Scott glanced at his cell when it rang. It was Jean. He quickly pulled to the side of the highway and opened it.
"Hey Jean, how is it going?" He asked as the car came to a stop.
"Where are you?" she asked coldly.
"I'm near Providence," he answered, reading the sign he saw in the distance.
"You're supposed to be here."
"What?" and then he remembered what day this was. "Oh Damn, I'm so sorry. I completely forgot about going to your parents."
"How the fuck could you forget?" She yelled, "I reminded you last night. You said you'd be here. Do you have any idea how important it is to me that you meet my parents?"
"Look Jean, I said I was sorry," he said defensively, "I've just been busy trying to get the kids out of Brandon's grasp. You know how important that is."
"Yeah. I'm starting to see just where your priorities are," she said before hanging up."
Scott looked at the phone. What had she meant by that? He called her back, but she didn't answer.
^Jean?^ he sent as he put the phone away. She didn't respond to that either.
Scott cursed. Of everyone he'd have expected Jean to understand why he was doing this. He'd have to figure out a way to make it up to her when he got back. He pulled back on the highway and head north on the I95.
The house he walked up to was old, probably dating back to the twenties. It was a small two story home. It showed signs that it had be worked on in the last few years, but also showed signs of wear; the stucco was falling off in places.
He knocked and a woman wearing an apron answered.
"Hello," he said, "are you Max Merle's mother?" Max was the rock covered child he'd seen at Brandon's facility
"Yes, how can I help you?"
"Can I come in? I'd like to talk to you about your son."
She hesitated a moment before moving out of the way.
"Who's it, Liz?" a man asked from another room.
"Someone who's here to talk about Max."
A moment later the man was joining them. "What's wrong with our son?" He was a heavy set man with short curly brown hair.
"Nothing, as far as I know," Scott answered.
"What do you mean 'as far as you know'? Aren't you from Brandon?"
"No, I'm not."
"Who are you then?" she asked.
"My name is Scott Summers, I'd like to know what brought you to send your son there."
"What is it to you?"
"I'm concerned that you might have been coerced into it."
"What the hell are you talking about? Nobody forces us to do nothing."
"Then why did you send him there?"
"'Cause they said they'd try to cure him."
Scott kept his reaction under control by reminding himself these were just parents, not evil people. "Why do you think he needs to be cured?"
"Lemme show you something," the man said before guiding Scott to the back of the house. He pointed to a child size hole in the ceiling and removed a sheet of plywood covering a similar hole on the floor. "A year ago the floor gave out under Max. He was only eight and the floor couldn't support his weight."
"You could reinforce them."
"And how the hell am I suppose to pay for that? I'm just a factory worker I can just afford to pay my bills. You think these holes would still be there if I could afford to fix them?"
"Have you asked the government for help?"
"Sure I have, but his mutation doesn't qualify as a disability so they didn't do anything."
"How about the school system? I know they have program in place to help family of mutant children."
"You wanna know what the school's done for my son? Nada, except for having him come home crying because he was teased for the way he looks. Look I know the school's doing the best it can, but kids are cruel and they'll attack anyone who's different. So unless you have a school for mutant kids don't talk to me about asking them for help.
"If Brandon can't help my son I'll take him back and I'll do everything to give him a good life, but I pray to god that when my son comes back to us he looks like a normal boy should."
Scott had nothing he could say to that so he thanked them for their time and left. He understood their situation, but he didn't like it. He couldn't help feeling that Brandon was using these people's situation to his own advantage.
He checked his list, the family of the child who looked like a lizard lived on the north side of Boston he'd go talk to them and then head home.
* * * * *
Henry and Katherine were locked out of Brandon Pharmaceutical computers again. They had been at it all morning but every attack they launched was expertly blocked.
"Ok, that guy is definitely impressing me," she said as she stretched her arms. "I'm out of tricks, so I'm taking a break. You should take one too."
"In a while," Henry replied, continuing to type. He was pissed that Brandon's expert was better than he was. It wasn't vanity, it was from his need to help out the children. He had tried everything, even finding the man indirectly, but he couldn't find any trace of him. The man had completely covered his tracks. It spoke of someone with great skill and something to hide, which only reinforced his desire to get the children out of there. He set about infiltrating the government tax's system again. Brandon had to have declared the man somewhere on his reports.
