measured herself against those around her and found herself wanting. So many had survived horrors she hadn't - Scott not least - that she felt guilty, I think. She wanted to make it better for them, but worried that she wasn't as . . . 'authentic,' I suppose. She didn't feel like an authentic mutant because she hadn't suffered rejection and prejudice for her mutancy. I have always wondered if that may not be one reason behind her zealous championing of the mutant rights cause? Yet even that she did publicly as a 'mutant researcher' not a mutant, and if anyone wondered at her interest, they didn't need to look any further than her fiancé."

Warren frowned; Jean had never admitted any of these doubts to him. "She told you this?"

"Oh, not directly. But from the occasional Freudian slip, I put it together. Jean said once, 'Scott and Ro go pull kids out of all kinds of terrible situations, but I just sequence their DNA.'"

"Jean was the one who went before the Joint Session," Warren pointed out. "That could've been career suicide."

"But not actual suicide," Hank replied. "I suspect Jean wanted, more than anything else, to believe that her contribution really mattered. Like many children of privilege, she felt guilty."

Angered by that, Warren protested, "Of course she mattered!"

"To us. Yet she doubted herself. Jean was always everyone's cheerleader except her own."

And Warren found he couldn't argue with that.

John and Elaine Grey drove down to Westchester to help plan Jean's memorial service. Xavier had told them both a modified version of the truth, leaving out such details as the Brotherhood's involvement. "I didn't want them to think their daughter's death just an accident. I wanted them to know she was a hero." But the expressions on their faces, when Warren received them in the grand entry, were neither thankful nor friendly.

"Warren," Dr. Grey said, offering his hand to shake while remaining stiff-faced and formal. It wasn't the most auspicious of beginnings, although Warren wasn't sure what else he'd expected. They'd lost their daughter.

The meeting itself was to be small - only Jean's parents, Xavier, Scott, Warren and Hank. Even Ororo wasn't there, but Warren was especially relieved that Logan hadn't been included, though he'd caught a snippet of angry confrontation between Logan and Scott earlier in the gym:

"You have no right to be there, Wolverine."

"I loved her, too."

"No, you didn't. You didn't know her enough to love her."

"Scott?" Warren had interrupted before things could get ugly. "I need you."

Scott had kept up the staring contest with Logan a moment more before turning to follow Warren. "Still putting out fires," Scott had said casually when they were out of earshot.

"You're like a pit bull sometimes."

"He doesn't belong there."

"I didn't say he did."

"He started it."

"Scott, that sounds like one of your students."

Yet Warren couldn't blame Scott for his resentment, and thought Logan's exclusion wise. This meeting was bound to be uncomfortable, and Scott's indiplomacy would be enough to handle without adding the Wolverine to the mix.

It wasn't that Scott didn't get along with Jean's parents. In fact, he did; but he'd never been entirely comfortable with them. Their academic, upper-class manners had made him feel inadequate, and Jean - respecting Scott's wishes - had never told them all about his background, so they'd been unable to understand the standoffish nature of their future son-in-law. Thus, while they'd gotten along, it had never been a particularly warm relationship. If anything, Warren got along with them better, and Elaine had once remarked to him in casual passing, "It's too bad it didn't work out for you and Jean." Warren didn't think she'd intended it as a deliberate slight to Scott, yet it did point to a certain distance between the Greys and their daughter's fiancé. (The fact Scott had never formally married Jean hadn't helped.)

Now, as Scott entered the professor's office, their greeting for him was even more reserved than it had been for Warren, and he and the Greys sat on the opposite sides of the little circle of chairs Xavier had set up in front of his desk. On one side of Xavier were John and Elaine, then Hank across from him, with Scott and Warren on the other.

"Let's get started," Xavier said. "Scott has with him a letter outlining Jean's own final wishes. I faxed or gave everyone a copy of this earlier. Jean stressed a small memorial with donations to various charities rather than flowers, but under the circumstances, we may need to have two memorials, one for those aware of the true nature of her death, and one for those who aren't."

