Author's note: Refer to previous chapter about lack of ownership

Warning: Graphic description of death, mention of rape in passing, language

"Where have you three been? We've been waiting ten years for you to come home!" Their grandfather exclaimed. Chris looked at Hepzibah, his sons, and then back to his parents.

"We should sit down. It's… it's a long story." The four of them took their coats off and hung them up, removed their wet shoes, and followed Chris' parents into a comfortable living room. Scott looked around and saw pictures of him and Alex scattered along the walls.

"Mom?" Alex asked, looking at one of the pictures. Scott nodded and they went to look closer.

"Oh, dear. Katherine?" Scott heard his grandmother ask Chris. He didn't hear a verbal response, so he assumed Chris had shaken his head. "How? And who is this young lady?"

"This is Hepzibah. She's… How about I start from the beginning? Hepzibah enters the story closer to the middle. Boys, have a seat."

"But- yes sir," Alex said after seeing the look Chris was giving him. The two sat on the floor in front of Chris and Hepzibah while their grandparents sat in two separate easy chairs. They stayed quiet as they listened to Corsair telling of his time in space.

"Chris… I just don't know what to think about this. Are you sure it wasn't a dream from your own coma?"

"No, Mother, it truly happened. Hep, would you mind…?" Hepzibah pressed a button on her watch and reverted back to her original state.

"Hm," Scott heard his grandfather say as his grandmother gasped. No one said anything else for a few minutes and then Scott's grandmother got up.

"Tea anyone? Coffee?" Alex raised his hand for coffee, but Chris pushed it down.

"You don't need the caffeine. You're wired enough as it is. If you're thirsty, you may have water."

"My parents let me have coffee whenever I want!" Alex protested.

"They're not here, Alexander. I am. You're fourteen- you don't need coffee."

"I'm almost fifteen," he muttered.

"Then act like it." Scott heard the coffee pot brewing and then beeping. His grandmother brought a tray of six mugs, all filled with coffee.

"Here, Alex. Would you like cream and sugar?"

"Mother!"

"It's decaf, Chris. Calm down." Alex looked at Chris for permission. After a beat, Chris nodded. Alex and Scott both took a mug and added plenty of cream and sugar to make it palatable.

"So," their grandfather said. "Where have you two been? Obviously you weren't traveling with your father, as I hope he wasn't that irresponsible." Scott sniggered and Chris smacked his head. He scowled at his father as he rubbed the sore spot.

"I was adopted and now I live in Hawaii."

"I knew it had to be sunny with how tan you look," their grandmother stated. "Scott, what about you?"

"I was in a coma for a bit, and then I got tossed from foster home to foster home. Some good, most bad. And then Professor Charles Xavier found me and took me in. That was three years ago."

"Why on earth would they separate siblings? Usually agencies like to keep them together! Why didn't Alex's adoptive parents take you in once you were awake?"

"We were both told we were the only survivor. We actually just found each other about four months ago."

"Alex is in Hawaii, and Scott, where did you say you live now?"

"New York."

"Xavier…" his grandfather muttered. "Isn't he a geneticist? What's he doing taking a young boy in?" Scott felt Chris's hand on his shoulder.

"It's up to you two. I understand the secrecy, but they are your grandparents." Scott looked at Alex, and Alex shrugged.

"Might as well before mine makes itself known." Scott nodded.

"Alex and I… we have a mutation. It's actually what saved us when we fell. My, um, my eyes emit a concussive optic blast. Alex's hands do something similar. But when we hit the ground, my occipital lobe was damaged and I can't control it. That's why I'm wearing these glasses. The professor… he takes in people like us and helps us learn how to use our powers in a safe way, since if we don't use them, things get bad. Especially for powers like mine and Alex's. They build and build until the pressure is so bad, it comes out on its own."

"That's easier to accept than our son galavanting through space as a pirate," their grandfather muttered.

"Robin hood," the three Summers' boys corrected, and then laughed. Chris looked at his watch.

