Thanks to hippiechick2112, feathered moon wings, and ellie for reviewing! About Chris and Katherine, I really didn't want them to be a fairytale-because I really try to make all the characters human, and they're respectively 21 and 17 years old with a baby and very little support in caring for him. So that's why I chose to portray them as struggling... which seems to have been affective :)

Thanksgiving.

Katherine and Chris cough as they flap tea towels, waving thick, dark plumes of smoke out of the kitchen. The temperature drops a dozen degrees as they work to clear the air. Their eyes sting.

She has never cooked a turkey before. With only three members of the household and only two eating solid food, Katherine felt brave enough to attempt a roast chicken. Grateful to have one in 1937, but is it not something every wife should be able to cook for her husband?

When they breathe easier, they risk cutting into the bird. Burnt to a crisp on the outside, its insides are pink and dribbly. It makes Chris chuckle until he sees the stricken look on Katherine's face.

"Katherine… is that Scott waking up?"

"I don't think so."

"I thought I heard fussing."

"I'll go check on him."

Chris loves his wife and won't hear a word of criticism against her. He knows what the others think (the baby has his eyes; that helps) but he won't stand for it.

But.

His wife.

Darling Katherine.

Love of his life.

The sidewalk fries an egg better than she does, even here in Alaska.

"Katherine?"

He joins her in their bedroom, Katherine bent over the basket crib thing the baby sleeps in (he assumes the wicker serves as flood protection for Scott). He sleeps now, Scott does, through the night usually.

"Chris. I'm so—I can't tell you how sorry…"

"Don't be hurt, but I thought this might be a problem."

When Katherine sees the plate in his hands and realizes what he has piled on it, she laughs. It is a soft, half-crying laugh, but nonetheless a laugh.

They spend their first Thanksgiving together with a quilt wrapped around them and a fire burning in the fireplace, laughing over turkey sandwiches. When he suggests that the earlier smoke has permeated their clothes, well, what can they do but lose a layer or two!

The following morning hit the roof in hundreds of heavy droplets, an inexplicable rainstorm—but that isn't what Chris Summers remarked upon as he glanced out the kitchen window.

"Is that something to worry about?"

Ruth leaned back to see what he meant. "Ah. This is normal."

The kitchen already smelled like bacon. Scott was at the counter, mixing batter for pancakes. He did not say much to his father, to anyone for that matter, but he was here and not seething. It was an improvement.

Alex, meanwhile, had attempted to help but ultimately realized he was only frustrating Scott with his lack of understanding in the kitchen. (After Alex confused, in a single incident, the teaspoon for the tablespoon and the baking soda for the baking powder, Scott asked him to please if you would be so kind have a seat elsewhere. Then he started the batter over.)

The last person in the kitchen was Charles, watching a teapot.

"What's she up to?" he asked.

"Getting rained on," Ruth replied. "She does this," she assured Chris.

"And the state of dress is normal also?" he asked.

"I see none to remark upon," Ruth reasoned.

"True enough. You're not worried she'll get sick?"

"Ororo does not get colds. Not from the weather."

Charles chose to join in the conversation now with, "No one gets colds from the weather. We get colds from viruses. The lack of humidity in winter air is a far larger factor than temperature, whereas—oh, look," he said, realizing he was being stared at, "the tea's brewed."

Ruth gave him a quick hug and a kiss on the cheek. "I think you are sexy when you talk like a professor."

Charles had resisted the term for so long—from the moment he received his doctorate, in fact—and a part of him still did. He had become resigned to it, but nonetheless had to sigh. Somehow from Ruth this was different from when the children called him 'Professor'.

"Hearing that from you makes me feel like I'm losing my hair."

The response from Alex was: Kind of late to start worrying with that bald spot!

"Honestly, Alex," Charles retorted, "it's too early for this and I do not have a bald spot."

The others traded glances.

"What?"

"Alex didn't say anything," Chris said.

"Of course he—" Charles began. He looked to Ruth. "Nothing at all?"

She shook her head. "You must have been reading his thoughts."

"Alex, I apologize."

Alex nodded. "That's okay."

"I don't have a bald spot, though."

"You kinda do," Alex said.

"Alex!"

"You do!" Alex insisted. "Scott."

Scott turned around, a worried look on his face. He stood at the stove. There was a pan on the burner, a pat of butter melting. Pancakes. That was what mattered right now: pancakes.

Oh yes.

Cakes in a pan.

"I'm… I'm just making the pancakes."

"That's a yes!" Alex decreed, pleased to have been proved right.

He had a history of bad behavior and no one would argue with that, which made it that much more important a point that this time he hadn't done anything wrong. He simply thought an observation.

However, apparently not immune to observing the emotions of others, he offered, "You could always get one of those fake hairpieces."

Charles supplied the term: "A toupee."

"Yeah. That thing."

"Then," Ruth reasoned, "you would have your own hair again."

Released from this conversation, Scott turned back to the pancakes. The butter was melted now and beginning to bubble. It spat as he poured cold batter into the pan.