"Charles," John Grey interrupted, "I know we've been over this before, but I simply must bring it up again. What was our daughter doing on a vigilante excursion to Canada?"

"Saving us."

That had come - a bit unexpectedly - from Scott. Warren had thought Scott too angry to defend her, but his feelings must have been more ambivalent than he was letting on. "The professor and I," Scott went on, "and Ro and a dozen others - we wouldn't be here today except for Jean."

"I know that," John Grey snapped back. "But what I want to know is what she was doing up there in the first place?"

"Gentlemen, please," Xavier interceded smoothly. "We all knew an attack on the mansion was a possibility as mutant hysteria rose. John, you saw two years ago the blueprints for the escape tunnels I had constructed. This wasn't entirely unexpected, even if we didn't anticipate paramilitary. Most of our students got away to a concealed shelter, but the adults remaining went after those who'd been kidnaped, fearing they were in mortal danger." As had been Xavier and Scott themselves, but the professor didn't remind the Greys of that.

"Why couldn't it have been left to authorities who specialize in hostage situations?" John asked.

"Because we weren't sure to what degree the authorities were directly involved - may even have been responsible. Ororo and Jean believed they had the best chance for a rapid penetration and retrieval."

"Which left one dead, and might have resulted in all of you dying," John countered. "You doubt the professionals, but I have to wonder if they couldn't have managed a rescue without losing anyone in the process - especially untrained civilians!"

It was a harsh critique, but fair enough from John's perspective. John and Elaine didn't know about the X-Men, and the Danger Room training that went with it. Jean had been unwilling to tell them, knowing they would have protested her involvement, however partial and periodic.

"Jean was our physician," Xavier said now, "and she and Ororo had no idea in what shape the children might be. I know you believe we should have left it to the authorities, but I can only reiterate what I've told you now several times. We didn't trust the authorities to handle the matter. Recall that Scott and I were both abducted from a federal maximum-security prison."

John shifted, uncomfortable, but Elaine said, "You make it sound as if there were a government plot against mutants, Charles."

"I'm not sure there wasn't. The president is, now, disavowing knowledge, but I've been told that he originally authorized the strike against the mansion. He simply didn't know how far Stryker planned to take it, or what Stryker's ultimate plans were."

Both the Greys shared a glance. "Charles, this is America. Things like that -"

"- don't happen in America?" Scott interrupted, tone sarcastic. He'd been sitting, tense, beside Warren all through the professor's polite debate, and was spoiling for a fight. "Oh yes, they do. The government can get away with murder because its citizens don't want to believe they will."

"Scott," Xavier and Hank said together even as Elaine replied, "Isn't that rather harsh?"

"Only if it's untrue. Look at the news that's come out about torture of detainees at Guantanamo Bay. This house - a school, dammit - was attacked by a black ops group funded by the U.S. government. Fear of terrorism covers a multitude of sins. Or now, fear of mutants."

"Well, you have to admit, men like Erik Lehnsherr frighten the average citizen."

"And the average mutant," Hank slipped in - cutting off Scott - as he laid a hand on Elaine's shoulder. "I understand your fears, but believe me, those fears are shared by many mutants, as well. The same problems arise with Muslim terrorists. Just because some Muslims are terrorists, it doesn't follow that all Muslims are, yet it becomes easy to view all Muslims with doubt and hostility due to the actions of a radical minority. Even if one understands the doubt, that doesn't necessarily help relations between the two groups - relations that might, otherwise, go a fair way towards undermining the very tensions that terrorists of any stripe use in order to recruit new members. It's a nasty cycle. Fear breeds hate, and hate breeds violence, which just breeds more fear. Those of us who can be reasonable and refuse to submit to the fear must do our best not to fall into that trap. There are mutants who work against the activities of Erik Lehnsherr. Jean was among them by promoting education that fostered understanding."

"But that shouldn't have cost her her life," John said, still resentful. "She was a researcher, not a policewoman."

"She was a civil rights activist, John. Martin Luther King began as a Baptist minister, yet his convictions catapulted him to the forefront of the civil rights movement. Jean was a researcher, yes, but she was also a woman of strong convictions about the rights of mutants."

