A long chapter in which much happens. All of the threads in this and the previous chapters are occurring across roughly the same time span. As you'll see, the exact timing isn't too important.

First-person sections are Sean PoV. Third-person section is just regular third-person narration.

Charles realized quickly that rehabilitation was not about helping him to regain function in his legs. In fact, the very first exercise on the very first day was a physical therapist showing him how to use free weights to strengthen his arms and how to do a series of modified sit-ups to strengthen his abdominal muscles. "You're going to need these muscles to transfer in and out of your wheelchair," he had said, "so we want to start building them as soon as possible."

He had read enough minds in the hospital to know there was essentially no expectation that he would regain any motor function, not after he had failed to improve in the first week. The cut was incomplete, which was supposed to be a good sign, but apparently all that was preserved was just enough sensory fibers for him to feel a pins-and-needles sensation running down his right thigh. He had known that rehab was going to be about making do with what he had left, not regaining what he had lost, but it was somehow different to see firsthand that he was not, in fact, leaving the wheelchair behind in the hospital.

To Charles, it seemed almost crass to be morose about his paralysis so soon after Raven's death – surely the loss of his sister was worse than the loss of his legs? But it was easier to push the former from his mind than the latter. There were the obvious complaints: no more running, no more dancing, no more climbing, but he found it was the less obvious ones that pissed him off the most. Like the way that so many things were out of reach, even in the damn rehab facility. And he discovered that he used his legs much more than he had previously imagined. Things like rolling over in bed, putting a shoe on his foot – he had always assumed the foot was passive, but apparently not – and even simply sitting in a chair, especially if he wanted to slouch. Everything seemed to rely on tension, resistance, or counterbalancing that his legs would no longer provide. And what about sex? He hadn't had enough real privacy since the accident to experiment, but given the complications involved in simply emptying his bladder, he wasn't terribly optimistic.

And whenever he stopped thinking about the paralysis, he would start to think about Raven and about how she only had the one day of walking around outside in her true form. And how she had warned him about Erik, but then this wasn't really Erik's fault, and that would bring him to the topic of Erik and by that point his brain was too weighed down to think of much anything at all. He wanted Raven and he wanted Erik and– he was quite ashamed of this – he wanted his parents.

Me and Alex had been taking turns visiting the Professor. It's really awkward trying to have a conversation with somebody who doesn't talk back but it's even more awkward saying nothing, so I've usually ended up just babbling on like an idiot. I mostly told him stories about stupid things my brothers and I did growing up, like when we were in junior high and we went to the beach with Ricky Carlisle who's my little brother's friend and Ricky dared my brother Tom to catch a crab at let it pinch one of his balls and Tom did it and screamed louder than I ever did and his balls turned purple. And we got these terrible sunburns and we all competed to see who could get the biggest piece of skin when it started peeling. Look, it's not Shakespeare, okay? I was just trying to pass the time and maybe get a laugh out of him. Most of the time he puts on a weak smile at the funny part and says one word like "Wow," or "Interesting."

One time I tried asking him about Raven. When my Uncle Marty died all of a sudden, my mom's whole family got together and told stories about him and that seemed to make everyone feel better, so I thought maybe he might like to tell stories about her, but when I asked, he just said, "You knew her," and what the hell does that mean?

I really wanted to make sure that the Professor's house fit him, at least sort of, when he came home. Somebody professional was remodeling one of the bathrooms, but it occurred to me that there was a lot of other stuff that needed to be done. I brought in a tape measure and measured how high he could reach – I think he was actually pretty mad about that, but I figured it was better for him to be a little mad now then constantly pissed off if he comes back home and can't reach things in his own house. So I cut three strings the same length and me and Alex and Hank all went through the house and made a list of what couldn't be reached. Some stuff we just moved. Other stuff, Hank came up with solutions for, like these little bars on light switches so you could reach them from a little bit lower. Actually, it was kind of good for us to have some real work to do because otherwise, we were just hanging around.

I was playing Boggle with Hank and I was trying to convince him that ginchy really is a word. I mean, he was gonna win anyway – he always does. Man, I was pretty proud of myself for finally finding a six-letter word, but Hank wouldn't budge.

Then Hank was telling me that he called his mom because it was her birthday and she was really upset because a bunch of CIA guys have been harassing her. I guess they came by her house and started saying that Hank is some kind of communist. They were demanding that she tell them where he is or they were going to mess stuff up for her, like make her lose her job or something. His mom was asking him to turn himself in, like she wasn't on his side.

I wanted to call my family to see if they're okay, but at the same time, I'm thinking that maybe it's better for them if I don't. I know I shouldn't think this, but I'm a little jealous of Alex because he doesn't have any family so he doesn't have to worry about this stuff.

You know how certain words make you think of certain things? Like if you say fruit, I always think of apples, even though there are lots of kinds of fruit.

One time, before we ever went to Cuba, I heard Mr. Lensherr and the Professor arguing, and Mr. Lensherr kept saying mutants were going to get exterminated and we should strike first. Whenever I heard the word exterminate, I would think of those bug gassing guys who put the big circus-looking tent over your house. But man, when I saw those missiles coming at us, I kept thinking of the word exterminate. We didn't hurt anybody – well, I guess Alex punched some people and I might have popped a couple of eardrums – but all we were trying to do was keep everybody from nuking each other. And it wasn't just the Soviets trying to kill us, it was the Americans too. There were so many missiles in the air, all I could think was that my parents wouldn't get to bury my body because there wouldn't be a body left.

