Disclaimer : I am making no money from this nor any of my other fics. Blaze and Raven belong to Lamby, Golan belongs to Star, Ilehana Xavier (Vixen), Ori and Hana belong to me. All other original characters are combined creations of Star and myself and should not be used without permission.

A/N: Reviews welcome. This, I promise, is as far ahead of X2 that I'm taking this timeline, though I can't speak for Lamby. It's set something like sixteen years afterward - yikes! Now all that's left is to fill in the blanks! I adapted this chapter once Lamby had written her version ("No Home Like This" - it's cool, go read!) coz I realised I'd miss an important piece out! Cheers matey!

Chapter Four - Somewhere In New York State

Something feels wrong.

It hits me before I have even opened my eyes. As I come to I stretch languidly, raising my arms above my head and pointing my feet. The ground feels strangely lumpy beneath my back as I knuckle the sleep from my eyes with my fists. I stand slowly, stretching again. My skin feels too large, a little odd, like clothes of the wrong cut……… And then - how could I have missed it? - it strikes me. I had raised my arms above my head, used my fists, I am human again! Human? But how………. Why?

Of course, my father's words; You have been alone too long, my daughter……… The time has come for you to be free of all contracts, to find your own pack once more. He was right, my bargain with the Ancients has been dissolved. Does that mean that I am free? Truly free for the first time in my life? I sigh happily as this dawns upon me - there is no weight pressing down on my shoulders, neither call nor influence upon me. This, perhaps, is the strangest sensation of all. For all my life, I have had something to strive for - my calling as the Chosen One, vying for my father's attentions as a child, to care for the X-Men and the children of Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. But here and now, in this one moment, I have none of these great responsibilities. In this instant, I am free.

The choices ahead of me begin to seep in to view. I can go anywhere, do anything……… but there is only one place I long to be. I must find my own pack once more, with my mutant kin. There is only one place I belong - the Xavier Institute, 'Mutant High', home. I run my fingers round the tight collar of my uniform - a nice touch, or a less than subtle reminder? - the black leather clings to my form. I don't think it has changed much since I last saw myself like this. The X-emblem sits upon the uniform over my heart. I trace the X softly, smiling proudly to myself. My long, blonde hair is pulled back into a tight, neat pony-tail , just the way I used to wear it, yet it feels heavy and awkward compared to a wolf's tail. I drag my fingers through the soft, smooth golden locks, not at all like the harsh fur of a wolf. I wonder just how much my appearance has changed………

"Done thinking yet?" I turn quickly to face my addresser. Blaze stands downwind, my friend of old and loyalist of all my companions. Somehow I am not surprised that it is she who found me.

"I think so." I chuckle my response. The words roll off my tongue with a little difficulty, but then it has been years since I last spoke aloud. Blaze's straight face cracks into a grin, her eyes glow with her fire and her pleasure. I cross the distance between us, taking my first upright steps and finding the process manageable, to hug her warmly. "But how did you know where to find me?" After all, I have no idea where I am………

"Ah, now there's a story!" Blaze tucks her arm through mine, bearing me away to where the Falcon waits for us. "I was dreaming. The Professor and I were looking at a map when he points certainly to a particular point on the map and says - with that look of certainty in his eye, that look that pierces, you know the one I mean?"

"I do." I answer wryly. I know I use the same look myself from time to time………

"So he says "That's where you'll find her." And I'm thinking, me? Not us? But he just keeps on repeating the same statement." She taps her head comically. "Photographic memory - I'm not likely to forget the reference. One other thing I do know, Gambit's gonna kill me when I get back."

"Married life suiting you both then?" I ask, smiling.

"How………?" She stops and looks at me hard. "It was you, wasn't it? That day I was meditating, it was you in the bushes! I was thinking of you……… and that day when we fought Venu, when we were trying to save Jessie and the Prices……… I asked you for help……… you were there, weren't you?" The last words came as a direct challenge, and I hang my head a little.

"It was me." I confirm quietly. "I've been watching over you all since I lost Ori. It's all that has kept me going for so long now………" My voice trails off - there is so much I long to tell her, but now that the time has come I just can't find the words. But Blaze, as always, understands. She simply hugs me fiercely, and I could swear I caught her using her power to evaporate a tear or two in that moment.

The Falcon touches down in the hanger beneath the basketball court with barely a bump. Blaze is quite the accomplished pilot. Said friend disappears very quickly, muttering something about Gambit flaying her alive for leaving without so much as a word, leaving me gazing around the hanger. The Eagle stands in its place, a beautiful sight even if it reeks of jet fuel. A round dozen stealth bikes are lined up along one wall - four more than I left with the Guardians in China. I sigh with contentment to see it all, to be amongst all the machinery that is so familiar to me despite over five years absence. I turn to follow Blaze into the lower levels, but the doorway is blocked by another memorable face. I freeze, unsure what to say. Let's face it - the last time Logan saw me I was running at full pelt in the opposite direction to him.