John, however, persisted. "She wasn't shot by an anti-mutant protestor. She died escaping a paranoid lunatic who should've been left to the authorities. The plain truth is that you and your teachers had no business being up there in the first place."

"We didn't have any say about being up there - !" Scott began.

Xavier held up a restraining hand. "We'll have to disagree on that. You remain convinced that the authorities could have handled the problem, while I remain convinced they not only couldn't, but - more importantly - wouldn't. Jean thought the same; that's why she was there."

"Elaine and I think you misled her to her own death."

"Jean was 33 years old!" Scott snapped, unable to hold his tongue. "She wasn't a teenager! And the professor didn't mislead her at all - "

"Scott," Elaine interrupted in that soothing mother tone, "all of you depended so much on Dr. Xavier's guidance - "

"He didn't make the goddamn decision! Don't you get it? We weren't here. Jean and Ro were in charge. They came after us. If you want to blame someone for Jean being up there, blame Jean!"

That halted conversation cold and Warren watched both Greys visibly withdraw into themselves, refusing to look at Scott - or anyone else. Xavier appeared annoyed but, interestingly, didn't intervene. He'd been playing the diplomat, tacitly accepting the blame so Jean's parents could grieve for their daughter without being angry at her, too. Yet Scott - already angry - was disinclined to offer them that courtesy.

Finally, John looked up at Scott and asked bluntly, "So you agree she didn't belong up there?" If Scott wasn't going to let him escape the truth, he wasn't going to let Scott escape a judgment.

But Scott only snorted. "What else should she and Ro have done? If you think the government's after you, you don't call them up and ask for their help."

"It's not 'us against them,'" Elaine scolded, albeit gently. "Law enforcement groups have different jurisdictions - not to mention two different countries were involved. Just because one group may be corrupt, it doesn't mean all of them are. You're too suspicious, Scott."

Scott glared, jaw working. Finally, he said, "Fine, you trust them with your safety. I'll trust my own wits. The law isn't about justice; it's about the law, and half my life, I've been screwed over by the law. If I'm suspicious, I think I have damn good reason." He turned to John then and went on, "What I didn't agree with was Jean's choice to leave the plane. I think she could've done what she did from inside. She obviously didn't think so. In the end, it was her choice. I was her partner, not her parent. She's a grownup. I couldn't stop her - I wouldn't stop her . . . ."

Sorrow abruptly overwhelmed his anger, choking him. He brought up the back of his hand to his mouth, but no one interrupted now. Finally, he managed, "I wouldn't have stopped her, even if it cost . . . cost me her."

He rose abruptly, almost knocking over his chair in his haste to leave, and alarmed, Warren started to bolt after but Xavier said quietly, "No, let him have a few minutes."

Xavier turned then to the Greys, who seemed equal parts shocked, concerned, and irritated. "He did try to stop her," Xavier told them quietly. "She didn't permit it because she feared the alternative would cost all our lives. Scott is still working through the fact he failed to save her, and he's angry at himself as much as at anyone else. But he does have a point - Jean was an adult. Whether or not we agree with her choices, they were hers to make, and we take away her dignity, and her heroism, if we deny her the right to have chosen what she believed a necessary sacrifice. Jean laid down her life so that others could live, especially the children placed under her care. That same devotion to the preservation of life is what first sent her into medicine. She was, to the end, a servant. I honor that, and I want her memorial to honor that."

John Grey bowed his head, while Elaine put an arm around him, her face pressed against his shoulder. Hank was teary-eyed, as well. "She was my little girl, Charles," John said, voice rough. "She was my little girl. Parents aren't supposed to bury their children."

"I know," Xavier said softly, nodding to Warren and gesturing to the silver tea service on the lowboy. Warren rose to pour. It gave everyone time to gather their composure, but Warren wondered at the steadiness of his own hand on the pot and cups - and why Jean's death still felt so distant to him most of the time. To be sure, there were moments of piercing pain, but more often, he felt detached. Perhaps it was only because they couldn't all break down at once.

Someone had to serve the tea.