Logan hated suits. In fact, he'd almost bowed out of the public memorial because he hated suits - and because he didn't feel that he belonged there. He'd never been part of Jean's public life.

By contrast, Summers was sitting up front with the family, acting like the bereaved husband, and Logan resented that even while he had to acknowledge the kid's right. Logan had met Jean during one crisis and returned during another, all less than two months apart. In total, they'd spent maybe a week in one another's company, and whatever he'd said to her about being the good guy, it had been as much a defense of his pride as a serious pledge. Had he really thought he could fit himself into her normal world?

But God knew, he'd loved that woman. Of course, Summers didn't believe Logan capable of love, but what did the kid know? With his pretty manners and fine education and handsome face, Summers was all flash and no substance- - like this memorial - so it was fitting he was up there for public consumption while Logan sat in the back with the older kids. Ro and Xavier were watching the younger ones, and the new doctor and his mum were sitting with yet another group on the other side of the aisle. "Pretty upscale shebang," Logan muttered under his breath, after they were inside and seated.

"The Greys are important in Annandale," Drake whispered back. "Dr. Grey's father teaches at Bard, and I think that's the college president there." He pointed surreptitiously to a well-dressed older man and his wife. "There are a bunch of college people here, plus a couple senators, including Ted Kennedy." He pointed in another direction, and Logan just blinked.

Jean had known Teddy Kennedy well enough for him to attend her memorial service?

Holy Jesus.

"She born with a silver spoon in her mouth like Xavier?" Logan asked.

"Not rich, no. But pretty well off, yeah."

"So she's got a senator or three, a college president, and a mutant billionaire at her funeral." Logan brooded over that. Drake didn't reply. On Drake's other side, Marie was looking overwhelmed and Logan reached across to pat her knee, shooting her a tight smile.

The memorial itself was long and annoying and didn't have a lot to do with Jean, from Logan's point of view. He was glad when it was over, although that meant "mingling" for a bit until the professor signaled that they could return to the mansion. Logan escaped outside for a smoke, finding - to his utter astonishment - Summers engaged in the same, standing under a leafless maple tree off to one side of the church porch. Sauntering over with a cigar between his teeth, Logan asked, "Jean knew you snuck a few?" by way of greeting.

Summers just glared and took another pull from his cigarette - Camel Turkish Blend, if Logan wasn't mistaken, then they stood in awkward silence until Worthington exited the door, looking for Summers, and headed over. "I thought I might find you out here," he said, nodding cautiously to Logan.

A young woman had followed Worthington - a pretty little thing of Japanese extraction, and Logan assumed she was with Worthington until she slid an arm around Summers with easy familiarity and he didn't pull away, even hugged her back with his free hand. "Thank you," he said and Logan wondered what he was thanking her for.

"You're welcome," she said, smiling up at him with fond adoration.

And Logan blinked, comprehension dawning. She wasn't with Worthington. She'd come for Summers, and Jeannie must not have been the only one checking out greener pastures. In fact, maybe this was why she'd been checking out greener pastures, and Logan felt a slow burn start in his belly. The little piss-assed twerp . . . . "Who's this?" he asked brusquely, and Summers turned his head with unhurried insolence. Afternoon sun sketched hollows under his sculpted cheekbones. He looked like an Abercrombie-and-Fitch model in that fine suit.

"Logan, let me introduce you to Colleen Wing. Colleen and I went to college together - sang in the same a capella group. They performed today at the beginning."

"Oh." That interminable classical piece, Logan supposed.

"Colleen, this is Logan. He . . . helps out at the school."

"Doin' repairs," Logan clarified.

The girl was either shameless or dim, and held out a hand to him with genuine warmth. "It's nice to make your acquaintance, Logan."

He started to take the hand, but something in the shadows of his mind clicked and he bowed instead, saying, "Konnichi wa. Hajimemashite."

For three beats, there was complete silence - Logan just as astonished as the rest. But then the girl folded her hands formally, too, and lowered her eyes, bowing back and replying in kind, "Dozo yoroshiku onegai ishimasu." And he understood her. "When were you in Japan?" she asked, in English.

"Uh - don't remember." Both her eyebrows shot up, and behind her, Worthington and Summers were exchanging a glance. "I have a memory problem," he explained. "I was in an accident and lost some things."

"Oh - that's terrible. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to remind -"

"Don't sweat it, darlin'. But I can't say if I ever was in Japan, or how I know the language. I didn't know until just now that I did. Sometimes . . . things just come back to me."

"Well, if it helps any, I can tell you that's Nagoya-ben. Normally, it's not very different from Tokyo-ben, but I haven't heard an accent that distinct in years."

"Nagoya-ben?" Something familiar was turning over in the back of his brain.

"The dialect spoken around the city of Nagoya on the main island."

"Nagoya," he muttered to himself, storing that away to pursue later. "Thanks."

"You're welcome."

Conversation faltered, yet he wasn't about to let this chance escape, and for more reasons than just because she might be able to give him clues about his past. "So you went to college with Summers, eh? You two date?"

Summers' jaw was tensing, but the girl spoke before he could. "Scott's been a good friend for a long time, but he's loved Jean since I've known him." Reaching, she caught Summers' hand to squeeze, and Logan began to doubt his original assumption. The grip wasn't a lover's, even covertly. She was attracted, no doubt, but in a subdued way - dulled by time perhaps - and there was nothing sexual in Summer's scent or body language.