Charles acknowledged Ruth's claim that a toupee would be his own hair, but, "Well, not exactly."

"Why not?" she reasoned. "You pay for something and this makes it yours."

She was not fundamentally wrong on the concept of ownership, but the principle was rather different.

Alex chimed in, "Like how you paid for Scott and he always does what you tell him—you paid for him, he's yours."

"You're not funny, Alex," Scott said.

"I am though. I'm funny."

"Nope."

"Maybe the problem is you have no sense of humor."

"Maybe the problem is you have a tiny—"

"Scott Matthew Summers!" Charles interrupted. "Don't say something you'll regret. Much more and I'll have to ground you. Still, well done. You deserved that, Alex. Saying I'm going bald."

Alex opened his mouth, but Chris shook his head.

"Alex, set the table," Ruth said. "Scott, go see if your sister wants breakfast."

"And ask her to put some clothes on if so," Charles added.

Both left the room. A moment later Scott crossed the doorway in the opposite direction, saying something about a towel.

Now that they were gone, Ruth nodded at Chris. "Ask," she said.

"Ask?"

"You have something."

Chris began to shake his head, then nodded. "You said you paid for him."

"Alex said I paid for him," Charles responded. Nonetheless, because it was true, "Single men are not considered sufficient family for a child, even one so nearly grown. I knew Scott wouldn't feel truly safe here with it, so I offered certain incentives to look the other way on that particular fact."

"Charles…"

He saw the gratitude in Chris's eyes and he understood. Matters were improving between Chris and Scott, but Scott was still something of a tender subject. The hints of his time in the orphanage were clear enough that his life had not always been a happy one, the way he behaved… and Chris was grateful. Someone had loved Chris's son in his absence enough that he would break the law and offer what had to be a significant bribe.

Of course, a significant bribe to a career soldier like Chris was a drop in the bucket to Charles.

It was past saying, so Charles spared him the need: "You're welcome."

He didn't mention that it was actually unnerving. He had essentially bought a child. Charles adopted Scott to give him a sense of security and certainty, but there were other, less scrupulous people in the world. He had been quite displeased when the social worker implied he might intend all manner of damage and perversion, but later Charles was glad she asked. Someone was trying to look out for Scott.

Charles had not seen Hank in over a day, so after Alex, Chris, Ororo, and Scott headed into town to watch two James Bond movies in a row, Charles sought out Hank. Generally not speaking to Hank for days wasn't uncommon, but he had undone the blue-fur appearance. Surely that was something to celebrate.

And Charles was wondering if he might be able to use this new discovery for… other things. Other major physical changes.

Like, for example, a spinal cord injury.

"Hank?" he called, knocking at the laboratory door.

"Come in!"

"Hank, I—you're blue!"

Yes, Hank looked blue. It shouldn't have surprised Charles. He had seen Hank blue every day for years. In fact, he realized, he had barely known Hank before. What had it been, two weeks in 1962? Charles could now genuinely say that Hank was his friend and nearly every significant moment of that friendship occurred after Hank's misfiring "cure".

Hank looked up from his microscope. "Yeah," he said, in a baffled tone.

"Yes, of course. I, um… ahem…"

"You didn't—"

"I wasn't…"

"Scott told you."

"He did," Charles admitted.

Hank shrugged. He was clearly unhappy about this, but instead said, "It wasn't a secret." He started to turn back to his microscope, then paused and said, "I think I frightened him. Which is ironic, because anyone else would be frightened of…" and he indicated his current blue form.

"But it did work."

"It was temporary. I'm working on stabilizing the structure."

Charles nodded. He asked the logical question then: how did it work.

Hank had once said that while he was probably the smartest person he knew, Ororo was fast catching up. She still had a lot of education ahead of her, though. So when Hank answered Charles's question and in the ensuing conversation, both were aware that this was simply not something they could share with anyone else.

The conclusion was that the cure, temporary as it was, probably would work on Charles. If he was willing to take it, accepting the risks, he might be able to walk tonight.

"Theoretically," Hank continued, "it should even restore the lost muscle mass."

Charles's legs, at the moment, were as strong as any muscles that hadn't been used in two years. Even if this cure temporarily restored his spine, without his legs improved he would still need the wheelchair.

"Hank, I have two teenagers to look after, and Alex. If I can enjoy the one night I have with my girlfriend, I would take cocaine."

"That's… extreme and personal," Hank commented, obviously a touch uncomfortable with what he had been told. "And you understand the origins of the technology?"

"I understand it was primarily yours."

Hank shifted. "Well… yes. It's also from the adaptations to Scott's cells and the work Milbury did. The man may be one of the most evil people on the planet, but he's a certifiable genius."

Charles considered that for a moment. He considered the moral questions necessary in benefitting from experimentation on humans, and finally decided, "Scott would understand."

Hank poked a syringe into a small glass bottle and began filling it. "You're using this to have sex with his mom. I think everyone's happier if we stick to hypotheticals."

"Who said anything about sex?" Charles replied. He rolled up his sleeve and held up his arm to Hank. "I want to find out if Ruth knows how to tango."