Things happened so fast afterwards that I sort of forgot about it for a while. But then I saw this ad for an exterminator and the word made me think of all those missiles coming straight at us. And that was when it hit me. You know how sometimes you start thinking about something and then you have to get the real thing, like you start thinking about how French fries taste and then you've got this craving for them? It was sort of like that. There was this picture in one of my books from high school. In senior year I took this class called History of the Twentieth Century and it was about stuff that happened pretty recently and why countries and stuff are the way they are today. It was a pretty interesting class, but I really don't remember much from it, like I couldn't tell you the dates that anything happened. But there was this one picture and it really stuck in my head and I just had to see it again.

I looked through the Professor's books (at least the ones in the library; I didn't want to go through his personal stuff without permission). Then I went to a public library and started looking through books for it, but it wasn't there, so I got directions to another library and I finally found the picture. The one I saw in my book. See, my high school teacher said the Nazis took people's stuff before killing them and I just wrote that down. But then I saw this picture. It's just a room but it's full of eyeglasses. I mean, really entirely full of them. Think about how small a pair of glasses is, and how big a room is and every one of those glasses is from a person they murdered. I tried to estimate how many there were, but I gave up pretty fast.

So now I have two images that I think of when I hear the word exterminate. One is a whole lot of missiles going right at me and the other is a room full of eyeglasses.

I'm still not sure if I want Mr. Lensherr to come back or not, but I'm starting to think he had the right idea about some things.

It was Alex who thought of it first. We were eating dinner. It was just takeout Chinese food, but I sort of made this rule that we all were going to eat dinner together every night. Alex was showing off, using his drumsticks like chopsticks. I was using a fork. Hank really hadn't gotten the hang of using regular silverware with his paws (Oops, hands! Sorry, Alex must be rubbing off on me.) so he was using some kind of skewer thing that I think is for grilling.

Anyways, Alex said to Hank, "You said when they were looking for mutants, they found a whole list, more than just us, right?"

And Hank said, "That's right," in this really deep, commanding voice because that's how he talks now.

"Well, do you still have the list?"

"Of course."

"So does anybody else have it?"

Hank put down his skewer. My fork paused on its way to my mouth. Hank said, "I...I'm not certain. No one else should have had it, except for my now-deceased supervisor. But it was the CIA. You never really knew who was doing what. It's not...unthinkable that someone else had access."

"We should warn them!" I blurted out.

"Yeah," said Alex, "that'll be a real easy phone call." He switched to this mocking voice, "Hi, this psychic pal of ours wore a magic hat and he told the government you have superpowers and...no, you can't talk to him, he's busy being crazy and crippled and shit...anyways, watch your back! Ta-ta!"

I was worried enough about this that I didn't even bother to tell Alex off for calling the Professor crazy. Instead I said that we should go find the other mutants and invite them to come back with us, just like the Professor and Mr. Lensherr did for us. And then if they don't want to come, maybe at least in person we could show them our powers and then they would believe us about warning them.

"It's not that simple," said Hank, "the ones that were omitted must have been omitted for a reason. Some aren't even in the United States and any of us would get arrested if we tried to leave the country."

"But some are in the U.S.," I said. "Come on, we've been planning all this remodeling to make this a school for mutants. That's what the Professor wanted anyway. Just 'cause he's...out of commission for a bit doesn't mean we should wait and let a bunch of mutants get captured up. It's not like this place isn't big enough for lots of people to live here."

Alex said he wasn't sure because what if there were other ones like him who were just going to wreck the place and Hank said he wasn't sure because he didn't think we should offer protection if we weren't sure we could provide it. And Alex pointed out that hiding a lot of people is harder than hiding a few. And Hank asked if the monthly account had enough money in it to support five people or ten or twenty.

I'm not usually sure of stuff. That's what worried means, really. If you know things are bad, that's dread or maybe panic. And if you know they're good, then you feel fine. Worried is when you don't know if things will turn out okay, and like I said before, I worry a lot. But I'm sure about this. The CIA isn't looking for Hank for friendly reasons. And the government pointed all those missiles at us. If we can warn even some of those other mutants or let them come here and join up with us, we should. The man I want to be takes action when other people are in danger. The man I want to be is brave.

I had decided I was going to tell the Professor about Hank's mom and the other mutants and our plans. Even if he didn't say anything back, it was his house and his idea basically and he deserved to hear it firsthand. But then Alex came home from the rehab place and said that Charles was all better and we were like, he can walk? And Alex said, "No, shithead. That's impossible. I mean he's happy and talking and everything."

I had to see it for myself because trusting Alex's judgment about emotions is like trusting Hank's judgment about weed. Everybody's got things they're good at and things they're not. Besides, when people are miserable, they don't get happy all of a sudden – they go from miserable to sad to down to okay to decent and they they're happy.

So I drove down to the rehab facility even though visiting hours were over. Some of the staff were pretty nice and would bend rules if you made up a good enough story. And when I got there, I was in luck because it was Frank at the front desk and he was a real nice guy and we've chatted a lot before. Frank said to me, "You know, your friend must be some kind of genius." I agreed and I was about to start explaining why I needed to get in, but Frank kept talking. "I saw him in there today playing chess against himself with his eyes shut! He must've remembered where all the pieces were and everything."

Well, now I knew why the Professor was feeling better. Mr. Lensherr was back.

I wasn't sure why, but I felt kind of angry. Maybe it seemed unfair that me and Alex had been sticking by the Professor all this time, but Mr. Lensherr just shows up out of the blue and that's what does the trick. Or maybe I would have been okay with it if the Professor felt a little bit better, but cheering up totally was kind of like saying, Well, it doesn't matter that my sister's dead as long as I've got my creepy friend back. These were the sort of thoughts my mom would call unworthy. I hopped on my moped and headed home to get incredibly baked.