"Was he a dork then, too?" Logan asked.

Startled, she laughed - probably assuming he was kidding - then glanced back at Summers with that same fond smile. Yet it had a twinkle; she wasn't in awe of him. "Scott's not a dork, he just pretends to be." Her cheeks dimpled.

"Col -"

She ignored him. "He's got a lot of hidden talents. Get him to sing sometime. His voice is beautiful."

"Col-"

"It is. Though it won't be if you keep that up." She pointed to the still burning cigarette in his other hand. It was clearly an old quarrel because he took a defiant drag, then dropped the butt on the grass and ground it out.

"Started smoking in college to look all grown up?" Logan asked.

"I started smoking in eighth grade, Logan. I've been trying to quit for the past ten years."

"Not very hard," both the girl and Worthington said together.

And that definitely wasn't the answer Logan had expected, but if there were more to that tale, he wouldn't learn it today. Worthington had stepped forward to say, "Scott, we should go back in," and Summers nodded, letting Winged Boy and his Japanese friend lead him off, one on either side of him. Logan watched them go with narrowed eyes. This wasn't the first time Winged Boy had run interference between Logan and Summers, and Logan wondered why One Eye needed a babysitter (or a guard dog, Logan hadn't decided which yet).


Arthur Maddicks - Artie to his friends - had sat through Dr. Grey's funeral, arms clasped about himself, silently sobbing. The silence, however, didn't stem from a desire to conceal his grief.

Artie hadn't spoken a word for ten months. He couldn't speak. His mutation had gifted him with a snake's tongue, and a snake's ability to taste the air with it. That complicated olfactory organ increased his sense of smell many times over - though he often found it easier to keep his mouth shut, as he didn't necessarily want a headache from overwhelming odors (like Kitty Pryde's perfume). His tongue, however, was only the most outwardly visible change, and while it would have made speech difficult, it wouldn't have prevented him from vocalizing entirely. Artie couldn't talk because he lacked a voice box; having one would keep his throat from expanding as required in order for him to swallow his food. In addition, his jaw unhinged, his molars had fallen out, and his upper incisors had become a pair of viper-style fangs that lay flat in his mouth until he opened wide enough to extend them. His venom could kill a man in under a minute.

But he'd never used it on a person, not even one of Stryker's goons. Of course, he'd been shot with a tranquilizer dart in his sleep, but there had been a few opportunities, when he'd come to at Alkali Lake. After returning to Westchester, Terry Roarke (daughter of an IRA operative) had inquired why he hadn't just bitten someone, and he'd stared back in horror, then shaken his head. Artie had no interest in killing. In fact, he couldn't kill his own food, though his mutation had designed him to. He preferred to eat raw, precut chicken parts, eggs, or fish fillets, which he swallowed whole, later regurgitating the bones into little plastic baggies that he deposited in the trash. He never ate with his friends because only a handful of people weren't disgusted when he fed. One of those few had been Dr. Grey. She'd used to keep a carton of eggs in the lab fridge for him to snack on when he came down to work because, "Growing boys have bottomless stomachs." She hadn't turned away, either, when he'd pop a Grade-A large brown egg into his mouth and swallow it in one gulp. Instead, she'd say, "Mr. Summers does the same thing with doughnuts," or - more seriously - "It's how you were meant to be, Artie. Don't be ashamed. You have a far more efficient digestive track than the rest of us."

Well, his digestive track might be more efficient, but otherwise, his mutation was enormously inconvenient. His mother had said that it must be Mother Nature's idea of a joke, because - until he'd manifested - he hadn't shut up from the day he'd said his first word.

Once upon a time, Artie had loved to talk - about anything and everything, and if people hadn't answered, he'd repeated himself until they had. Thus, for such a verbal boy, to find himself bereft of words had been devastating. Fortunately, after Mother Nature had enjoyed her joke, she'd stepped forward again, and Artie Maddicks had been among the few mutants to manifest a secondary mutation. In his case, visual psionics. He couldn't talk anymore, but his mind could place an image directly into the minds of others.

Telepathy was a strange thing, Dr. Grey had explained, and came in different forms. Artie's was entirely visual, and if this worked well enough for practical matters, it had limited use for theoretical conversation. He might have taken sign language classes at the local community college, but Artie - child of the Communication Age - found other means to get around his muteness. Messaging systems became his lifeline, and groups that included Artie usually involved communication by cell phone text messaging or PDAs. He carried on extended IM conversations with Terry while they sat side-by-side in the computer lab.

But if messaging were a godsend, it still wasn't as easy as talking had been, and at times, he grew frustrated and lonely, and even the charming (and feisty) Miss Roarke couldn't make him feel less isolated. Only two people at the mansion had been able to converse freely with him: the professor, and Dr. Grey. The professor, of course, had numerous responsibilities that kept him busy, not to mention that (to Artie's mind) he was old.

Dr. Grey had been another matter, and Artie had soon attached himself to her, asking that his assigned duty area be assisting her in the lab - washing equipment, filing papers, cleaning tables . . . whatever she'd needed to have done. And while he'd worked, they'd talked telepathically. She'd fondly called him her silent chatterbox.