"I always knew you were alive." Are the first words out of his mouth.

"I sometimes wondered." The retort makes him smile slightly, and I have no idea where it came from.

"So, um, how do you feel?" He asks then.

"A little strange………" I suddenly get the feeling that he isn't really interested in the answer, there's only one thing he wants, and I confess I share the sentiment. I remember the first time I flung myself into Logan's arms, out in the gazebo, so many years ago, and I repeat the motion now, going a step further to kiss him soundly on the lips. What passes between us in that moment is indescribable, and our own business. Suffice to say, as has always been the way between us, there is no need for further words or explanations. Logan drapes an arm around my shoulders, leading me through the lower levels though my feet carry me as if I have never left the place.

"Where you go anyway Chere?" Gambit asks the question of Blaze, still holding her tight to him as Logan and I round the corner. His unique eyes are closed tight as he holds her, he neither sees nor hears us. I realise then how afraid he is of losing Blaze again. Does he not see that she is past all that, that with his love and support she has come to accept who and what she is? I have to wonder, as Blaze wriggles away from him a little to look into his face, if the same will ever be true for me.

"I found her!" There is an edge of excitement to her words, an impatience as Gambit frowns in his confusion.

"What? Who?"

"Me, Remy." I know not why I use his true name over his alias, perhaps it is an attempt to reaffirm old friendships. Gambits jaw drops open, his red-on-black eyes searching for mine. Everything about him smiles, and when our gazes meet, I realised that I need not have worried - these people have missed me as much as I have missed them. And now, here, together, we are all whole again. Already, it is beginning to feel as if the last five years have never existed as Gambit sweeps me up in a breath-taking hug.

"Now this is the type of welcome a girl could get used to coming home to!" I joke, taking in Gambit's dressing gown and boxers a little too slowly. I can't deny that Gambit is a good-looking man, but to me not a patch on Logan. However, that doesn't mean I would pass on an open opportunity to wind Logan up, and nor would Gambit. The Wolverine growls jealously, as we all knew he would, and Gambit appeases him by stepping back to wrap a long arm around Blaze once more. Likewise, I return to Logan's embrace. Perhaps someday he will learn that Gambit and I are simply friends, that neither of us is capable of so betraying our partners and our friends. Indeed, Blaze finds the whole thing so amusing that she must unsuccessfully hide her grin behind her hand, prompting Logan to make some terrible joke that I miss due to my reflections, and a fireball comes dangerously close to catching his sideburns.

Sometime later, sated from a breakfast of bacon sandwiches, coffee and reminiscing, I go in search of some old friends, Blaze and Gambit at my side. All the plans I had been creating to surprise various members of the team go out of the metaphorical window as we round the corner and run straight into Scott. He snaps at me to be more careful, clearly not in the best of moods, then I feel his eyes meet mine. He freezes, the only movement a slight twitch of his jaw.

"Hey One-Eye." I greet him softly, barely aware of a student running past us.

"C - claws?" He chokes, staring at me through those infamous red-lens shades that he still clings to even though he no longer needs them. It is the same with our pet-names for one another, names that mean nothing and yet everything to us, that bond our friendship through every bump in a very rocky road. "Is it really you?"

A lump has risen in my throat, I cannot answer him, nor does he expect me to. Reaching out, he clings to me the same force with which he had held me upon the day we were forced to say goodbye, something I had not expected but return with fervour. I manage to utter the same words as on that fateful day in China "Scott… my brother…" Tears fall then, he and I have known each other so long and though I do not always approve of his choices in life, I would not be without him, my father's first adopted son, my brother and one-time lover. I loved him then, and though that love has changed, I love him still.

I sleep in wolf-form that night, my old morphing powers returned to me. And though I sleep under the stars in the chill of the clear nights air in the form I now hate as much as I love it, I do not sleep alone. Logan, like Gambit, has yet to see that this place, this school, this house, is so much more than a building to me. It is an institute of learning, a base for those who fight the good fight, a safe-house for those curse or blessed by mutations. More than that, this place is my home, one which I will never leave again. I am bound to it by the life my father left behind. Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters was his dream, his vision. For me, it is so much more than that. It is the legacy Charles Xavier left in my paws - hands - it is my destiny. We have always known that the battle for better mutant-human relations must go on - we are the warriors for peace, the soldiers of order born to fight chaos, we are the Guardians of human and mutant kinds, the Guardians of Destiny. I cannot abandon that task, that honour, but moreover, I will not abandon my friends, my loves, my family.

After all, there's no place like home.

THE END

A/N: You know me, I dedicate all my pieces to somebody. Well, this one goes purely and simply to Ilehana Xavier, my Vixen, because she's been a star character throughout the last couple of years. I've put her through hell time and time again and she always comes out stronger. She deserves a happy ending, I hope that this one is good enough for her!