Chapter Seven:

Of Meetings

"Logan, my repeated requests about smoking in the mansion notwithstanding, continue smoking that in here and you will spend the rest of your days under the belief that you are a six year old girl."

Logan blinked at the Professor, who ignored him in favor of Cerebro's control panel. "You'd do that?" he asked around the cigar in his mouth.

Xavier looked up and shot him a small smile. "I'll have Jean braid your hair."

Carefully, Logan put the cigar out on his palm and stepped forward, the doors sliding smoothly shut behind him. The machine started to hum, and he gave it a slightly wary look. "You want me to leave?"

That earned him another small smile, and the Professor slid the helmet on carefully. "Just—don't move."

The world fell away around them, and left them in empty space, an image of the earth rotating in the darkness. Its surface was scattered with millions of tiny white lights, interspersed here and there with red. Logan watched them shift and tremble for a moment, then looked back at the Professor.

Xavier was watching them, too, something very close to awe on his face. "Those lights represent the whole of humanity. Every living soul on every continent," he murmured. The white lights flickered and faded, leaving only the red, and the awe turned to wistfulness. "And these are the mutants—many of them don't even realize who they are yet. You see, we're not as alone as you think."

Logan thought about protesting, insisting that he didn't think they were alone—but weren't they? The white dots had outnumbered the red by millions, and the Professor could still calmly say they weren't alone? He scowled, and growled, "I found the base at Alkali Lake. There was nothing there."

The Professor didn't seem to hear him as the red lights faded, too, leaving only a jagged, broken red line that zigzagged up the East Coast. With a frown, Xavier shook his head slightly. "Odd. This broken line represents the path of the mutant who attacked the president. I'm finding it hard to lock on to him."

Giving up on getting any answers for the moment, Logan sighed. "Can't you just increase the…signal?"

"If I wanted to kill him, yes," Xavier countered with faint amusement, and Logan was reminded of just why the man was able to control an entire school worth of angsty mutant balls of hormonal teenage wrath. Charles Xavier was damned scary when he wanted to be.

Before he could say anything to that effect, though, the map flickered to show the red dot in Boston, coordinates writing themselves beside it. Xavier smiled. "It looks like he's finally stopped running, and…" He trailed off, eyes narrowing, and suddenly the multitude of red dots was back. One in particular was glowing brightly, even more so than the others, right next to the mutant Cerebro had been tracking.

His small supply of patience finally exhausted by the long moment of silence, Logan growled low in his throat. "I need you to read my mind again."

Slight frown firmly in place, Xavier closed his eyes, and the darkness collapsed around them, reforming into Cerebro's chamber. He removed the helmet and sighed. "Logan, I cannot help you. Using my telepathy is far too risky." He met Logan's irate gaze with eyes full of calm understanding. "If you must occupy yourself, you may accompany Jean and Storm in apprehending this mutant. I promise we will talk more when I return. I will be back shortly—Scott and I are going to pay a visit to an old friend."

Logan growled and turned on his heel, stalking out the door. Xavier watched him go with a sigh, and then turned to look back at Cerebro's control panel. Like an afterimage, he could see that strangely bright red light, and wondered at it.

The Time Turners tumbled through his veins with a speed that Harry had never felt before, and he stumbled, just managing to catch himself on one of the pews as a dizzying parade of images spun past his eyes—a man in a plastic prison; another man with a cruel smile and cold eyes; a woman with an empty gaze and fingernails like knives; a blue-skinned woman who became someone else even as he watched; Wolverine with that same disoriented, not-lost look that he had worn in New Orleans; an older man in a wheelchair, with wise eyes reminiscent of Dumbledore's; people in dark clothing like a SWAT team, coming for—

Harry tore himself away from the glimpses and shook his head to clear it, scrubbing his free hand over his eyes as he panted for breath. It was too much information, too much knowing, and he couldn't handle it, not all at once. He swallowed convulsively, fighting back the urge to scream. It wouldn't help.

"Harry?" Kurt asked softly, touching his shoulder gently. "Vat is wrong?" There was concern in his voice, worry in his posture, and Harry tried to push through the past-present-future rush and focus on the teleporter. He blinked several times, and then managed a small nod, sorting through the images to find the ones that were relevant.

"Someone's coming," he said softly, "looking for you. We need to go somewhere else. Is there anywhere we can get sanctuary? A place where mutants are safe?"

Kurt hesitated, but their time together had taught him not to question what Harry saw. "Der is…a school, in New York. De mutants I have encountered…dey say it is a good place for children to go, but ve are not—"

Harry cut him off with a shake of his head. "It doesn't matter. If they help children, there's no reason for them not to help us." Seeing the doubt that flickered and grew in Kurt's golden eyes, the wizard managed a small smile and placed a gentle hand on the mutant's arm. "What happened wasn't your fault, Kurt. Someone was controlling you. If they have an ounce of sense, they won't blame you for it."

His words didn't completely banish the concern in Kurt's face, but they did ease a bit of the tension in his shoulders, and he nodded. "I vill take us. I haf seen pictures, once."

"I'll pack," Harry offered, letting his hand rest where it was a moment longer. "But we need to go quickly. Five minutes?"

Kurt nodded, squaring his shoulders. "I vill be ready. Haf you…seen something?"

Already halfway up the ladder, Harry hesitated, biting his lip. "Just…a sense of urgency, and a man in a wheelchair who will be hurt if we don't go quickly. We need to stop him before he can leave." Without waiting for an answer, he scrambled the rest of the way into the left and hurriedly began packing what clothes they had managed to acquire.