So at Alkali Lake, when he'd realized what was going to happen - that she'd left the plane to stop the water and would die for it - he'd panicked, albeit a good deal more silently than Cyclops. But what could a barefoot thirteen-year-old boy have done?

After, he'd been devastated, and hadn't spoken since, even psionically.

"Artie?" It was Miss Munroe, her fingers light on his shoulder, leaning over so she could see into his face. Her own was apologetic. "Are you ready to go?"

Blinking, he looked up at her. If he left, wouldn't that be conceding it was really over? Dr. Grey was gone. But what else could he do? Nodding, he rose to his feet and shuffled out in Miss Munroe's wake.


Dr. Grey's memorial service hadn't been like any funeral Marie had ever attended back in Meridian, at once too formal and too secular. Only one Bible passage had been read, no hymns sung, and there hadn't even been a sermon by the pastor - or priest, she supposed, since he'd worn one of those funky collar things. Instead, there had been eulogies and poetry and classical music and readings from a Psalter, and that wasn't church like Marie had been raised. Then again, there were a lot of people here who weren't Christian (like Kitty or Miss Munroe), so maybe they hadn't wanted to upset anybody. The Northeast was a whole different world from southern Mississippi. Yet the real reason for her discomfort wasn't culture shock.

Marie blamed herself for Dr. Grey's death. It wasn't something she talked about, even to Bobby - even to Logan - but she was the reason Dr. Grey was dead.

So she'd sat, small and miserable, in the church's rear, and when the service was over and everyone else got up to express condolences to the family, or just to mingle, she'd sat right where she was, toying with an unraveling thread in one of her gloves. She was so absorbed by that, in fact, she didn't hear the person approach to sit in the pew behind until he said, "Rogue."

Mr. Summers.

Starting like a hare, she spun around to stare with wide eyes. For a whole month, she'd been avoiding him - which hadn't been too hard, since he hadn't spent much time in the public parts of the mansion. But she simply hadn't been able to face him. He'd been kind to her after Logan had left, seeking her out to talk about mutations and how it felt to have a deadly one you couldn't control. The remnants of Logan in her head hadn't expected such empathy from Mr. Stick-in-the-Mud, but she'd discovered he wasn't quite what he seemed.

He'd asked her about her time on the road between Meridian and Laughlin City, inquiring bluntly if anyone had tried to assault her. Dr. Grey had asked that, too, not long after she'd arrived, but it had come during a medical exam. Mr. Summers' question hadn't been medical, but it also hadn't been voyeuristic. In fact, he'd always seemed kind of asexual to her, like a Renaissance marble - perfect but distant. She wasn't attracted to him, though she knew some other girls were. He just didn't give out those kinds of signals. (It was, she thought, a little weird, with a face like his.)

But he was nice, and his voice gentle, and if, at first, she hadn't wanted to talk about her time on the road, a week later, she'd changed her mind and sought him out. She hadn't been raped, no, but there had a been a couple attempts, and he'd talked to her about how she'd felt as if he might actually understand. Then he'd held her while she'd cried, and she'd felt safe.

In repayment, she'd gotten his fiancée killed.

So now, he was the last person she wanted to talk to, but he was sitting right behind her, leaning forward, forearms braced on the back of her pew, looking earnest. "Ye...es?" she asked; it came out stuttered, and embarrassed her. She wondered if she looked as scared and guilty as she felt.

He cocked his head. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you've been avoiding me since Canada."

"No!" she blurted. "Well, I mean, why'd you think I was avoiding you? I'm not avoiding you, I mean, of course I'm not avoiding you, I'm in your class, so how could I be avoiding you?"

He listened with a small smile for her tumbled protest, then glanced down at his hands, folded together in front of him. "For not avoiding me, you've managed to disappear like a rabbit every time I've tried to talk to you. I just wanted to say that you did a brave thing, at Alkali Lake, taking up the X-Jet. Most people wouldn't have tried. So I wanted to know - would you like to learn to fly? I'm certified to teach, not just to pilot."

Mouth open, she stared. "You're kidding?"

"Not at all."

"I crashed the plane!"

One side of his mouth quirked up. "Rogue - you landed a VTOL aircraft without sending it up in flames. That's not exactly easy. There's an old pilot's saying that any landing you can walk away from is a good landing."

Too shocked to speak, she half turned so she was facing sideways and stared down at her hands, clenching and unclenching them in confusion. Why was he asking her about flying lessons at his girlfriend's funeral? It was a bit surreal. "Don't you hate me?" she asked in a small voice.

"Why?" He sounded genuinely bewildered, and curious, she looked up. Both his eyebrows had hiked, and she didn't think he was faking his surprise.

"It's my fault."

"What's your fault?"

"This whole - Dr. Grey! What happened to Dr. Grey! It was me! If I hadn't tried flying that damn plane, I wouldn't have crashed it and you'd have been able to take off without . . . without . . . ." she trailed off helplessly, and began to sob.

He glanced around to see if anyone had overheard her outburst, even as he reached over the pew to stroke her hair. "Rogue. Marie - listen to me." He spoke softly and tipped her chin up, the rough pads of his fingers against her skin too brief for it to register the touch. "If you hadn't flown the plane closer, we wouldn't have been able to reach it before the dam broke. You took a terrible risk to save everyone. I'd call that pretty brave. And if we're going to place blame, I own a bigger share than you do. How do you think the dam got damaged in the first place?"