"I think it's time for us to go find a hotel room," he told Scott and Alex.

"Aw, Dad!"

"Do we have to?"

"Have you already made a reservation?"

"No, Mother. I didn't know when we'd be here or when we'd leave, so a reservation seemed like a bad choice."

"Then that's settled. You four are staying here."

"Mom, we can't-"

"I have just spent ten years waiting for you to come home. Are you really going to take away my chance to visit with my only son and grandchildren?" Scott and Alex turned to Chris, their expressions pleading. Chris turned to Hepzibah.

"It's up to you, my love."

"Your kitlings want to stay, Corsair. It is not dangerous. Hepzibah is happy to stay."

"There. It's settled. Boys, you'll be in your father's old room, and Hepzibah can take the guest room." Chris reached out and put a hand on his mother's hand.

"Mother, Hepzibah and I will be rooming together."

"You're not married."

"Her people don't believe in marriage. But we have been sharing a bed for the past seven years, which, according to this state, would make us common laws. Now I'm sorry, but if this isn't something you can handle, then she and I will be happy to stay elsewhere."

"It only took three years to get over Mom?"

"I will never be over your mother, Scott. But space was…" Chris sighed. "I hope you never understand."

"Grandma?"

"Yes Alex?"

"Can… Can we take that picture of us and Mom into our room while we're here? I haven't seen a picture of her in ten years, and I'm sure Scott hasn't either."

"Of course, dear. Let's go set it up where you both can see it." Alex followed her back to Chris' childhood room.

"You still like burgers, Scott?" his grandfather asked.

"Yes sir. Dad just made your recipe the other day. My whole team loved them."

"What team is that?"

"Oh… um…" Scott looked to Chris for help.

"Scott leads a team of teenagers like him. He trains them and helps develop ways for them to learn how to use their abilities and still function in the discriminatory world we live in. And Charles Xavier has agreed to a position there for me to be an instructor as well. So once we're done here, I have to drop Alex off at home in Hawaii since he's missing a week of school for this trip, and then Scott, Hepzibah, and I will be going back to New York. Permanently."

"At least you'll have a damn phone so you can call your mother. Do you realize how out of her mind she has been since you disappeared?!"

"Pop,"

"Don't, Chris. You weren't thinking of us when you refused to come back. But hell, Son. We could have had an easier time looking for the boys with you, even if they were dead! We were only their grandparents. People were closing their doors in our faces before we could tell them you and Kat were missing too!"

"Oh, because you drinking Ma into debt because your old war buddies died is any better? I watched the parachute my sons were in catch fire as they plummeted to the ground. My wife was murdered in front of me. My unborn child was cut from her as she laid gasping for breath. I was tortured every fucking day until I saw Hepzibah trying to fight to get away and murdered the men who were trying to rape her. Excuse me for trying to find a way to cope with my grief by not returning to a planet where all I could see was the life I'd had with my boys and my wife." Chris sighed as he saw Scott run out of the living room to a bathroom and heard the obvious sounds of throwing up.

"We could have-"

"Don't you say you could have helped. You'd have had me committed if I came back talking about aliens abducting Katherine and me. I would have been charged with her murder, and possibly the deaths of the boys since they couldn't be found. No, staying away was the best thing for everyone."

"Except Scott, it sounds."

"Hepzibah will check on Scott-boy, Corsair." Hepzibah stood from the couch and found her way to Scott.

"Scott-boy?"

"Go away, Hepzibah." Hepzibah walked into the bathroom and saw Scott sitting on the floor with his head resting on his bent knees.

"Oh, Scott-boy," she said, sadly. Scott wiped at his face.

"That alien guy is a monster," he told her, his throat raw from being sick.

"Yes. D'Ken is a horrible, horrible emperor. Hepzibah loves his sister. The Starjammers want to make her Empress."

"And I helped ruin that by keeping Dad, which kept you."

"Can Hepzibah tell you a secret, Scott-boy?"

"I guess," he said, wiping at his face again.