Kurt watched him with a solemn gaze, wondering exactly what Harry had seen to concern him so much.

They appeared in with a crack, a whirl of blue smoke, and the smell of brimstone, and were nearly bisected by a beam of red light out of nowhere. Only an instant Shield Charm from Harry, who had anticipated a less-than-welcoming response to their dramatic arrival, saved them—and Harry still felt distinctly singed, since he had only just managed to make it large enough to cover their bodies, and the beam had deflected right past the side of his face.

Nevertheless, he raised his hands and shouted, "Stop! We seek sanctuary!"

The beam cut off instantly, and Harry was left blinking away the afterimages left by its brilliance. He squinted, peering at the two men in front of him, and frowned. "Sir," he said, as politely as possible, "If you keep going, you and your companion—" The man with red glasses regarded him warily, but held his peace "—will be kidnapped and tricked into killing every mutant on the planet with, er, Cerebrum? Something of the sort, anyway. I assume it means more to you than it does to me."

The wheelchair-bound man frowned back at him, but in confusion. Harry let him look, leaning against Kurt, as he wasn't yet completely steady after the Time Turners' extreme reaction. The older man's eyes flickered over him, assessing. "Young man, who are you?"

"Oracle," Harry answered promptly, before Kurt could offer either of their real names. "This is Nightcrawler. Someone controlled him and forced him to teleport into the Oval Office to attack the President."

"Oracle," the man repeated, eyes narrowing faintly. "I take it that you can see the future, then?"

Harry nodded. "Only glimpses, only sometimes, but I saw this clearly, and almost completely. I thought it was better to come to you before anything else happened."

"Ve had heard dat you took in mutant children," Kurt offered quietly. "I could not dink of anyvhere else to go."

The man hesitated for another long moment, then looked up at met their eyes with a smile. "Of course, you will be safe here. I am Professor Charles Xavier, and this is Scott Summers, one of the professors here. Why don't we go to my office and see if we can get to the bottom of this, hm? Scott, please tell Logan, Jean, and Storm that they aren't needed for that retrieval, and then join us."

"All four of us, Professor?" Scott asked, sounding less than thrilled.

Xavier smiled faintly and nodded. "Yes, and Dr. McCoy, if you can succeed in prying him out of his lab. I believe it would be to all our benefits to hear what Oracle has to say." He turned his attention back to Harry and Kurt. "If you would accompany me?"

There was nothing to do but agree.

Logan smelled them the moment they arrived, the near-painful stench of brimstone overlaying the more delicate scent of earthy herbs and biting mint with a citrus chaser. He paused on the ramp of the Blackbird, eyes narrowing as he scented the air. That second scent was almost…familiar.

"Logan?" Storm looked at him with soft concern from where she was stowing their bags. "What is it?"

He hesitated for another moment, and then jumped off the ramp, heading for the door. "Intruders," he called back. "Might want to hold off on that preflight stuff 'til we know if they're friendly or not."

Exchanging a quick glance with Jean, the white-haired woman followed him. "It's not a student?"

Logan shook his head. "Too old. They're with Chuck and Slim right now. No fighting, but they're tense."

"Impressive nose," Storm murmured, smiling slightly as they strode out of the hangar and towards the front of the school.

Wolverine shot her a quelling look. "No bloodhound jokes. I get enough of those from One-Eye already."

"I wouldn't dream of it," she promised solemnly, though her eyes were alight with amusement. As she was about to add something else, they turned the corner and she almost collided with Logan when he stopped dead, right in the middle of the lawn.

The four standing there turned, and the shortest one, a slim man with a long braid of black hair, went still. For a long moment, there was no sound.

Then, softly, the black-haired man began to smile, and stepped forward. "Hello, Wolverine," he said, and Storm had never heard someone speak so gently to Logan before. Logan seemed just as startled as she was, and took a half step forward, as though he were going to reach for the other man.

"Shorty," he said, and there was confusion in his voice. "Ain't you supposed to be down south with Gumbo? Where's the Swamp Rat?"

"Ah." The man's smile faltered, and he looked down, releasing them from the grip of bottle-green eyes as pain flickered over his face. "That's…a long story, really." His gaze flickered up again, intent and faintly concerned. "But why are you here? Your memories—"

Logan shook his head, feeling confusion wash over him. He knew Shorty—Oracle, the Cajun had always called him in company—but the knowledge of where he knew him from was fuzzy. "You…know? About the amnesia?"

The concern on Oracle's angular features grew. "You mean…you don't remember that, either? The beach? New Orleans? But you remember me, and Remy."

"It's…hazy," Logan admitted, his earlier frustration coming back tenfold. "I know you and Gumbo, but—"

"Oh, I see." Oracle looked relieved, and gave him another small smile. His eyes were kind behind his wire-framed glasses. "We were the ones who took you off the Island, after you lost your memories, and we were the ones who brought you there in the first place, so you could do what you needed to. You didn't give us much information, but I do know a bit about the Island, if you'd like me to tell you."

Logan caught his breath, abruptly overwhelmed. Here, in front of him, was someone who could give him a part of the answers he had been looking for all this time. It was far too easy for this to be anything but a dream, and yet it wasn't a dream at all.

Professor Xavier looked around at them, and a quick smile crossed his face. He chuckled, and then gestured for the rest of them to precede him into the mansion.

"I believe," he said calmly, "that we have much to discuss."