She raised her eyes to stare. "You did it?"

"Yes, I did it. Not on purpose, but I did it. Stryker was controlling me -"

"Like with Herr Wagner."

"Exactly. He sent me to stop the X-Men inside the base. I ran into Jean. I tried to kill her, Marie - I couldn't stop myself. The fact I didn't owes only to the fact her power had grown enough to deflect my optic blast. It ricocheted, damaging one of the dam's support struts, and the weight of the water was too great. When Logan shut the spillway door to keep us from drowning, there was no pressure relief and the whole dam broke.

"So whose fault is that? Mine for being the one to have caused the damage? Jean's for being the one to deflect the beams in the wrong direction? Logan's for closing the spillway? Yours for flying the plane over to rescue us? It's all our fault, and none - and being guilty for choices we either couldn't control, or did in an effort to save others won't bring Jean back."

Marie just blinked. "You're so calm about it." How could he sit there, trying to reassure her, at his own fiancée's funeral?

But he just shook his head. "It's not like it happened yesterday. It's been almost five weeks."

Which was true, but her grandfather had missed her grandmother for months - or years, really. Five weeks was nothing. And it wasn't that Marie doubted his love for Dr. Grey; she'd seen him disintegrate on the plane, crazy with desperation. But sometimes, he acted as if there was nothing wrong, while at others, he seemed to be constantly angry. And occasionally, he wasn't seen at all, like the three days before the funeral when that new guy, Dr. McCoy, had taught all his classes. Now he was sitting here in a pew, looking all calm and groomed, giving her a pep talk and reassuring her.

That wasn't normal, was it? And she was worried about him. But she said now, "Thank you," covering his folded hands with one of her gloved ones. "I'll think about the flying."

"Good," he replied, rising to walk away.

When she mentioned the conversation to Bobby on the bus back to Salem Center, he just shrugged and said, "Mr. Summers doesn't like to show emotion. It's a pilot thing, I think. Ice water in the veins and all."

Marie didn't argue, but she also didn't think being a pilot was the sum total of it.


Ororo had missed Kurt at the memorial more than she'd expected to, and wondered if she ought to worry about that. He hadn't wanted to come to such a public affair, even if the crowd there would be liberal on the mutant question. It was one thing to be accepting of mutants who looked like Jean, or Ro or Scott. It was quite another to accept those who looked like Kurt. Hardly fair, but there it was, and if Kurt hadn't wanted to use Jean's memorial to make a point, or be stared at and whispered about, Ro could hardly blame him. Yet when the mansion came into view down Greymalkin Lane, and Ro (who was driving the big bus) could pick out Kurt's outline on the roof against the sky behind, she was oddly cheered.

Until he bamfed directly into the bus and almost caused her to run it off the road. Children (and adults) shouted and squealed and Kurt was wailing, "Turn around and go back! Turn around! Her spirit is angry and you must not go in!"

Fortunately, the professor was seated just behind Ro and his voice echoed above the sounds of surprise. "Everyone be calm!"

Ro had put on the brakes, bringing the bus to a halt while Kurt huddled down against the metal pole by the front door, clinging to it. His tail lashed back and forth, and in the bus behind, students had risen from their seats so they could see better. "Her spirit is angry," Kurt explained. "The house is not safe."

Ro exchanged a baffled look with the professor, who asked, "Not safe?"

A banging on the bus door kept Kurt from replying. It was Warren. He, Scott, Hank and several more students had been following in the school van. Ororo pulled the crank to open the door for him, and he called in, "What's wrong?" only then noticing Kurt there in the aisle in front of him. "Kurt?"

"I think we need to return to the mansion," the professor said. "Now."

"It's not safe!" Kurt protested.

"Kurt, I assure you, neither Jean nor her spirit is in the mansion." He tapped his skull. "Ororo?"

"Yes, sir." She put the bus back in gear and Warren didn't wait for further explanation, just ducked out to trot back to the van behind.

No one said anything as they drove the final two hundred yards up to the mansion's circle drive. What greeted them was shocking. Half the windows had been blasted out, glass littering the drive, lawn, and bushes, and the front door was hanging open, off its hinges. There were gasps and someone behind said, "What the . . . ?"

Heart in throat, Ro was already parking the bus and turning off the engine, but she couldn't leap out because someone had to help the professor into his chair. She could see Scott, Warren and Hank all running for the broken door, while students boiled out of the van and bus. "Walk!" Mrs. McCoy shouted from the bus rear, but after what had happened with Stryker, Ororo could hardly blame the children for their anxiety and their upset when their school was damaged twice in as many months.

With Kurt and Edna's help, Ro got the professor into his chair and they entered the mansion - though Kurt refused to cross the threshold. He sat outside on the porch. Ro wanted to yell at him for being ridiculous and superstitious, but bit her tongue. They were all upset, and she knew she shouldn't take out her own anger on Kurt.