Henry signed when someone massaged his shoulders. The hands were firm but tender and they worked on some of his knotted muscles. He closed his eyes for a moment to appreciate it.
"Thanks Thomas," He said after a minute of it.
The man leaned in and kissed him on the neck. "You need to come home Henry."
"In a while, I need to finish this first."
"You've been at it for three days now."
"I know. I just need to help these kids."
Thomas didn't say anything as he left and Henry went back to work.
Five minutes later the power in the room went out. Henry looked around in the utter darkness trying to figure out why it had happen. He stood and headed for the door.
He was almost there when he felt a wrenching sensation. He stopped moving. He was familiar with the feeling. Thomas had just taken him out of the real world and into a shadow. A moment later he was ejected out of it, he tripped and fell on his bed. When he sat up as Thomas walked out of the shadow.
"Why did you do that?" Henry asked in annoyance.
"I told you, you needed to come home," Thomas answered calmly as he removed his jacket.
"I was working on something important," the larger man said as he stood and headed for the door.
"No you weren't," Thomas replied as he covered it with a shadow. He had no intention of letting Henry leave.
Henry slammed a hand on the shadow in frustration and turned to face his lover. "Are you telling me you don't think recuing those kids isn't important?"
"Of course it is, but you weren't working. You were obsessing."
"No I wasn't."
"Henry, I watched you hack the IRS database. Do you have any idea how many laws you broke doing that? You would never have done it if you were being rational about this."
"What do you want me to do? Just forget about them? I can't do that."
"What I want you to do is come lie down on the bed and let me give you a massage. After that we are going to curl up together and sleep. I just spent two nights sleeping alone in *our* bed, I'm not doing that for a third one."
Henry glared at him, not moving.
"I'm not letting you out of this room until you do."
With a defeated sigh Henry lied down on the bed.
* * * * *
Katherine left Henry to whatever else he wanted to try and went out looking for her boyfriend. She found Peter in the weight room, working out his frustration. She removed her shirt and hung it on the hook next to the door. She picked up two ten pound barbells and sat next to Peter with was on the bench press.
"How did it go?" he asked as he groaned under the four hundred pounds he was pushing up.
"Poorly, we were blocked each time. Henry's still there trying something else." She lifted the barbells slowly.
"How can you be so calm about this?"
"What good is it going to do if I go ballistic? I'm just a genius hacker, not God. I've done everything I could think of and now we're going to have to think of something else."
"I want to walk up to that building and bring it down around that smug bastard."
She waited until he put the bar back on its stand and he sat on his stomach. "And what is that going to accomplish?"
"It would make me feel better."
"How about we go take a shower and I make you feel better instead?"
Peter smiled. "That sounds like a worthwhile compromise.
* * * * *
"Are you sure about this?" Bishop asked Ororo as he drove the pickup up the long driveway.
"We've discussed it already," she answered, "yes, I'm sure."
"How are the others going to react to it? Have you told them?"
"Love, they are going to be okay with it. No I didn't, but they trust you now. Scott would never have asked for your help rescuing those scientists if he didn't."
He nodded and came to a stop in front of the door to the mansion. "Speaking of that, how are you dealing with leaving the kids behind?"
"Brandon knows what to expect if he hurts them. If he didn't take my threat seriously that's his problem. How about you?" she asked as she took two of the lighter boxes off the bed of the truck.
Bishop shrugged and took the three heavy ones. Those five boxes contained everything he owned that he was comfortable bringing to the mansion, the rest was in a locker in Grand Central.
"It wasn't my decision, but I agree with it. We wouldn't have been able to win that fight without casualties. The kids didn't have any signs they had been mistreated before so there's no reason to think they will be now."
They passed Scott on the way to Ororo's room. He barely acknowledged them.
"What's with him?" Bishop asked.
"He and Jean had a fight a few days ago," she replied, "he's still trying to find a way to earn her forgiveness."
Bishop nodded and kept his thoughts to himself.
Once in her room she placed the boxes in a corner and looked around. "Is this going to be okay?" she asked him. He room was modest a bed, a drawer a closet, a window that let in the morning sun and an attached bathroom. "There're larger rooms we can move to if you want."
He put the boxes down and looked at her, without even glancing at the room. He hadn't been here before now. "We can look at them later if you want to," he said as he approached her, "whatever room we choose will be perfect as long as you are in it with me."
He kissed her passionately and she responded in kind.