"The Starjammers were blasted from space for successfully putting poison in D'Ken's food. He is dying."

"Good. He deserves a slow, painful death." There was a small knock on the bathroom door.

"Yes?" Hepzibah answered after cracking the door open.

"It's just me, Hep. I'd like to check on Scott."

"Would you like to speak with Corsair, kitling?" Scott shook his head. "Scott-boy does not wish to talk to you, lover."

"Scott, please. I need to apologize." Scott sniffed as he stood up and opened the door.

"So apologize," he said crossing his arms. "And just remember, when I did something similar to this- nowhere near as graphic as what you said, but similar enough- you had me up at 4:30 the next morning to run five miles."

"I shouldn't have said what I said in front of you. Or you, Hepzibah. I wish I could take it back. But Scott, you see why I'm so hard on you and Alex for speaking without thinking. I don't want you to be like me."

"So I get punished and you just say 'oh I'm an adult, I don't have to follow the rules I make my kids follow.'"

"Yes, Scott, that's exactly right. You'll do the same thing when you have children."

"I will never do that."

"That's what I said about spanking my kids. You see how that turned out."

"Excuse me, Hepzibah." Hepzibah stepped aside and Scott pushed past Chris to find Alex and his grandmother. He saw them in a room covered in posters of aircrafts- a room he vaguely remembered as Chris' room. They were putting fresh sheets on a bed.

"Hey Scott. Grandma said we had to share a bed, so I hope that's ok."

"Yeah, it's fine. Grandma, where are the things from our house? Dad said the people living there now said it was in a storage unit, but which one?"

"It's the storage unit near the airport, actually. But that's just clothes and things that wouldn't break my heart if they were ruined. The important things from the house are in our basement and shed."

"Would it be ok if I went to look through them?"

"Not on an empty stomach," she said after hearing Scott's stomach growl. "What kind of grandma am I if I don't feed my grandsons? Now tell me. Does your father's friend have any special dietary needs?"

"No. She's an omnivore from what we've seen."

"She's not big on pasta, but fruits, veggies, and meats are fine."

"Ok. I can work with that. How do you two feel about her?"

"She's not Mom," Alex told her. "And she talks weird. But she makes Dad happy, so…" Alex shrugged.

"She's not Mom and she doesn't try to be her. But she just left everything she knew to stay with Dad, and she calms him down when he's mad at us. I like her."

"Even though she looks like that?"

"I try not to think about it," Alex said honestly.

"My best friend is a fuzzy blue elf who has three fingers on each hand and a pointed tail. Looks aren't everything. Hepzibah is a good person, or whatever her race is called. And if one day, she decides that marriage isn't bad and Dad asks her, I'll be proud to call her my step-mom." Their grandmother looked at Scott with tears in her eyes.

"Your mother would be so proud of you. Oh how I miss her. She was the first girl your father was serious about, you know. They were high school sweethearts."

"She never really talked about her parents. Are they-?"

"They died when she was a senior, unfortunately. It was a car accident."

"So we're all we have left?" There was silence for a moment, but then their grandmother nodded.

"Now onto less depressing thoughts. What would you two like for dinner?" Alex and Scott looked at each other and then back to their grandmother.

"Pizza?"

"Oh, you are certainly your father's children. Ok. You two go get your bags from the car and I'll order some pizza."

"Thanks Grandma," Alex said as he left the room.

"Dummy," Scott said with a smile as he twirled the keys on his finger. "Thanks, Grandma."

"Scott?"

"Yes ma'am?"

"Don't be too hard on your father. Grief can make a sane person go mad. Added to that probing and hurting parents… it's a recipe for disaster. And isn't it just a shame that your father will have to haul every single heavy box up from the basement and in from the shed by himself?" Scott smiled and hugged her.

"Thanks, Grandma." She kissed Scott's cheek and left the room.

"Phil, the boys want pizza!" She called down the hall. Scott shook his head and walked out of the room and saw Corsair leaning against the door frame of the room across the hall.