The interior was a disaster, and after all their hard work cleaning up after Stryker, some children sat down on the floor to bawl. Mrs. McCoy and the professor moved among them, trying to offer comfort, while Logan just stood in the entryway across from the fireplace, looking stunned at the mess of glass and broken furniture. Scott, Hank and Warren were nowhere to be seen, but a moment later, the hard thump of feet on the main staircase announced Warren's return. He'd already lost the suit jacket and his wings were freed. "Except for broken windows, the upstairs hasn't been touched," he announced. Descending the final steps, he walked over to join Ororo.

"Where is Scott?" she asked.

"He went to check his room; he called down that it was fine. He'll be back in a minute."

"Warren - what is going on?"

Warren glanced around, then said softly, "It's not Scott. It can't be - he was driving the van."

"Kurt believes the mansion is haunted."

"Kurt's superstitious."

"So what do you think?"

"I have no idea, but I don't believe in ghosts. I wasn't sure the professor was right, that Scott'd trashed his room, but I figured he knew better what Scott might do. But this - I think that cinches it. Whoever's doing this stuff, it's not Scott."

"It is not Logan, either; he was on the bus."

"I didn't assume it was. What about Kurt?"

"Why would he?" she asked, defensively.

He smiled. "I didn't mean he'd do it on purpose, Ro. I like him." Then the smile disappeared and he looked around at the broken vases, lamps and chandelier. "But maybe something weird about his mutation is causing a . . . reaction? I have no idea how, but do we have any experience with a teleporter? Kurt really believes Jean's ghost is in the mansion, causing havoc. Maybe he's projecting it himself somehow?"

It was an interesting theory, but Ororo rebelled instinctively and she might have replied, but Scott was coming down the stairs. He looked at once furious and distressed. "I didn't do this!" he said.

Xavier, Edna McCoy and the students who were in the foyer all glanced up. Logan, Ro noticed, didn't. "No one believes that you did, Scott," the professor told him calmly. He motored over to the foot of the stairs. "No one believes that you did."

Scott still looked angry, but also mollified. He stood on the stair landing with hands on hips as he glanced around the foyer. Ro and Warren both walked over, shoes crunching glass. "What a fucking mess," Scott said, low enough that the students wouldn't overhear.

"I believe the damage is mostly cosmetic," the professor replied. "The windows are the most serious, but we have had to replace those before when Terry lost control of her voice." He was trying to make light of it, but Ororo suspected he was more troubled than he was letting on.

"At least it's not raining," Warren added.

"There are some spare panes in the garage," Scott said, "but Logan and I had better get to Home Depot tonight."

"What about the wake?" Ro asked, and Scott just stared at her.

"You want to have a wake in the middle of this?" And he stalked over to speak to Logan, then the two of them headed off in the direction of the back hallway leading to the garage. At the same time, the elevator to the sub-basement opened and Hank came out. His face was grim.

Warren had turned and his wings had gone up. "What?"

"The lab looks, if possible, even worse." Bending, he retrieved a large piece of shattered pottery that had once been an expensive (copy of) a Tang vase. The professor didn't keep real antiques in a mansion full of mutant teenagers with imperfect control. Most of those teenagers had scattered now when they'd heard that the upper floors weren't damaged - no doubt to verify with their own eyes that their belongings were safe - leaving the adults alone in the foyer. As Hank approached, he added, "It's not just the lab, either. I checked her office. It seems to have been the epicenter. This-" he gestured around - "is mostly displacement. But there, almost nothing is left in one piece. Even her desk is cracked down the middle. It looks as if something - or someone - lifted it several feet in the air, then let it drop. All the books are off their shelves, and her files have been scattered from one side of the room to the other, ankle-deep."

Warren turned to the professor. "The only person left here was Kurt," he said. "What if he caused this - not intentionally, but as some kind of side effect of his teleportation power?"

Hank appeared both intrigued as well as dubious. "But why might Herr Wagner do damage to Jean's possessions?"

Warren pursed his lips. "Kurt's convinced that Jean's spirit is haunting us because we didn't give her a proper funeral - or that's what he told me a few weeks ago."

"Today was her funeral," Ororo pointed out. "If he truly believed that she was upset because she had not yet had a funeral, why would he pick the day it was held to tear up the mansion?"

Warren shrugged. "I don't know. I'm just putting pieces together. We were gone, he was here, the place got trashed. I didn't say he did it on purpose, Ro -"

"Why not simply ask Kurt what he saw?" the professor interrupted before Warren and Ororo could fall to arguing.

"He won't come in," Ro said, gesturing helplessly.

Xavier closed his eyes a moment and, after a brief pause, Kurt bamfed into the foyer. He was crouched down as was his wont, but he no longer seemed scared even while he remained clearly uncomfortable. Xavier motored over to him. "Thank you," he said.

"You are certain?" Kurt asked, no doubt continuing their telepathic conversation.

"If her spirit was here, it is no longer. But we would very much like to know what you saw."

"Fire," he said. It wasn't the ghostly moaning or levitating the others might have expected. "Fire that did not burn. It seemed to be . . . searching."

"Searching?"

"Yes. I was in the den, watching the movies." Kurt and his movies; despite the gravity of the situation, Ororo smiled. "That was when I saw the fire. It . . . ran about, along the walls, around the windows, over the furniture. It scared me, so I teleported out of the room, but it followed. It moved all over the house. Then everything began to shake, as if in a . . . ah -"

"Earthquake?" Xavier supplied.

"Yes, an earthquake. Only for a moment, then the fire was gone. It disappeared, but as it did, all the windows exploded. It was angry, professor. She was angry. Whatever she sought, she did not find it, and she was angry." He ran one of those peculiar hands into his hair. "She will be back. She wants, and she is lost."

The professor was frowning, Edna appeared thoughtful, and Hank curious. Only Warren still seemed skeptical, almost as if he didn't want to believe.

Perhaps he didn't, an unkind part of Ororo mused; he had Scott all to himself now.

She stopped that train of thought. Warren and Jean had been very close. He wouldn't want her dead, just so he could have Scott.

But wanting Jean to die wasn't the same thing, the unkind part pointed out, as wanting her to stay out of the picture, now that she was dead.

"This makes no sense," she said aloud (to shut up the voice in her head).

The professor sighed, looking suddenly very old. "I cannot discount the possibility of a soul, Ororo. There is more to our consciousness than chemical reactions, or so I have come to believe in my life. But I do not sense Jean's presence in this house."

"Would you, though?" Hank asked, not hostilely but with genuine curiosity.

"I don't know," Xavier answered honestly. "But I think I might." Kurt was listening with interest, Warren with his arms crossed, wings out (trembling just a little, Ro noticed).

"I believe in ghosts," Edna said suddenly. "I've seen them before." Everyone turned to look at her, surprised (except for Hank). "Like Charles says, there's more to this ol' world that just what we see with our eyes. Yet I can't say this story sounds much like any other I've heard."

"Not for me, either," Kurt admitted. "But it is her spirit. I am sure of it."

The impromptu huddle broke up then, each going his or her way to begin the clean-up. Warren and Ro departed for the janitor's closet. "You do not believe any of this," she said to him as they gathered brooms and dustbins. It wasn't a question.

He shook his head, bending to pick up bins. "It's crazy."

"So what do you think is happening?"

"I told you, I have no fucking idea. But Jean hasn't come back from the dead to look for anything, or haunt us, either."

"You are angry."

"You damn well better believe it! I want a piece of whoever's doing this if it's on purpose. It's not funny. The kids are upset - again - and Scott . . . ." He trailed off. "Scott doesn't know if he's coming or going, right now, and this kind of thing doesn't help."

"Do you fear that he will believe it is her spirit?"

Warren jerked his head around, glaring. "No. He's got more sense than that. But all this shit makes it harder for him to start healing, and that's cruel. He's been through enough, dammit."

Ororo didn't think Warren meant only in the last few months. She knew a bit about Scott's past, things that he'd shared with her. They were enough alike in both personality and background that they'd formed a natural connection - but not a romantic one. She'd never been romantically attracted to Scott, and he'd been head-over-heels for Jean as long as she'd known him. "He has been through enough," she agreed quietly while counting brooms. "We have all been through enough this fall."

Warren glanced away. "Sorry. I didn't mean -"

"I know. And I understand why you are angry."

They let it go at that.


Neither Logan nor Scott said a word about the reason they were in a Home Depot on a Saturday night buying replacement panes for windows. It seemed easier not to talk about it. Logan didn't know what he thought, and Summers' face was sketched into lines of permanent reverse. Instead of bringing up Jean, funerals, or ghosts, Summers asked - out of the blue - "Can you remember anything else about Japan?"

He sounded genuinely curious, and Logan thought about it a minute, then said simply, "No," adding, "Doesn't mean I wouldn't remember, y'know, if I was in the right situation."

"Flashbacks, yeah. You think you forget and then all of a sudden, you remember." He wasn't speaking theoretically. It sounded as if he'd had them, too - a detail Logan filed away to ponder later. "Listen," Summers went on, "I know a good Japanese restaurant that's on the way back to the mansion, and we're going to miss dinner otherwise. You want to stop there on the way?"

Logan just stared at him for a minute. The idea of going memory hunting with Summers in tow wasn't high on his list, but looked at from another angle, the kid might be the best choice. He didn't pry. Xavier would ask questions. So would Marie, and even Ro, but Summers wasn't nosey the same way. Logan wouldn't have thought the kid gave a flying fuck about Logan's memory, except for the offer. So he said, "Yeah, okay."

And that was how he and Summers wound up at a Japanese steakhouse with a menu printed in Japanese as well as English. And Logan discovered he could read the Japanese as easily as the English - but that was the extent of what he discovered. Most of the meal was passed either in silence or discussing (new) mansion repairs. "Looks like I'll be in business for a while," he said.

"Looks that way," Summers agreed.

"So, this girl, Colleen Wing? Wing ain't a Japanese name."

"No, it's not. Her paternal grandfather was an American GI in World War II; he married a Japanese woman. Col's dad teaches Japanese Imperial history at Columbia."

"She looks more than a quarter."

"Her mom's Japanese American."

"Gotcha. And you two were never, y'know, a couple?" And now who was being nosey, Logan wondered? But Summers didn't seem to care.

"No. She had a crush on me, but that's it."

"Still has a crush on you, kid."

Summers just eyed him. "Col and I were good friends - still are. But I loved Jean."

"Ain't contesting that," Logan replied. "Just observing."

They didn't talk more about Colleen Wing. In the car on the way back, Logan threw out, "Drake says you're an orphan."

Summers glanced over as he took the highway into the Salem area. "Yes."

"Said it ain't a secret."

"It's not."

Summers still didn't elaborate, and frustrated, Logan was reduced to asking. "How'd you wind up with Xavier? He find you when your power manifested?"

"No. I came to the mansion before that."

"That where you met Jeannie?"

"Yes."

"The winged kid, too?"

Summers laughed. "Winged kid? We call him Angel, Logan, and yes, that's where I met Warren. And before you ask, Hank, too. Hank and Jean were both already known to Xavier when I got there, but she was away at college, so I didn't actually meet her till Christmas. We four were the first."

"Ro?"

"Came a few years later. Hank was pretty much gone by then. Jean was in med school, and Warren and I were at Yale. Anything else you want to know? My favorite color? Food? My social security number?" The tone rested somewhere between amused and sarcastic.

"Fuck you, Summers. I was just trying to get a sense of things."

Silence reigned for a few minutes, then Summers said, "Sorry." Another brief pause followed, and without looking at Logan, he went on, "I wasn't quite sixteen when I arrived. My powers hadn't manifested yet, but they knew I was a mutant. Warren came a few months later; he's about two years older than me and we've been friends since the beginning. Like I said, Hank was already there, finishing up med school residency. He's older than all of us, but he's a genius, too. He was only in his early twenties then. Most of the equipment in the basement was his first. Jean inherited and added to it when she came back from Columbia to work here. Hank was her inspiration. They still work together on some things." That brought Summers to a full stop, and he corrected himself in a choked voice - "Worked. Dammit."

Logan didn't reply, but he'd learned more from Summers in five minutes than from the rest of them in five weeks. Maybe he should just have asked the kid to begin with. "How'd you guys come up with the idea for your little leather club?"

That elicited a snort from the driver's side. "Rescuing Ro, actually. Well, it didn't start right then, but the basic idea - yeah. All this stuff has come gradually, even the school. Xavier's opened as an accredited school only about three years ago. Before that, it was just the professor taking in a couple students now and then to help them finish high school - like Warren and me."

"So how old are you, kid?"

"Twenty-nine. And I'm not a kid, Logan."

Looking over in surprise, Logan said, "You don't look twenty-nine."

"I've never looked my age. But yeah, I'm twenty-nine, and I've been on my own since I was fourteen. I'm not a kid."

"No, you're not," Logan agreed. No one who'd been on his own that young was a kid, and it explained a lot about Summers. "But maybe you should've had the chance to be."

"That's why I do what I do," Summers replied. "So these kids can be kids."

Back at the mansion, they unloaded the glass panes. After they'd set one down on a table and Summers had turned back towards the truck, Logan grabbed him and, in a neat spin, slammed him up against the wall.

The kid fought back - and he fought dirty, going for tender places without hesitation. Logan was impressed despite himself. He still pinned him fairly easily, face shoved into the wall, arms twisted up behind him. "Call uncle," he said.

But Summers didn't call. Instead, he went ballistic, thrashing and twisting in Logan's grip even harder than before, though a good deal less skillfully. He was just panicking now, and Logan let him go, backing off with hands raised as Summers spun on him. "Relax, kid," Logan said.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Summers demanded, shaking with rage, face all flushed and hand on his glasses - where the visor trigger would be.

"Just seeing how you fought."

"Are you insane? If I'd had my visor, you'd be dead now!"

"Doubt that," Logan replied dryly. "But I noticed, at the Statue, you ain't got much peripheral vision; I wanted to see how you responded when attacked from the side. You're pretty fast. But I could teach you to be faster."

"I don't need your goddamn help."

"Right. I just pinned you in two minutes flat."

They glared at one another until Summers looked away. "I taught myself to fight."

"I can tell. And I ain't saying you're bad - you're not - just that I could make you better."

Tipping his head, Summers regarded Logan with what Logan supposed was curiosity. Finally, he said, "Okay. Fine." A pause, then he added, "I'd like the chance to kick your ass."

Logan grinned. "You can try, Cyclops."


Hank had left the upstairs reconstruction to the rest while he and his mother tackled the lab. He couldn't shake Kurt's assertion that the "fire" had seemed to be looking for something because there was some kind of pattern in the mess. It wasn't random, but reminded him of a child in a hurry, and whatever wasn't the object desired had been tossed aside in a casual wake of the unwanted. This included entire boxes of (now-shattered) glasswear, several rolling chairs, a couple of tables, and a 200-pound microscope (ruined, unfortunately, and that would cost more to replace than all the broken windows together). The problem was that Hank couldn't figure out what the searcher had sought.

"This is puzzling," he muttered more than once.

To Hank, the world was more interesting for its enigma. Yet he also believed that everything had an explanation. Science and the supernatural weren't in conflict to Hank McCoy, and the more he learned, the more awed he became by the beauty of all that lay yet waiting to be discovered. Knowledge was a dance of what one perceived with what one dreamed, and he was certain that something was afoot in the mansion. They simply lacked enough information yet to say what it was.

He hadn't gotten much further by late Monday morning, however, than righting the upended furniture and cleaning up the scattered paper when Logan showed up wearing a workbelt and toting an extra cup of coffee. At that moment, Hank was the only one in the lab, his mother having gone up to prepare lunch. "You weren't kidding," Logan said as he entered and looked around in shock. "A tornado went through here."

"Indeed," Hank replied, setting aside the latest stack of files in order to come relieve Logan of one of the coffee mugs. "And thank you," he added, raising the mug.

"Sure."

Hank expected Logan to depart then, as the man didn't seem any too fond of medical facilities, but he didn't. He just sipped coffee and looked around himself. Hank considered inquiring, but decided to let the weight of silence do it for him. Finally, the other man set down his mug on one of the cleared tables and said, "Summers told me that you and Jean were both already here when he came, so you must've known her best."

Hank felt one eyebrow creep up, Spock-like. "I knew her the longest - Charles aside - but Scott knew her best, followed by Warren."

"Oh." Logan continued to look about the room rather than at Hank, as if nervous. "Well, I just . . . wondered, y'know, what she was like, when she was younger." He didn't make it a question though he'd clearly meant it as one.

"She was curious, forceful, compassionate, enthusiastic, optimistic - much as always."

"She and Summers - they made a funny pair. More like siblings, y'know? She was older than him."

And Hank's eyes narrowed. He'd heard quite a lot from various quarters about Logan and Jean. Warren didn't like the man anymore than Scott did. Edna was more forgiving, as was Ro, but one thing in particular disturbed Hank: that Logan had blatantly chased Jean in front of Scott, and then again later, when Scott had been a prisoner of Stryker. That wasn't honorable behavior, in Hank McCoy's books. "Scott is much more mature than his chronological age, Logan, and Scott and Jean have a long history. They were together for nine years, and friends longer than that." Pulling out a stool, Hank swung a leg over it to seat himself. "Certain things just go together. Peanut butter and jelly. Courier and Ives. Gin and tonic. Jean and Scott."

Logan's nostrils flared. "You sayin' I never had a chance, bub?"

"To be blunt, yes. Charles and Warren are too polite to say this, and Scott too angry for you to believe him. So apparently, it's left to me to enlighten you on a few matters." He also wasn't staying at the mansion, which granted him a certain freedom to speak the truth that Logan didn't want to hear, and he studied the other man for a moment before continuing. Logan had his feet splayed and his muscles tensed as if for fighting, but Hank remained perched on his stool in a non-threatening way. "However attractive Jean may have found you, her heart belonged to Scott. I very much doubt that would have changed."

"So you say."

"So I know, Logan. They had a remarkable bond, one that lasted through trials and tribulations that most couples never have to face. You knew Jean only a brief time."

Logan's jaw worked helplessly, and Hank felt mildly sorry for him - but only mildly. Logan needed to understand the dynamics as they truly were, not as he wished them to be. "She was attracted to me," Logan said finally, tapping his nose. "I could tell, Dr. McCoy. So whatever you 'know,' her scent told a different story."

"I never denied that she was attracted to you. It's commonly called chemistry. But she didn't love you, and to compare your feelings for Jean to Scott's is unbelievably arrogant on your part."

"I loved her."

"No, you did not. Neither of you knew the other well enough. Love consists of more than physical attraction. It consists of a shared outlook on life and a history, a commitment each to stand by the other regardless, and acceptance of the other, warts and all. Jean and Scott had that, which isn't to say you didn't feel genuine affection for her - I believe that you did - but it wasn't close to what Scott felt, and it's time you recognized as much. You need to find a place here that doesn't involve displacing Scott."

Logan had his shoulders pulled back and his chin pulled in, as if to spit out a retort, but it never got past his lips. Turning on his heel instead, he stalked out, and Hank returned to cleaning up the mess with a sigh. He wasn't a confrontational man by nature, but sometimes it was necessary. "It's a dirty job, but someone had to do it," he muttered to himself.


Notes: Many thanks to Kathy for the Japanese. For those unfamiliar with Colleen Wing, she belongs to the Marvel universe, where she and Misty Knight (Jean's old roommate) formed the "Daughters of the Dragon," heros for hire. Misty started out as a P.I., while Colleen had samurai training. I've modified their background here so that Misty (still Jean's old college roommate) is a police detective, while Colleen is just a friend of Scott's from Yale. Back in the day, in comic canon, Colleen did have a thing for Scott; it was never reciprocated, though he considered her a close friend. Colleen was first introduced fictionally in Special: "Consonance." Logan's Japanese knowledge comes from the comics.

On Artie ... I've tried to make some kind of sense of what we saw in the film. Film Artie wasn't comics Artie, though both are mute (in Claremont's novelization Artie isn't, but in the film he appeared to be). Comics Artie had a psionic mutation that involved projecting images for communication, and he didn't look entirely normal - although his tongue was apparently just like everyone else's. Film Artie looked perfectly normal . . . until he opened his mouth. Although we didn't see any fangs (nor how he ate), there has to be more to that mutation than a snake tongue! For clarification, Theresa Roarke/Cassidy is Siryn from the film; in the novelization, Claremont calls her Tracy Roarke (Roarke was her mother's maiden name), but she's Terry to me. The novelization gives Artie's age as 12 but he looked a bit older, so I've made him 13. Couldn't resist the reference to Abercrombie and Fitch, for whom Marsden has modeled.